The removal of meat from hospital and school menus is causing concern among parents and some medics
Consumer choice has never been bigger – except when it comes to meat products in hospitals and schools, councils and universities. This week, Quorn’s CEO announced that pork sausages will be blended with fake meat in NHS hospitals by the end of the year, in a bid to tackle climate change. But the hybrid bangers, which are partly made from mycoproteins (fermented fungi spores), will not be badged up as such – which means the NHS is effectively slashing the meat content from menus without warning.
Mo Metcalf-Fisher, director of external affairs at the Countryside Alliance (CA), says that the organisation is “deeply troubled by compulsory vegetarianism and veganism” and that they would be “very concerned at any attempt by a public body to attempt to police what we are eating”.
Still, vegetarianism and veganism by stealth appears to be on the rise. Big-name campaigns like Meat-Free Monday, which advocates cutting meat from diets one day a week, was sparked by Sir Paul McCartney in 2009; since then, celebrity backing from the likes of Jamie Oliver (plus A-listers such as Beyoncé, Reese Witherspoon and Coldplay’s Chris Martin) has helped to make it a status symbol, seeing vegan and vegetarian menus sweep into councils, hospitals and schools.
The driving force has been campaigners’ fears about the environmental impact of consuming meat (far above matters such as cost or the health implications). Yet the spread of stealth vegetarianism into schools is causing concern among parents and some medics.
: Joe Giddens/PA
Meat has been axed from the menu across a series of nursery, primary and secondary institutions. In January, Bishop Burton, an agricultural college, said they would be removing it for 40 per cent of the month (later apologising to farmers after backlash ensued, and reversing the decision). The Swan, a primary school in Oxford, has an all-vegetarian canteen; Barrowford Primary, in Lancashire, banned meat from children’s lunches in 2022, and there are Meat-Free Mondays at Lordship Farm Primary in Letchworth, along with other primaries in Anglesey and East Riding (the same is currently being considered for all state schools in Surrey).
The creep has caused consternation because many parents are not warned about their school’s decision to lower weekly meat offerings ahead of time. That was the case for Daisy Ferns, 38, who noticed that her three-year-old was being given far more vegetarian and gluten-free options at his Derby nursery without her permission.
She asked to “opt out” of this enforced menu, “to ensure he has a varied diet and is getting the essential nutrients he needs”. They acknowledged her message but have since stopped updating the app that used to chart his food intake, so she has “no idea at all” how things stand. “It seems to be that this is the norm now, and whilst I understand that everyone has their own dietary preferences, I believe that our preferences for a varied diet should be respected too.”
Naomi Duncan, chief executive of Chefs in Schools, an initiative to improve the quality of school meals, says that there are “really legitimate concerns around relying solely on highly processed plant-based alternatives” (which are often present on meat-free menus). She says that exclusively plant-based days are fine, provided that there is transparency, the food is made from scratch from whole ingredients, and that “you’re offering choice across the course of the week.”
Metcalf-Fisher, meanwhile, takes a harder line. “Do parents know that their children’s diets are being altered in this way? And is there consent there between parents and school? I would hazard that there isn’t always.” For schools to enforce meat-free options, he thinks “it should be compulsory that they have to go through the Department of Education”.
: David C Tomlinson/The Image Bank RF
: Bloomberg
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