As those who read my stuff regularly will know, I have a bit of a thing about where my food has been before I eat it. That’s why the coverage of Jamie Oliver’s campaign to increase the standard of school meals has been fascinating to see. He is now right at the top of my ‘hero’ roll of honour. It was absolutely appalling to hear that the supposedly social service centred government of this affluent country that we live in spends the disgraceful sum of 37p (around $0.70c) on the ingredients that go into the school lunch of each child.

If you believe that you are what you eat, then our children are heading for a disastrous future.

We rarely watch current TV for whatever reason so have been seeing the programmes of ‘Jamie’s School Dinners’ on a satellite channel, rather than mainstream UK TV so we got into it late and the press furore had been raging for weeks when we saw our first episode the week before last.

David arrived in Madrid, full of a tale about episode two where Jamie cooked some chicken legs and some chicken nuggets then asked a bunch of school kids to choose between the two. They all chose the nuggets rather than the real meat until he demonstrated the way they are made, the mechanically recovered meat, the skin, gristle, chemicals and other extremely nasty stuff. Sure enough, this was enough to change the minds of the kids on the show, thankfully. It gladdens my heart to see that when these kids see and understand what crap they are eating, it makes them sick too.

Jamie has gone from zero to complete hero of mine in about two years or so. I thought he was all mouth and no trousers at first because he always seemed to be in the news -gobby and irritating in manner (perhaps it’s the similarity to me!!!???!!!). When I took the time and care to read one of his recipe books, while staying with Claz and browsing her bookcases, I realised I liked his attitude to food very much.

Several of his books now rest proudly on my shelf and I am a convert to his type of ‘faith’. This latest campaign of his has reinforced my new view and I was particularly pleased to see the coverage in yesterday’s paper, showing how he threatened to stand against our so-called ‘esteemed’ leader Mr Bliar in his Sedgefield constituency in the forthcoming election and only abandoned his plans when he got the government to do a u-turn and increase their spend on food for kids. Go Jamie – I would support his party any day! No wonder the electorate are so disinterested in voting – it’s one bunch of crooks and liars vs another from the main parties in my view. Give me someone with integrity and honour to vote for and I’ll be pleased to participate.

Anyway, we were on the plane yesterday on the way back from Madrid and I thought I might lobby Jamie to get on the case of airline food next. The supposed food put in front of me was a complete disgrace:

‘Fruit Cocktail’ – complete with e300 (ascorbic acid), e330 (citric acid), e202 (potassium sorbate). For those outside the EU – the e number refers to a particular chemical that has been passed by the EU as fit for consumption. I do wonder why the company that made this ‘fruit cocktail’ felt the need to add ascorbic acid – in other words vitamin c, when many really common fruits contain it in vast quantities. Oh yes, now I know, it’s not because of its nutritional content, it’s because of its extension of shelf life properties.

Now let’s be generous and assume that the ‘fruit cocktail’ had gone from the raw ingredients to the dish in front of me in two days – the quoted ‘use before’ date was another six days hence. This isn’t natural for prepared food and is totally unnecessary – I picked up a ‘fruit salad’ from Pret-a-Manger today and its ingredients were simply fruit – if they can do it why can’t British Airways. I know I’d rather pay £5 more for my ticket and get fed something other than the near toxic waste of the ‘meal’ offered yesterday. In fact, they could do a great deal worse than commission the totally wonderful Pret to give their catering a good shake-up!

Next item – a ‘blueberry muffin’ – I would not have fed one to my dogs (even though DM was so hungry he ate one…..I’m sure it was him glowing in the dark when we got home!!!). Its contents? e475 (polyglycerol esters of fatty acids), e481 (sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate), e471 (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), humecant e420 (mannitol), e450 (Diphosphates (i) Disodium diphosphate (ii) Trisodium diphosphate(iii) Tetrasodium diphosphate (iv) Dipotassium diphosphate (v) Tetrapotassium diphosphate (vi) Dicalcium diphosphate (vii) Calcium dihydrogen diphosphate), e500 (Sodium carbonates (i) Sodium carbonate (ii) Sodium hydrogen carbonate (iii) Sodium sesquicarbonate), e204 (now this one is interesting – I can’t find out what it is but from what I can see, it looks to be animal derived and was presented in a vegetarian meal), hydrogenated & non hydrogenated veg oil, modified maize starch.

Bet we’ve all got these delicious ingredients in our cupboards at home and plan to enhance the meals we eat tonight with them eh?

As for the kit-kat? Well, the manufacturer didn’t even deem it necessary to let us know what its contents were!

I’m not sure if was a blessing or a curse that we were given no ingredients for the disgusting ‘french bread pizza’, microwaved to within an inch of its life that was the centre piece of this incredible ‘meal’ – all I can say is that I doubt there would be many folks who would find it more appetising than a cold sandwich if the bread was real and the ingredients natural.k

It’d be great if Jamie’s campaign continued until all of the ‘food giants’ are thinking more carefully about what ingredients they use in our food. In the meantime, I’ll continue to pick stuff up in the supermarket and put it back on the shelf if it has stuff in it I don’t have in the cupboard at home. Tonight our meal has the ingredients you see in this shot, along with tomatoes, flour, hemp oil and eggs – that’s all! No crap at all. Phew, it’s good to be home.


Last year we were grafting and two years ago I was photographing Jo, the naked housekeeper!