There is always spag bol the day after mince pasta which I think are the same meal really. The fajita was lovely because there was no fat on the chicken and it was covered in salsa. I cut it up rather than pick it up in case I dropped bits which isn't popular. It is quite hard to eat peas and sweetcorn without dropping them but I was very careful. The dessert is called Australian Crunch but I don't know why. The only reason I can think of is it has coconut in it unless its a traditional Australian recipe. I didn't finish my dessert so no fruit. Our special visitor in the white coat and hair net wasn't here today. I don't know if we'll see her tomorrow.
Food-o-meter- 4/10
Mouthfuls- 33
Courses- main/dessert
Health Rating- 5/10
Price- £2
Pieces of hair- 0
Wristband- Orange
Mary's Meal Total-161 children fed for a year or 21% of a kitchen. I will write to say thanks to you all at the weekend.
Today we are going to Tel Aviv in Israel. (1 minute 25 seconds, it was really hard!) Ziva emailed me and said Boker Tov! (That means "Good Morning" in Hebrew)so Boker Tov Ziva!
Her lunch was 'falafel, which is ground down chickpeas and fava beans, with pita chips and yoghurt and cucumber sauce, with green leaves and onion. It was a really good food and I always enjoy it. We also get dessert (I could not take a picture as you only get it if you have finished all your first course) which we are able to take with us. This day I had a kichlach which is a type of cookie. Through the day we also have 2 snacks, for which we are allowed to get as much fruit or salad as we like, I normally have סָלָט יְרָקוֹת יִשְׂרְאֵלִ (Israeli vegetable salad) which is small cucumber and tomatoes. Or fruit. We pay for school lunch with school tuition but i believe it translates or 12 shekel per day which is almost 2 pounds.
Shalom! (That means Peace, but also Hello or Goodbye)'
I love Ziva's colourful plate. Every other plate I have seen is white. The pretty plate and place mat make the food look so much nicer and I bet it tastes great. I like colour!
Shalom,
VEG
Okay Veg, I am continually impressed with you. I think it's great that you want to know where your chicken came from. I hope they answer your question. It bothers me greatly that you don't automatically get fruit with your lunch. It is much more nutritious than your dessert. Keep fighting the good fight.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree over here. I'm about VEG's age even though I don't know how old she is but I presume she's about 12 or 13, and I don't have school dinners (I used to) but this is a great investment of your time and I enjoy looking at my Blogger Dashboard and see your recent post come up!
DeleteGood job!
She's actually only 9... Just thought I should point that out. It just makes it even more impressive that she took the initiative to do this herself.
DeleteThis is so cool! A little girl doing this is a real inspiration. Greetings from the Caribbean Veg! Keep up the good work!
DeleteEvelyn from San German, Puerto Rico
Hopefully the school will see sense and let you have fruit - it is silly you need to eat something unhealthy to be allowed something healthy!
ReplyDeleteI wonder who this special visitor is...?
ReplyDeleteThe special visitor is an observer who monitors food waste. If a particular food item is consistently getting binned uneaten, that means something is wrong. Either the food is unpalatable, or very unpopular, or doesn't taste as it's expected to. With a school lunch planned for good nutrition, ideally every item on every plate would be eaten, meaning that every child got all the nutrition intended. Since that's never the case (children can be picky eaters), finding out what they WON'T eat - and substituting something they will eat - is helpful.
DeleteI chuckled when I saw the peas and sweetcorn - it's close to what are called 'mixed vegetables' in America. Mixed vegetables include peas, sweetcorn, carrots cut in tiny cubes, and green beans, and sometimes lima beans. Every American child knows mixed vegetables, but I don't think you could say they love them.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's me, but I don't see as much food here as I'd like....
Veg: When I described American mixed vegetables, I forgot that what we call 'green beans' here are called French beans in the U.K. Our 'lima beans' are what you call butter beans.
DeleteSo, mixed vegetables would be sweetcorn, carrots cut in small cubes, peas, French beans and butter beans. About equal portions of each. They're cooked till tender, then dressed with a bit of melted butter.
Actually quite good!
The mixed veg is also called "succotash" (SUCK o tash), a Narraganestt Native American word.
DeleteDave and Whitney, I thought succotash was Lima beans and corn only, so I looked it up and it turns out that it can have other stuff in it too like tomato and peppers, and sometimes it's quite fancy, with a pastry crust. Anyway, it's good that we're all eating our veggies!
DeleteYeah, I'm surprised by how little they're given. (Granted, I just found this blog, and obviously this is from months ago, so perhaps this has changed.) I'm also surprised that you have to finish desert to get fruit. I'm surprised you have to finish *anything* to get fruit. Fruit was a given when I was growing up (in Los Angeles, CA, USA).
DeleteIn Australia it's called Chocolate Crunch. Maybe they wanted it to sound healthier by calling it "Australian Crunch"? :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's a very easy melt and mix recipe that any child could make.
Love your blog. Hugz,
The Australian Crunch looks a bit like brownie.. just a little!
ReplyDeleteZiva's meal looks so healthy and delicious. Veg's looks good too. :)
ReplyDeleteI too am curios about the fruit limit/rules. I'm guessing it must be expensive or hard to get where you live. I live in California where some fruit grows practically like weeds, and school kids are always encouraged to eat fruit...and vegetables. More so than anything else.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I am really liking your blog. It's not only fun and interesting, I think it is very important, too. You are doing a lot to raise nutrition awareness, and I think that is fabulous!
I love it every time you post! You have some great questions for your school... keep it up!
ReplyDeleteMmmmmmmmmmm falafel... one of my favorite things, you should try them sometime VEG!
ReplyDeleteYou didn't finish your DESSERT, so you can't have FRUIT?? What is wrong with the world?!?! Argh!!!
ReplyDeleteI, too, commend you on your curiosity about the chicken's origins. I truly believe that people would not put up with the way their food is raised and prepared if they just took the time to be AWARE of how their food is raised and prepared. This simple question: "I'd really like to know where the chicken comes from; I think I'm going to try to find out" is all it takes!
As always, you inspire so much admiration in me, it is hard to put into words. Keep up the great work - but only as long as it interests you!!! When your interests change, change what you do!!! Follow your heart, in other words, as you have here :o)
Pink Floyd - famous line...
DeleteIf you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have your pudding if you don't eat your meat?
This blog is teaching us all so much.
ReplyDeleteIf there is a blog award, I think you should get it, Veg!
Wasn't Ziva's plate beautiful? The food looked pretty good too.
When I was at school (primary school in Surrey) at about aged 10, we went to see a farm on a school trip. After seeing where our chicken and beef came from, and how they were...ummm... "prepared" to be food, at least ten kids in the class decided that day to be vegetarian. And today, while I'm not vegetarian, I insist on knowing that my meat (when I eat it!) and eggs come from a friendly local farm, where the animals are treated with kindness!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love your blog, and I read it every day from North Carolina. Ziva's lunch looked delicious too!
No offense meant but the chicken you ate didn't commit suicide!! Kindness in this situation sounds naive!!
DeleteBut on a health point of view, I have heard of animals fed on antibiotics in the US which is something we can think about....
As for me, I'm a happy veggie :)
Hi, I hope you don't mind, but in my post today, where I take a rose tinted view of school dinners at my school when I was little - I have linked to your blog. x Hope you pop by and have a read of what it USED to be like!
ReplyDeleteLet's see,
ReplyDeletechicken fajita (meat & grain)
corn (grain)
peas (legume)
bread (grain)
dessert (grain & sugar)
WHat we have here is high carbohydrate, low protein & probably very low fat meal. Not one vegetable on this plate unless it is inside the fajita. What a lovely meal they are feeding these kids. They should all be type 2 diabetics by the time they graduate eating all these carbs.
Fajitas typically include sweet peppers and onions. Salsa is made from tomatoes, onions, and cilantro.
DeleteDropping a quick comment here, because I know your story from the Guardian, from where I was directed to here. And this bit just caught my eye: Falafel is not an israeli dish. Falafel is an Arab dish. In this case, it is Levantine, more specifically Palestinian. If israel says it's their ethnic food, that is because it has stolen it, and the narrative went on cheerfully in the West. Just like it has stolen the land, forged the history, etc. Complicated stuff for a rather light blog, but thought I'd clarify this. Read up on it.
ReplyDeleteSalaam.
Not really necessary for you to bring your idiotic nationalism here is it really? Leave politics out of this awesome blog!
DeleteThere is nothing idiotic in mentioning all the things the very nationalistic Israel have stolen from the Palestinians, however, Ziva never said that Falafel was an Israeli dish, but only that is what she had to eat.
DeleteDropping a quick comment here, because I know your story from the Guardian, from where I was directed to here. And this bit just caught my eye: Falafel is not an israeli dish. Falafel is an Arab dish. In this case, it is Levantine, more specifically Palestinian. If israel says it's their ethnic food, that is because it has stolen it, and the narrative went on cheerfully in the West. Just like it has stolen the land, forged the history, etc. Complicated stuff for a rather light blog, but thought I'd clarify this. Read up on it.
ReplyDeleteSalaam.
Btw...Salaam means 'Peace' in Arabic...It is also how we say hello and good bye :)
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is only 4 years old so she doesn't eat at the cafeteria in her school yet - that's for the bigger kids like you - for her we give her a packed lunch to take with her every morning...that said - will ask one of the bigger kids to send you a picture of their lunch...the school she goes to was started by Queen Rania of Jordan and one of the things she insisted on was that all the kids have really healthy meals...and the cafeteria is really colorful as well so makes lunch a lot of fun :)
Congrats on the blog and all the money you've raised for charity!
Salaam,
Karim.
Read up on it ?!
ReplyDeleteNowhere in Veg's entry or Ziva's description do they describe Falafel as an Israeli dish. Its a Middle Eastern food (not 'specifically Palestinian') and Israel is in the Middle East. Shame on Sham for bringing politics in to this. Falafel wasn't even originally an Arab dish, its Coptic (Christian) Egyptian in origin and probably predates the Muslim conquest of Egypt, but it spread all over the region and then conquered the world.
gdee-- condemns sham for bringing in politics and just continues the conversation with a new political/religious opinion.
ReplyDelete--
It is food!
And its a light blog.
And its a great blog!
You write very nice- its a pleasure to read. Keep it up and looking forward what pictures we will see from Monday onwards!
Agreed - you should ALWAYS be allowed fruit whether you have eaten the rest or not! Fruit is healthy, and I don't think you can ever have too much of it. Not every child has the same nutritional needs, so they shouldn't force you to finish your serving, and if you prefer fruit to their dessert that should be commended not punished!
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth would nutritious FRUIT be withheld from a child who didn't finish a CHOCOLATE DESSERT??? I fail to see the logic! In our house, the chocolate cake is the reward for eating the fruit, not the other way around!
ReplyDeleteTake your camera to school and take a picture. What can happen? If the council are dishing that stuff out to children up what right do they have to dictate that it is somehow secret?
ReplyDeleteAllow this to get as big and ridiculous as the council want to make it. Notice you had 250 million comments on that post where you told us about the council and their media blackout on you and just a few on the posts since: Drawn/forgotten camera etc
BTW publish an email address or URL of your council, so us that care can tell them what we think
Best of luck with your bog
Well done, Martha. What a great way to be in touch with all of the world, and to bring the plight of the children in Africa, to our attention.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a teacher in charge of school dinners and everyone liked to eat them quickly to go out and play. Sometimes, table manners became very bad (talking with mouths full, elbows on table)what do you think about school meals as a social occasion?
Shalom!
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is interested in the connections between Judaism and vegetarianism, please visit my
The Vegetarian Mitzvah at www.brook.com/jveg
L'chaim (To life)!
Hey there VEG!
ReplyDeleteI so enjoyed reading your Blog.
Here in Australia children take a prepared lunch to school with them each day. So no hot food or food that would need a constant temperature. Mostly sandwiches, dried fruit, nuts, crisps and fresh whole fruit.
Keep up the good work and Good Luck for your future endeavors.
Kim
Hey mate... I just read about you here in Australia. Keep up the fight and tell those politicians to lift their game. Well done and may you grow to be a success in life :)
ReplyDeleteTony
Melbourne Australia
It's so cool that you've got people all over the world talking about food and what we serve in school, Martha! My son is your age, and his lunches are so unhealthy! Pizza and burgers. Maybe when his school starts again, he can send you photos of his lunches (dinners).
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining about the Australian Crunch cake, I remember having it at school and I've been trying to find out what it was called for ages. Also have to say I'm very impressed with your blog and think you're very intelligent and knowledgeable about food for someone your age. More children should take your attitude. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou are a star! Congratulations on raising the amount of money you have. Thank you for your priceless style of writing. I have spent a working life as a teacher and would uphold your blog as exactly the sort of thing young people should be involved in. Don't let bossy adults grind you down.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes and keep going!
ok.i am now a big fan of urs
ReplyDeleteNice done!!! I really hope your school will make better food for you all - most of the food on the pictures looks like something I won't eat.
ReplyDeleteMichael
Denmark
Good idea.
ReplyDeleteWe are huge fans of your blog and will surely spread the word.
Mac
http://www.criarsites.netmais.info/
Good on you Martha! A great blog and fantastic cause. Keep it up. I expect you'l be a journalist/chef/food critic some day!
ReplyDeleteBTW Lochgilphead is a great place - I stayed there last year when cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End for charity.
Haha I am an Australian and I had never heard of Australian Crunch before! I had to google it to find out what it was ;-)
ReplyDeleteYour blog is ace, I'm super-impressed by you and your family.
Cheers :)
nice
ReplyDeletemeal
yes
help
the
children
in
africa
Stellenanzeigen
Nixjob
der
Stellenmarkt
in
Deutschland
iam
ReplyDeletea
fan
too
!!!!!
i
will
post
about
this
at
OralApp.com
a
Blog
Dear Martha, You blog is very much inspiring. Best Wishes.
ReplyDeleteMartha you are an inspiration! I have read through your blog and it is very well written as well as being an eye opener into what our children are being served as nutricious meals in the UK today. keep up the good work and lets hope your fund raising benefits mass amounts of other children. Well done!
ReplyDeletedetails
ReplyDeletehttp://1linkmoviedownload.com
http://htfilmindir.og
congratulations Martha!!! carry on the good work ,
ReplyDeleteHi Martha
ReplyDeleteA big hello from Galesburg, Illinois. I am very impressed by your dedication and wanting to help those that need help!
You have brought a smile to my day and I thank you!
You really know how it Pay it Forward.
God Bless,
Mike
Kindly share these links about our mission.
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iePDbAFMbGY
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breast-Cancer-Awareness-in-Africa/154719177956470
Best wishes Martha but..... is this REALLY written by you? I wonder. Do you have any help from other members of your family???
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I support your cause so I shall donate. Despite my, possibly unfounded, suspicions.
Just been introduced to your Blog and I am enjoying it.Congrats on a fantastic fund raising effort for Mary's Meals and the Malawi bairns.
ReplyDeleteYou are a credit to your parents,your school and to Scotland.Well done lass!
ps How do I go about making a contribution to the fund?
Hello from Louisiana, USA! I read about your blog on the Internet and am glad you'll still be able to take photographs of your lunches. I don't know why the authorities got so uptight . . . your comments are mainly very positive about your school food.
ReplyDeleteHere in Louisiana we were sometimes fortunate to have some of our local famous cuisine served at school -- for example, gumbo or red beans and rice. Mmmm!
Well done! Just read about this in the paper, and I must say it is superb.
ReplyDeleteThe review system made me laugh out loud, keep going!
Kindly watch and share this link about our mission we welcome all your support. for any more details on how you can be part of us, contacts are below the video.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iePDbAFMbGY
Hi, I followed a link from fb to your blog. I'm in Australia & I have no idea what Australian Crunch is! Lol
ReplyDeleteInspirational blog Veg! Awesome work!!
Nice blog... Veg.... I'm Indonesian, Congrats on your pageviews!!!!
ReplyDeleteada girl!!!
ReplyDeleteHey Veg, keep up the good work. Here's a useless bit of information; If every visitor to your web site added one penny to a pile, the pile would be about five miles high by now.
ReplyDeletePhil
Congratulations everyone from New Caledonia!
ReplyDeletehi Veg, I am from Bangladesh..keep going and posting...sure you will reach the goal..
ReplyDeleteVery good effort . Keep it up. Liked your meal pics
ReplyDeleteRegards
http://www.ehowsolutions.com
Dear Veg, Waiting for today's update. Please don't stop writing.
ReplyDeleteKam
Go Veg! Greetings from Estonia :)
ReplyDeleteHi Veg,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the other Australians, I'm from Melbourne and have never heard of Australian Crunch - here we have something called Hedgehog which looks like it, but the funny thing is we don't have hedgehogs in Australia!!
Keep up the good work
Sharon
welldone on the blog its brilliant, it gives me lots of ideas for food to eat!
ReplyDeleteFirst time we visited this page 16/06/2012 it has 1.4mi pageviews.
ReplyDeleteToday 6.6mi
Amazingly useful and viral this one.
Congratulations Veg
Mac
http://www.criarsites.netmais.info/