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10.30PM, Sun Mar 20 2005... ITV

TV chef Jamie Oliver has persuaded the government to set out legal standards for healthy school meals.

The measures come after his School Dinners programme threw the spotlight on how badly kids eat at school.

Jamie's other demands, that school dinner ladies get proper training and that more money is spent on canteen kitchens, are also being met.

Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged the strength of parental anger over the menus currently on offer at many schools, and praised the work done by Jamie Oliver.

He also announced that a School Meals Trust will be set up to help headteachers, parents and school governors to raise standards.

Mr Blair said: "It may take a little time to change children's tastes, but it will be worth the effort if we can get them enjoying healthy and good quality food at school."

Well done Jamie. I like Tony Blair - I think at heart he's a decent sort*, but I suspect that he is backing Jamie on this one, because he realises how much support Jamie has gathered - not to 'back' Jamie would be political suicide.

* I used to tell my daughters that Tony was an ex-boyfriend of mine - also Gary Linekar - well, it makes life a bit interesting, doesn't it? We still keep up the joke - saying how I had to convince Tony that Cherie needed him more than I did, because she was a bit of a low-achiever!

This feels more like General Chat now - sorry!!!

I saw the interview with Parky and it disgusted me that the government are not putting money into school meals and in Africa in the shanty towns he said they provide a better meal! it's shocking as well that people seem to be losing cooking skills and kids can't even name fruit and veg!

I have to say that when the Naked chef started I thought Jamie was more into his image than anything else, but since Jamies dinners and now school dinners I think he is genuinely interested in healthy eating and bringing his skills to more and more people...like him a lot now.

I can't believe we're still having this debate on appalling and unhealthy school meals. About 15 years ago it was reported how unhealthy they were yet no one in a position of power seems to want to do anything about it!

If I was the Health Minister I would insist on scrapping junk food from all state-funded schools and replace them with healthier options and introduce the teaching of basic exercise and nutrition into PE lessons (instead of employing geography teachers to do the job and making the kids run round a soggy field in a vest and being more concerned about whether they forgot their kit or not). Of course it'll cost money, but it will save money in the long term because people will be healthier and we'd be spending less on the NHS treating unhealthy people. Seems quite a simple solution to me.

I know what you mean - I was in getting parsnips (PARSNIPS I tell you) and the checkout woman didn't even know what they were.

Ok ok, so I scored dismally in the Cambridge fish quiz, but hey...

she didn't know what PARSNIPS were?! my mouth literally just fell open there, it's not like they're uncommon.

I think Jamie Oliver is doing a fantastic job at higlighting this. as a school pupil I can honestly say that the eating is nowhere near as bad as some of the schools they showed there. There are lots of people that go for the junk but just as many if not more that go for the large number of healthy options. I tend to go for the healthy options (usually soup and grapes) as they are really really nice.

What are Parsnips There not those green things they put in a mc'donalds burger are they

I think you're kidding but these are parsnips..



mmm they are delicious

Oh big carrot's

we had really yummy parsnips for christmas so I made my dad cook them te exact same way for my birthday! (the week after)

back on top I have never seen parsnips for school dinners...

When I was at school in the infants and juniors many years ago in the late 60's early 70's we used to get Dark Green cabbage which one dinner lady would force you to eat if you left any, put me off the stuff for life. We used to get a lot of mince and mash, which we used to like, because we'd mash it all up together and call it a dogs dinner, which seemed to make it more enjoyable some how We also get prunes, for pudding and apple pie, also we got a lot of liver as well, not for pudding lol that's something I remebered later, but I can never remember getting anything like chip's maybe once every six months Put it this way, non of us ever did an Oliver Twist and went back and asked for more. Well maybe the Apple Crumble

The more i see Jamie, the more real and truly authentic he comes across. He's only 28, but he gives more a damn for the nations children than most people i could name.
He is totally in tune with the underlying issue.

Sadly though, there is simply no adequate funding to deal with the problem. The UK schools system would need many 15-20,000 extra canteen staff to make all these meals from scratch -and that ain't gonna happen.

For those with children, why are they relying upon the state to feed their children anyway?
Oh, and the notion that no child deserves to have more than 40pence of so spent on them for lunch is such an unbelievable insult, words mostly fail me.

Calrissian: Hated school meals....ick.

We don't have such things as school meals here - although in some large schools the brats...er, sorry, students can buy stuff.

I was lucky to live close to both my schools so only went to school dinners about twice in my entire life but my memory of it wasn't good so it's good to see what Jamie Oliver is doing. I went home for my dinner and was always given a healthy balanced lunch.

I remember I wasn't allowed to have my pudding if I never ate my vegetables.