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The Scottish Government has introduced a package of improvements to Scotland's school meals – putting healthier school meals firmly on the menu. Led by North Lanarkshire Council's Executive Director of Learning and Leisure, Christine Pollock, an expert panel produced a report called 'Hungry for Success' outlining the changes to be made to school meals over the next few years.
The report aims to raise the nutritional standard of school meals, improve the health of children and young people and tackle child poverty. An extra £65 million will be spent across Scotland – and amongst other initiatives, will provide free fruit for primary one and two pupils and larger portions of more nutritious food at no additional cost.
In North Lanarkshire, an extra £4 million will be spent on school meals – from healthier meals to better facilities, more choice and fewer dining hall queues. This will go a long way to introducing children to the importance of a healthy diet from an early age, and giving them the best start in life, academically, physically and emotionally.
Over the next two years nutritionally analysed menus will be introduced into all primary and secondary schools which encompass the guidelines laid down in the 'Hungry for Success' document.
New menus will offer a greater variety of fruit , vegetables, pasta and salads. Chips, burgers and other processed foods have been significantly reduced.
Oil-rich fish will also appear on school lunch menus once per week. For information and recipe ideas to try at home log on to seafish organisation website.
Two further innovations linked to the 'Hungry for Success' project are a labelling system and reward point for healthy eating.
The labelling system will detail the contents and nutritional information of the food.
The reward system. Points will be awarded through the cashless system in secondary schools for choosing the healthy option in the dining room. Points will mean prizes which will range from vouchers for CD's, cinema tickets to membership for a gym.
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