Inadequate catering

When will there finally be healthy school meals?

The right diet is also medicine: vegetables, fresh fruit and wholemeal bread are better for children than ready-made products.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Тарас Нагирняк – stock.adobe)

Inadequate lunchtime catering remains an ongoing issue - unfortunately with a dull aftertaste. Because there is no improvement in sight.

Few things are as crucial for children's development as proper nutrition. Everyone knows that, you would think. But not everyone sticks to it - and apparently least of all our schools. If you take a look at their meals, you will see a sad picture. In most institutions, children and young people are served dishes that have little to do with the principles of modern dietetics.

The standard repertoire includes Bernese sausages, baked meat loaf, schnitzel, chips, minced meat, fish sticks and pasta with soggy sauce. Almost nowhere is all of this freshly cooked any more, but delivered semi-finished by large catering companies and then only trimmed ready to serve in school canteens. However, as a representative study by the SIPCAN research institute found - which examined the catering situation in lower and upper secondary schools - the quality of the food remains uncontrolled. There is too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt, artificial preservatives and flavorings, but too few vegetables, fruit and fresh herbs, and there is a general lack of vitamins, nutrients and fiber.

You have to develop a passion for good food at an early age. People who eat healthily are mentally and physically fitter.

Jamie Oliver, unermüdlicher Food-Aktivist

A tiresome topic and a hotly debated perennial issue for many years, but little has changed so far. 32 percent of Austrian schools do not even offer the opportunity to receive a hot meal. So far, the government has only made rhetorical commitments, but these have not brought about wholemeal bread and, above all, awareness of a better, more balanced and healthier diet in the canteens.

The consequences can be measured: Almost a third of all schoolchildren are overweight or even obese, there is a lack of knowledge about what to eat.

Jamie Oliver, British celebrity chef and bestselling author, launched a campaign for better school meals back in 2005.

(Bild: ©2020 Jamie Oliver Enterprises Ltd. Photography; Chris Terry)

"Children need to eat something good from an early age" 
 "Children should be taught in good time what is bad about snacks. Above all, they should know what's in them," says Lisl Wagner-Bacher, the grande dame of the award-winning Landhaus Bacher restaurant (Mautern, Lower Austria). As a grandmother of five, food is very close to her heart and she supports any initiative in this direction that brings about a change in thinking. "Children shouldn't be stuffed with convenience food, they have to learn to eat something good from an early age."

Sepp Schellhorn, himself a restaurateur in Salzburg, entrepreneur and politician (NEOS), has long been committed to healthier lunches: "I always have France in mind. They have 90 percent of their own kitchens there, but here they've been kicked out of the schools, they simply don't cook fresh food anymore, it's mostly just delivered centrally." In order to improve things, awareness needs to be raised, "but a lot of things fail because of all these institutions that don't get anything done".

A lot fails because of all these institutions that don't get anything done. I see the Ministry of Agriculture as having a duty here.

Schellhorn über das Ausspeisungsproblem

Where would Schellhorn start to ensure that fundamental improvements are finally made? "In the Ministry of Agriculture. It should also make a significant contribution so that it has a raison d'être for farmers and for everyone in Austria, namely to ensure that healthy, local and regional food is produced and sold."

Sepp Schellhorn, restaurateur, entrepreneur and politician

(Bild: Markus Tschepp)

The Zukunft Essen association also criticizes the lack of measures. Natalie Lehner, project manager and managing director, complains that although the issue of school meals is considered highly relevant by the political parties, when it comes to implementation, it is "put on the back burner or referred to other responsibilities".

Jamie Oliver, the debonair British celebrity chef and bestselling author, was the first to draw public attention to this problem. As early as 2005, he launched a campaign in England, banning fast food and soft drinks and denouncing: "A large proportion of the meals served to children are pure garbage." As many grow up in culinary deserts and have no awareness of food, he has been fighting for a paradigm shift for almost 20 years, tirelessly emphasizing: "Those who eat healthily at an early age are physically and mentally fitter."

In the meantime, even the combative Brit sounds a little resigned when he sighs: "It will probably be at least my whole life before children's health comes first. It's just frustrating that so little is changing." We can only hope that the mills of those responsible will grind faster in future to bring about a change in nutrition policy. After all, we eat for life, not just for school.