CategoryFood

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Healthier School Meals for All Children: An Interview with Ian Dunn

Ian believes passionately that children should be eating healthier school meals. He’s the driving-force behind https://selfsufficientschools.co.uk/ and https://vegschoolmeals.co.uk/

I first came across the Self Sufficient Schools account on Twitter last year. It had a post asking people to sign a petition to make School Food-Growing & Self-Sufficiency a dedicated subject area of the UK National Curriculum. I was curious to find out more about this initiative, which was started by North London-based Ian Dunn, because it immediately struck me as a very good idea.

I still have fairly vivid memories of school food, which, back in the 1960s and 1970s, wasn’t very good at all. This was a salad-free era. I remember great big tubs of mashed potato and baked beans, toad-in-the-hole at least once a week, and always fried fish, or fish fingers, on Fridays. If we ever saw any green vegetables they’d usually been boiled to within an inch of their lives. Desserts were stodgy and unhealthy – treacle sponge or spotted dick – and nearly everything was served with custard. Fresh fruit was a rarity!

Sussex – Kingscote Vineyard and the Gravetye Circular Walk

If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I take a keen interest in the Kent vineyard scene. I recently broke ranks and slipped unnoticed across the county border into Sussex to check out the Kingscote Estate and Vineyard.

Some friends in London had organised a walking day in West Sussex last week, loosely following the bucolic route of the “Gravetye Circular” in the High Weald. The route takes you past historic houses, lakes and vineyards and through lots of natural woodland. Knowing of my interest in local vineyards they kindly invited me along. The opportunity to call in at the Kingscote Estate was not to be missed, even if it meant a 7 mile walk on a hot June day! Our walking route actually took us through Kingscote twice.

The Bottle and the Mug – a Sustainability Tale

A bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water from Italy and a coffee mug featuring a slogan that suggests its owner didn’t vote for Brexit. What’s the connection between the two? Let me explain.

For many years I’ve been a happy consumer of imported sparkling mineral water from Europe, both in restaurants and at home, without every really stopping to think about my choice. San Pellegrino, Perrier, Evian and all the other well-known European mineral water brands are nice to drink and reassuringly expensive. If you order any of them in a restaurant, nobody is going to think you’re a cheapskate.