There are many great things about the comprehensive school my children attend. Their teachers are inspiring, their grades are good; they enjoy going in and have made lifelong friends, as have I, thanks to a strong community. There’s just one thing that lets it down, and that’s the food.
My daughters largely refuse to eat it. They report that the options are pitiful and the queue for lunch is so long – there are around 1,600 children at the school – that they can’t eat with their friends if they wait to buy a meal. Apparently, the only viable option is to go to the “snack shack” and order a greasy slice of pizza or chicken nuggets. According to them, a lot of their friends just eat a cookie or a brownie for lunch. My daughter Florence has announced she is not eating any of it and is going to do her own packed lunches, making me a shopping list of cottage cheese and avocados.
I try to explain to my daughters that if they simply eat sugar at lunch, this will not sustain them nor help them tackle algebra, let alone Shakespeare. You don’t have to be a nutritionist to understand that a “lunch” consisting of a cookie or a brownie will not help anyone concentrate in a 120-minute lesson of double science – nor will it do their teeth or their health any good.
