A mum who won’t tolerate shoddy school meals puts Jamie Oliver to shame

WHEN Natasha Seery wanted to find out what her children were eating at school, she didn’t ask the head, the school secretary or the cook.
Instead the motivated mother formed a vigilante group of parents – affectionately dubbed Ninja Mums – and stole into the kitchens of St Paul’s C of E Primary School, Primrose Hill.
To their dismay they found a selection of Thai meats banned under EU law festering in the fridge.
Now, writing in St Mary’s Church Magazine, based in Elsworthy Road, Primrose Hill, Mrs Seery has laid out how she became a parent food inspector at the school and campaigned for a national review of school dinners months before celebrity chef Jamie Oliver launched his campaign.
Now the instigator of the kitchen raid wants shoppers to be aware of the hidden dangers disguised by supermarket labels. Mrs Seery said instead of using natural ingredients, supermarkets are falling back on cheaper industrial waste chemicals to colour food and lengthen expiry dates.
She cites a vast list of sugars, colours and preservatives, some derived from a mix of pig chemicals and thought to cause brain tumours.
Many of these chemicals, legal in the UK, have been banned elsewhere for years including the USA.
Mrs Seery said hurried shoppers should stop to read food labels rather than glossy magazines.
She said: “Few mothers have time to read food labels on their supermarket run. I know it’s not like reading Heat but checking ingredients is a very important part of being a responsible mother - and it does taste better.”
Mrs Seery said maternal guilt drove her to be more conscientious about her children’s diet.
She said: “Being a parent is largely about being motivated by worry and guilt. What I feed my children is one of the scariest areas of my job as a parent. I’m not talking about raw vegetables with steamed fish, just minimising the number of poisons consumed in our house.
“The more I learn about the British food industry the more worried I get. I’ve seen the documentaries on rotting chickens being disguised and fed back into the human food chain. What if these chemicals stay in the body? Cancer, diabetes and obesity rates continue to go up, not down.
“Could these facts be related? Well I’m not taking any more chances with my children.”
And now Mrs Seery suggests shopping at farmers’ markets and buying toiletries and household goods from smaller, independent shops.
She applauds Jamie Oliver’s television programme Jamie’s School Dinners, but thinks newspapers are missing the point.
She said: “The column inches given to quantities of salt in cornflakes leave me speechless because there are much scarier food and drink dangers that are rarely mentioned.
“Are newspaper editors surviving on Diet Coke and crisps? Oliver’s programme taught us that poor diets are at an epidemic level across the country.
“We can’t ignore the state of the food industry any more. The Food Standards Agency has too much work on its hands already.”
She said “Why do usually conscientious parents lose their minds when they are catering for their children’s parties? Down with sweet-laden party bags, readymade cartoon cakes and saccharine drinks.
“It makes them crazy and does no good at all. As Jamie said: ‘You might as well give them a line of charlie.’ They’ll soon get used to flapjacks with a candle.”