Oliver cooks up new school food lessons

Published on Thursday 18 March 2010 21:38

JAMIE Oliver has created his own school cooking course in a fresh attempt to improve the health of the nation's teenagers.

The celebrity chef has drawn up the Home Cooking Skills course, which will be available for all secondary schools and colleges in the UK. The course will teach youngsters how to feed themselves and their families in a healthy and cheap way.

The first level covers creating home-cooked food from fresh ingredients, and the importance of passing on cooking skills. The second will teach pupils to plan and prepare nutritious meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as snacks, plus how to budget and shop economically.

It is the first time that Oliver has stepped back into the school kitchen since he began his campaign for better-quality school dinners six years ago.

After Oliver's campaign won huge public support, ministers banned junk food from school canteens and vending machines and in 2006 new rules to make food healthier began to be introduced in English schools.

Oliver said: "Six years ago, the very first thing that I asked for in my manifesto that I took to Downing Street was for schools to make cooking and life skills compulsory for all kids, so that they learn about food and good eating habits while they're young."

He added he had become "bored" of waiting for someone else to come up with a plan to fill the now mandatory cooking lessons for 11-14 year olds, "so I decided to do it myself".

Oliver said: "Home cooking from fresh is one of the greatest pieces of knowledge anyone can have. It saves people money and it saves lives.

"What greater gift could any teacher give their class?"