Courier readers have delivered a resounding ‘no thanks’ to fake meats in school dinners.
We asked for views after Perthshire mum Lauren Houstoun launched a petition calling for processed meat substitutes to be ditched from school menus.
Almost 500 people responded to our readers’ poll.
Of the 479 who took part, the vast majority (91%) said fake meat products don’t belong in school meals.
Just 42 people disagreed.
Readers also had their say in the comments section.
One wrote: “I suspect this has more to do with cost than it does nutrition. I’ve seen some menus posted on Facebook and was thoroughly unimpressed by the selection and portion size.”
Another said: “Fresh local produce should be used and the food should be prepared onsite by cooks.”
And one parent commented: “These meat substitutes are full of additives and questionable ingredients. Lately there has been hardly any meat options at all.”
However, one of the few dissenters questioned the point of the campaign.
“Actually it is about reducing choice for vegetarians, unless the highly processed ‘real’ meat products are removed too,” they wrote.
Lauren has welcomed the results of the debate.
“It just shows I’m not the only one,” she said.
School dinners problem sparked fake meat petition
The Blairgowrie mum-of-three launched her crusade at the start of this month after her son’s primary school called to say there were no alternatives to processed meat substitutes on the menu.
The same thing happened with her daughter’s nursery school the following week.
Her petition calling for better school dinners has now gathered more than 3,400 signatures.
Lauren is concerned about the health impacts of ultra-processed foods and says Perth and Kinross Council and Tayside Contracts are letting children down.
And she’s urged them to look to the example of Aberdeenshire, where pupils are offered a three-course meal every day with far less processed food.
Lauren runs Glenkilrie Larder, which supplies beef, lamb and venison from husband Andrew’s family farm near Blairgowrie.
But she insists her campaign is not about putting more meat on the menu.
Rather, she says it’s about giving children a choice and providing quality, fresh vegetarian and vegan produce, instead of processed foods.
Perth and Kinross Council says all of the food served in its schools meets strict nutritional standards, based on scientific evidence and dietary advice.
School meals provider Tayside Contracts says it follows a “rigorous menu development process”.
Lauren’s school meals petition can be found at change.org.
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