All schools should be like this?

Lockdown, Brexit, global warming and 20% of NHS spend on food related disease means we need to make big changes to the food system.

We need people to have better food knowledge and make better food buying choices than cheap imported food, take aways and ready meals.

The best way to achieve this is to educate and enthuse the next generation about food and encourage them to influence their families.

Please watch this amazing video! And well done Headmaster for ignoring OFSTED’s academic focus on ‘Maths and English.

My bet is that by teaching academic subjects around food, a primal need, exam results will improve.

There are constant calls, and even government subsidies, to grow food more sustainably but there is no point if most people don’t buy it.

A better food system means people have real Food knowledge, and as a result make better food buying choices like:

cooking and sharing

– buying fresh seasonal produce to make quick, simple, meals that are cheaper and more nutritious than take-aways and ready meals.

– make nutritious meals without meat

– looking forward to, and celebrate, seasonal produce like asparagus, apples, new potatoes, and pumpkin (to eat)!

– asking about how their food has been produced and so encourage farmers to grow more food instead of commodities for world markets

– shunning factory farmed meat as cruel to animals, and the grain fed to animals as a waste of calories (it takes 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef)

– want to share produce and knowledge with other people in the community

Our first blog on this subject was 10 years ago and why we targeted schools as the best place to build an enlightened Food society.

Over the years we have continued to build our Local Food Map to reconnect people with their local producers and in 2012 our hugely successful, but ‘Not of the curriculum’, Crop for the Shop scheme in schools. We hope that the Government’s new Health initiative and Washingborough’s brilliant work can be rolled out nationally.

We must not follow the USA where 40% of food is wasted and the food system is effectively bankrupting the health system!