Share
16th January 2025
12:59pm GMT
Irish presenter Kathryn Thomas has called out the government's hot school meals program after The Irish Times confirmed the meals contain 'ultra-processed foods'.
The mum-of-two called out the program and admitted she was "flabbergasted" to find out about the "the amount of ultra-processed foods."
She said many parents are worried about the amount of highly processed foods their children will be consuming in school.
Speaking on her Instagram, the mum said: "This is so wrong. It is so detrimental to our children’s health. I know talking to friends of mine and parents who have actively been encouraged to stop using lunch boxes, which we’ve done as well.
"When in fact, in many cases the Healthy lunchbox program was working quite well," she added.
The mum said someone needs to oversee the nutritional value of the free school meals.
"If that meal that’s been provided by these suppliers into the schools is filled with ultra-processed crap, this is so detrimental to our children’s health. It’s so detrimental to the obesity rates in Ireland, childhood obesity, and there’s no regulation."
She stressed that it isn't the school or the teacher's fault but something needs to change.
"How is there no [regulations]? There are standards that are supposed to be set, but nobody is overseeing this."
"This is about the suppliers and there needs to be regulations around it, it’s just absolutely crazy."
Over 300,000 pupils avail of the program with plans to expand it to every primary school in the country in 2025.
You can read the report here.
