But maybe in this case eat free and die?

Whilst I would normally almost automatically side with anyone against state nanyism in this case though a note of caution.

The drive to improve school food was more of a grass roots thing that the state has effectively been forced into. It costs them money they would rather be spending on extra civil servants and ID cards.

The desire of children to eat what they like driven to it’s logical conclusion would lead some to live on sweets, crisps and full fat coke - until it was no longer possible for them to pass through their own front doors.

I would question the wisdom of pandering to this tendency.

The children are suffering from cold turkey (withdrawal of turkey twizzlers)

[ramble]The way it is with alot of kids is that the only chance they get at a decent meal is the one they get at school. Its all ready meals and frozen food at at home because of a combination of factors; laziness, convenience, speed, time constraints, ignorance, and peace. We are victims of our own success, we are rich, affluent, and comfortable, a result of this is that we have less time to think about having a good life because we are continually stiving to have a successful life.
We are measuring our success on the wrong scale and it is distorting entirely the way we live our lives. If we were less concerned with monetary success and were more concerned with actually living, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.[Ramble]

That being said I find myself on the fence on this one regarding the state's involvement. I tend to live by "If it harms none, do what you will" so don't really have a problem with adults gorging themselves on the most unhealty muck they can get their hands on, the sooner they're out of the gene-pool the better. What I have a problem with is people feeding the same muck to their children, in my book thats abuse. It may not be violent and be done with the best of intentions but feeding kids this crap day in day out is bound to be doing some serious damage. Its not eat free and die, its eat free and kill your kids.

And the moral of the story is that parents should never even consider sending their children to state schools. It will be a cold day in hell before the government gets a say in what my children are taught or what they eat.

The issue would not come up if the state did not have a de-facto monopoly on mass education.

TimC

The issue would not come up if the state did not have a de-facto monopoly on mass education.

I agree. I can't help but think that this is yet another example of the State trying to "fix" a problem that it has created in the first place.

Ultimately I think that parents must be allowed to bring their children up as they see fit (bar physical abuse). This would include what they give them to eat. The whole "grass roots" Jamie Oliver thing shows that most parents want the best for their children. This desire should be allowed to express itself in a free market.