There are, sadly, a multitude of things that the British education system can be criticised for such as the rampant left-wingery and social engineering that passes as subject curricula these days. We can also criticise the education system for producing too many young people who are leaving school who are woefully unprepared either for the world of work or further education. This litany of failure also includes many who can’t read or write to an acceptable standard, despite over a decade of compulsory schooling.

However, it is not the piss poor, politically biased and in some cases dishonest and useless education that exercising the minds of the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation according to Julia M over at the Orphans of Liberty blog. What’s bothering the multimillionaire mockney chef’s personal food police, is not that Britain has an education system unfit for purpose, but schools use bake sales to raise money and occasionally have cakes etc as a reward.

WTF! There are far worse problems in British schools than a few cakes. Our schools are plagued by poor teaching, politically biased and in some cases highly dishonest curricula, rapidly falling standards when compared to other advanced nations and young people poorly prepared to face life as an adult. With all that has gone badly wrong with British education and in which ideologies such as mixed ability teaching and child centred learning have played a major part in causing, you would think that even a one trick pony like the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation would see that the problems are little to do with the presence of cakes.

Julia M quoted the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation as saying:

Schools are sending out the wrong message to children by holding cake and bake sales, Jamie Oliver’s food foundation has claimed.

In another scathing attack on school food, the celebrity chef has taken aim at the culture surrounding unhealthy food, claiming that salads and other nutritious foods are shunned out of sight.

A report for the foundation said: ‘The culture of high fat and sugary foods used as rewards, in fund-raising and in celebrations, is creating social and physical environments that contradict children’s food education.’

So what if cakes are given as reward and children avoid salad, food policing is not the job of schools, it’s the job of parents. If parents are not feeding their children a healthy diet then why should the schools divert valuable and scarce resources that should be spent on education into wiping the metaphorical arses of bad parents who can’t be bothered to teach their children sensible eating habits? The vast majority of children will see a cake as a reward because it is precisely that a reward, not a guideline on how to eat every day. I know how hard it is to teach a kid to eat properly and have had to personally endure the brain numbing screaming of a child who insists that he wants cake for breakfast every day. But, if I want my child to grow up with a healthy attitude to food then I have to put the effort in to teach them that salad is nice, spinach is tasty and cakes and chocolate are only for treats.

I truly fail to see how the occasional dishing out of cakes or using bake sales to raise money is ‘creating environments that contradict children’s food education’. In the majority of cases a child’s attitude to food is not set by the schools but by parents. A child whose parents allow them to be virtually surgically attached to the output pipe of a McDonald’s, is going to have Bunter-like tendencies no matter whether there is cake or the sort of austere gruel that the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation may prefer, on offer as a reward for either scholastic or behavioural achievement.

Julia M added:

Currently, schools struggle to teach them reading, writing and adding up adequately; the idea that they can somehow educate them on food is laughable.

Well said there Julia! Personally, I’d much rather see our schools teach basic skills, history without left wing bias and religious education without the dangerous lie that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’, than spend their time on extraneous guff like the sort of food nannying that the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation thinks schools should do. Our schools cannot even provide a decent, effective and unbiased education service and certainly should spend no time or resources doing the bidding of food authoritarians such as the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation.

Julia noted that despite Jamie Oliver’s crusade against the children of the working classes eating the occasional cake that hasn’t stopped him from including some seriously gut busting sugar packed recipes in his latest book. It seems that Jamie Oliver and his food police have the attitude that sweet treats are not for the likes of you and me or our children, but are OK for Jamies middle class book customers. Do I detect a hint of a double standard here? I think I surely do.