ALMOST 100,000 people have joined forces to demand that the Government spend more money on healthier school dinners.

The campaign has been started by Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef whose television series Jamie’s School Dinners has created thousands of converts to healthy school food.

In his series, the chef worked against the odds to change eating habits in local schools. With a budget of just 37p per pupil, Saint Jamie, as he has been dubbed, went to war on turkey twizzlers and chips at school, winning over head-teachers and reluctant children across the country.

As teachers and parents began to report a change in children’s behaviour linked directly to Oliver’s healthier eating plan, support for his campaign rocketed. One programme, in which teachers at Our Lady of Grace school, in Charlton, southeast London, reported a decrease in asthma attacks and playground fights since they had switched to Jamie’s dinners, provoked particular interest.

By yesterday afternoon 116 MPs, the pop group McFly and 91,823 people — around 1,000 per hour — had signed up at Oliver’s website calling for more spending on school meals, higher nutritional standards, an NVQ for dinner ladies and for cookery to be taught once again as part of the national curriculum.

Mike Bailey, chief executive of Compass, which supplies food to 1,700 schools in Britain, has also backed Oliver’s campaign. Compass has pledged that it will no longer bid for school contracts worth less than 55p a meal. Sodexho, the French contract caterers, has also made the same commitment. Mr Bailey said: “He’s done in five weeks what it would take us five years to do. We have been banging on about this for a while, but the emphasis Jamie’s programme has put on it is unbelievable.”

Oliver, 29, who has two children, has pledged to take the petition to 10 Downing Street, but yesterday expressed frustration with politicians’ refusal to meet his demands: “When you go and talk to politicians it’s quite hard because they seem to be saying all the right things, but what are they actually going to action? It’s very easy to be baffled by bulls**t. Gordon Brown released his Budget and it looks like there is nothing in it even remotely connected to school dinners.”

Although school meals typically cost around £1.50 each, only 37p goes towards the food, which is half that spent on prison food and nearly 20p less than on army rations. With a quarter of a ton (250kg) of chips being eaten each week in a secondary school in Kidbrooke alone, the London Borough of Greenwich was in the front line of Oliver’s campaign.

As a result, the council has since agreed to invest an extra £629,000 — or 13p per meal — on school food, so that all 28,000 children have access to healthy menus by July. Of that, more than £150,000 is devoted to training and new equipment.

In 1988, the Local Government Act stipulated that all school-meal contracts be put out to tender, but neglected to state any minimum nutritional standards. As a result the quality plummeted as school dinners were no longer considered a “health and welfare service”.

The Scottish Executive is to spend an extra £63.5 million on school dinners over the next three years.

Last night a spokesperson for the Department for Education and Skills said: “By September, the Government expects to introduce minimum standards on processed food, training for school cooks, healthy food in vending machines and healthy eating as part of the Ofsted inspection process.”

To sign the petition log on to www.feedmebetter.com

A JAMIE RECIPE FOR HYPER KIDS

Super Vegetable Noodle Chow Mein (Serves 5)

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 clove garlic
1 red chilli, deseeded
150g noodles
Drop of sesame seed oil
1 onion, sliced
2 carrots, shredded
100g beansprouts
50g mangetout
1 red pepper, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
100g mushrooms, sliced
1 spring onion
Soy sauce

Finely slice the chilli then peel and finely chop the ginger and garlic. Add a little water to this mixture to make a paste. Cook the noodles in boiling, salted water for 4 minutes, and refresh in cold water. Heat the sesame seed oil in a frying pan or wok and cook the chilli paste and onion for 10 minutes. Add the rest of the veggies until they are cooked, but still crunchy. Add the noodles for a couple of seconds and combine. Drizzle with a little soy sauce

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