Potato starch, sweetened yoghurts and Polish milk – such content in the lunch packages provided by schools, for which the municipalities are responsible, has been found by many students, and parents are also outraged, TV3 News reports.
Dissatisfaction with the content of school food packages is becoming more and more common on social networks – are semi-finished products really the food that growing teenagers should consume?
In almost all food packages received by parents whose children study remotely, there is cheap milk, pasta and canned food produced in Poland. Very rare fruits or vegetables. Complaints about it have been received by the parents’ organization “Mammamuntetiem.lv”.
Inga Akmentiņa-Smildziņa, head of the parent organization “Mammamuntetiem.lv”
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“Both in Latvia and in the world, children suffer from overweight, at present it is not possible to move, classes are closed, problems are getting bigger. This is an important issue. Some parents say, “How can you do that, rejoice that something is given at all, but, I’m sorry, these are not conditions of war when I eat anything!”
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Under normal circumstances, school meals are supervised on the spot by the Food and Veterinary Service (FVS), but this does not apply to the contents of the parcels distributed, which are the responsibility of the individual municipalities. The amount of nutrients intended for students is determined on the website of the Ministry of Health, but how to fulfill it in practice is the task of local authorities. Parents have not complained about school parcels at the ministry this autumn.
“Of course, the Ministry of Health (MoW) has developed it only as recommendations, the municipality is responsible for what possibilities they have to provide food packages. We have created recommendations on which local governments to adhere to, but we cannot apply for specific regulations for local governments, ”admitted the representative of the Ministry of Health Ieva Apine.
On the question of how the VM assesses in practice the fact that, despite the adequacy of food rations measured in the laboratory, food starch is available in, for example, potato starch, the VM acknowledges that, of course, starch is not an easy product for everyone although it must be ensured that the learner is able to prepare a meal from the products available in the food packages.
In practice, the food package supervisor is the FVS, but there is no information on the assessment of the usability of funding. There are also good examples where food packages are really high quality, but there are municipalities where they are not issued at all.
