The healthy school meals caterer is celebrating National Vegetarian Week by offering its 30 partner schools a fully vegetarian menu.
The not-for-profit has been giving pupils the chance to start the week the right way – with nutritious food that doesn’t cost the earth – since 2011, when it joined the Meat Free Monday campaign.
Since then it has won several accolades, including the prestigious Food for Life catering award from the Soil Association for its healthy, environmentally friendly approach to feeding young minds and bodies. As well as cooking meat free meals, the company also teaches students how to rustle up their own at home.
Meals for National Vegetarian Week include Stir-Fry Vegetables with Spaghetti and Sweet and Sour Sauce, Meat Free Sausage Rolls, Vegetable Lasagne, “Hidden Veg” – a vegetable- and nutrition-filled curry sauce – and Vegetarian Vanilla Cheesecake. See the full menu HERE.
“Meat every day is not a sustainable diet for young children or indeed the planet,” said Food for Thought’s catering manager, Tom Lambeth.
The children haven’t thought twice about the week-long vegetarian menu, given that their Meat Free Monday menu is a normal fact of school life.
“Despite some opposition at first, particularly from adults, Meat Free Monday is now accepted as a normal menu day,” said Food for Thought project manager Mike Carden.
Food for Thought was launched in 2005 because of concern that school meals in Merseyside lacked nutrition. Owned and managed by the schools it serves, it now dishes up more than 6,000 meals a day.
Its far-sighted recognition that something had to be done to improve the food we serve our children and to educate them about what they put into their bodies has since become a rallying cry for the likes of Jamie Oliver.
Last week the celebrity chef released a new song about healthy eating – featuring our very own Paul McCartney – to publicise his Food Revolution Day and highlight the link between childhood obesity and unhealthy eating.