Organic cuisine battles the bulge

PARIS - Organically grown meat, fruit and vegetables are muscling their way on to school menus in France as the country tackles a worrying increase in child obesity.

Leading the way is Paris, which at the start of the year brought in a 200,000 ($359,000) subsidy to provide bio beefburgers, potatoes, spinach and carrots to half the city's preschool canteens.

After two months, the experiment seems to be doing well and there are already plans to extend it to the remaining schools next year.

"Food quality is vital for children, especially for preventing obesity. Good eating has to start in a child's earliest years," says Olga Trostiansky, in charge of children's affairs at the Socialist-run Paris town hall.

"These ingredients are healthy and full of vitamins, have no pesticides and a low level of [fertiliser] nitrates."

The city's second arrondissement (district), which is run by the Green Party, has gone a step further, bringing in a range of organic and top-quality non-organic food, including bread, gourmet cheeses, free-range chickens and ducks, for all schoolchildren up to 14.

"An organic meal costs about 30 centimes of a euro (53c) more per child per day than a conventional meal," says the district's mayor, Jacques Boutault. "But we can ensure that there is no price increase for parents by reducing the number of food items and negotiating purchases directly with organic farmers."

Organic food began timidly to move out of specialist shops and into supermarkets in France about five years ago. There remains a big price differential - 10 to 30 per cent over non-organic food - and this discourages many shoppers.

But more and more people are buying green, and hypermarket giants such as Carrefour are gradually extending the size of their organic stands and range.

French school canteens are generally excellent, and many have a nutritionist who consults parents' associations about providing a good and balanced meal, with no pandering to children's tastes for fatty, sweet foods.

Even so, obesity has become a worry. In the land of great cuisine and the traditionally svelte figure, youngsters are tucking into more and more fast food and sugary drinks. Fifteen per cent of French under-15s are overweight or obese, and the proportion could rise to 25 per cent by 2020 on present trends.

Against this background, Boutault and Trostiansky say they have had no problem at all in winning over parents to their policy of smaller but better meals.

"Seventy-five per cent of parents have told us they are in favour of having less quantity if this means more quality," says Boutault.

Across the Channel, a crusade launched by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is striving to upgrade the quality of British school canteens.

Oliver has run a pilot scheme - predictably repackaged into a television series - to improve school dinners in the London district of Kidbrooke.

The chef, who blasts processed foods as "rubbish", has swapped factory-made beef burgers, pizzas and sausages for freshly made chilli beef fajitas, fish pie and lemon roasted herb chicken.

Forty-six British MPs have signed a motion in the House of Commons urging the Government to improve school-dinner standards, saying this could combat obesity that now affects more than one British child in five.