The school breakfast first class children's marketing
It's that time again: the week of school breakfast has started! More than 2,500 schools participate. That means a reach of more than 500,000 children. An excellent opportunity to introduce children to nature and good healthy food. We can use this great initiative to show the children what variety is possible for breakfast, but unfortunately the reality is different.
The table at the school breakfast reads, among other things:
Bread and rolls: 18 currant buns, 18 wheat or wholemeal buns, 2 sliced wholemeal breads or wholemeal multigrain breads
1 jar Frutesse Maestrichter Fruit Syrup
4 cups ERU Kids cheese spread
1 pack of Consenza gluten-free crackers
1 jar of halva jam (strawberries, apricot or four fruits)*
1 cup low-fat margarine
5 liter packs of semi-skimmed milk
1 pack of 30+ cheese
fruit
As you can see, the school breakfast is partly based on bread. Even currant buns are part of the package. Currant buns contain:
wheat flour, 28% raisins, water, baker's yeast, 5% currants, dextrose, wheat gluten, vegetable oils, iodized salt, whey powder, emulsifiers (E471, E472, E482), raising agents (E450, E500), soy flour, malted wheat flour, sunflower oil, natural flavourings, flavourings, turmeric extract, thickener, milk protein, pea protein, maltodextrin.
Whether the above ingredients are healthy I leave to the reader, otherwise this blog would become too long.
I am not really a fan of bread because it is based on wheat. We eat way too much wheat on average, most people even eat about 7 times a day:
7am Breakfast (bread, cruesli, muesli)
10 a.m. Slice of gingerbread
13h Sandwiches
3 pm Snack, e.g. cookie
4 pm Evergreen or soup (binder is wheat)
6 pm Pasta with a little sauce
10 pm Toast with some cheese
I completely agree with the Nutrition Center that we should vary, but seven times a day I wouldn't call wheat variation.
If you look at the website of the school breakfast, it becomes clear that it is an initiative of the Bread Information Bureau.
So basically the whole breakfast is sponsored by the industry:
I call it criminal that this breakfast gets the approval of the Nutrition Center. There are all unnatural and processed products on the table that come from the factory. Now take margarine, everything about it is fake. It's a fake butter . Why bring kids into contact with fake when we can bring them into contact with the power of nature too. What's wrong with butter?
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| The school breakfast first class children's marketing |
The Nutrition Center relies on facts that have long since become obsolete . That saturated fat is unhealthy is based on a lie . Researcher Ancel Keys has also admitted to cherry-picking his seven-country studies . When will the Nutrition Center change its positions to the new insights? Margarine is vegetable fat that is cheaper than butter, but not healthier. It has long been outdated that saturated fat is unhealthy. What is not outdated is that the current directorfrom the Nutrition Center comes from Unilever. The previous one also came from Unilever. At the school breakfast, products from the industry are on the table. It is known, for example, that products that Albert Heijn sells under its own label often come from Unilever's factories.
When it comes to children's marketing, ERU is a professional. How they get the nutrition center on their side is a mystery to me. ERU knows how to lure children to their products time and again by means of a sweet mouse on their packaging:
And ERU makes it even more colorful. For example, during the summer holidays they hire children's friends Ernst and Bobby for the ERU kids afternoon . ERU also sponsors the holiday week . If Moses doesn't come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Moses. ERU kids is packed with e-numbers and salt according to Foodwatch .
Having been a teacher myself, I know exactly how to entice children to adopt healthy habits. For example, we could offer the children more choice and let them make their own breakfast, for example with oats, nuts and berries. Children can also easily make their own nut milks.
I am sure that children will be proud of the result. And how about teaching children to fry an egg themselves, with some vegetables?
Children also really enjoy making their own bread rolls from spelled. They can then bake it the afternoon before and eat it during breakfast. That's how children learn. Stuffing kids with stuff from the industry doesn't teach them very much I don't think.
I can hear you thinking that this is expensive, but a school trip is also expensive. Idea: we could also have the school sponsored by the parents of the class. One parent takes the eggs, the other oats. I think the school breakfast should be in “neutral packaging”. I wonder if the companies are still eager to provide their goods for free. According to the companies, it is not about branding, but about idealism. I am curious whether that is still the case when the packaging must be neutral in nature.
We contacted a principal of a primary school and presented this. This was his answer:
First of all I would like to thank you for your input, it certainly gives food for thought. I will therefore take your e-mail to the team meeting in which we evaluate the school breakfast.
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| The school breakfast first class children's marketing |
I agree with you that certain foods labeled as healthy in school breakfasts have even healthier alternatives. And it is therefore nice to read that you have thought about this carefully.
In any case, we as a school believe that it is good to pay annual attention to the importance of breakfast as the first meal of the day. This is also the reason that we have chosen to participate in the National School Breakfast.
Sponsors are needed to be able to offer breakfast to the children. In another way it is not affordable for us as a school. That is why, despite the fact that we are aware that it is partly a publicity stunt, we still make use of the opportunity that the National School Breakfast offers us.
So we have to sponsor the school breakfast, to teach children to eat breakfast like this. Then we can also provide the children with soft drinks during class, because that is how they learn to drink. Dutch children drink too little water.
I see it this way: healthy habits get a child from the educators. If the educators set a good example, the children will follow. It is best for parents to bring healthy products into their own home and use it to make variation. If a child doesn't have breakfast in the morning, we should look to the parents, not the industry.
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