School dinners: NI proposals move to limit chips, processed meat and salt

Primary school pupils will only be served chips or roast potatoes once a week, if new proposals for school dinners go ahead.

The amount of red meat products like bacon or cooked ham that pupils will be offered will also fall.

That is according to Department of Education (DE) plans to introduce healthier school dinners.

The department is consulting on the changes which could cost up to £2.4m if adopted.

The nutritional standards for school lunches, and other food and drinks in schools in Northern Ireland, date from 2007.

Education Minister Peter Weir said the standards had to change to reflect up-to-date guidance and research on healthy eating.

The proposed changes to nutritional standards include:

• primary schools could only provide high-fat food like chips or roast potatoes one day a week, down from the current maximum of two
• each school dinner would also have to contain two portions of vegetables and one portion of fruit, up from the current requirement for two portions in total
• primary schools would only be allowed to serve processed red meat like bacon or gammon one day a week, while post-primary schools would only be allowed to serve meat products twice a week
• all rice and pasta served would have to be wholegrain or high-fibre, rather than white, and half of sandwiches offered would also have to be wholegrain
• schools would not be allowed to offer any salt to pupils after their meal has been cooked, and ketchup and sauces would only be permitted two days a week
• no table sugar, jam, honey or marmalade would be available in schools
• the amount of unsweetened fruit juice or smoothies that schools could provide to pupils would also shrink

Each school is required to offer a meal to pupils every day and, according to DE, about 60% of pupils eat school dinners.

Some 100,000 pupils in Northern Ireland are eligible for free school meals.

All meals provided by a school have to comply with the nutritional standards set by the department.

Red meat like bacon would only be available at lunch times and not first thing in the morning, such as at breakfast clubs.

The department's draft standards cite World Cancer Research Fund studies, which suggested clear evidence of "a causal link between red and processed meat and cancer".

"Efforts to reduce intake must be considered if current consumption is high," the draft standards said.

"Research data for Northern Ireland shows that boys aged 11-18 are eating more red and processed meat compared to the maximum recommended amount."

The DE consultation on the proposals will run until the 27 March, and the changes could come into force at the beginning of the new school year in September 2020.

Source: BBC