“A couple of courses ago it was decided to change the school menu to a healthier option, the door was opened to one much more based on vegetables and all this led to what we have come to call yogurtate”. A woman, mother of two school-age daughters who prefers not to give her name – nobody wants to make enemies in the AFA (Association of Student Families) – thus explains, between laughs but without minimizing the drama, what has happened in the center his daughters' school, located in Maresme, which he defines as "a public school that works by projects, without subjects, with an alternative model and with a lot of involvement from families, who seek it out because they are usually very interested in educational issues ”.
When this change of concessionaire was made in the center – the companies that are in charge of running the kitchens of the school canteens offer a complete package that also includes the work of the monitors who watch the playground during non-school hours at noon –, They drew about three family profiles, according to this mother from Maresme. “Those who eat at home in a very healthy way, with hardly any meat, who are related to cooperative gardens and with children who are already very accustomed to this type of food, a second profile that perhaps does not eat as healthy but it already seems good that children do it like this at school, with the added problem that they are not used to and do not understand that there is a cream of vegetables for first grade and legumes for second grade, and a third profile with a more mainstream diet, which they do not see sugar and fried foods like evil, who does not understand anything and freaks out a bit”.
The school was navigating that transition from beef burgers to cauliflower or chickpea burgers relatively well until the subject of yogurt, which is typically served in school cafeterias for dessert once or twice a week, came up. “It was decided that instead of giving them the fruit or pseudo-fruit that they sell in the supermarkets, they would opt for a natural one without sugar. Most of the children complained, they said they didn't eat it and they told it at home. There have been months of exhausting discussion, in AFA meetings and in WhatsApp groups. We considered giving them honey, brown sugar, agave... finally it was decided that sugar would be given to children who authorized it, but that's surreal. There came to be trafficking in sugar packets from the bar among the children under the table”. The issue, he jokes, "has divided families more than the process. There are the radicals on one side and the other and those of us who look at it from the sidelines and think that it is not the end of the world”.
The anecdote, which is not isolated and has occurred with different intensities in many schools, shows to what extent the dining room acts as a social thermometer. In schools where the incidence of dining scholarships is higher, which would indicate a lower level of income among families, the complaints do not usually come so much because too much animal protein is consumed, but rather the opposite, because there is already enough that meat to cover the quota.
“We have received some complaints from families, because the children said they liked how the food was cooked and, as it took longer, they ate it colder. What we have done is invite these families to try the menu”, explains Patricia Martínez, mother of the Jacint Verdaguer school, in Poblesec, where 40% of the students receive the dining scholarship.
They also introduced sugar-free yogurt at the Jacint Verdaguer two years ago, when the center finally managed to have its own kitchen, and that did not generate any yogurtgate. “From the AFA we have insisted that the processed be eliminated, in the dishes that had for example York ham, and the canned ones be suppressed. Taking into account the problems we have in the neighborhood and the students from working families, what worries us is also keeping the price in the low range. Now we are at 6.30 a day for those who always stay and 7.40 a day on the loose”, says Martínez.
The Generalitat set this course a maximum price of 6.91 euros per day and child (who remains fixed) in those centers where the lunch period lasts two and a half hours and up to 7.10 for the sporadic menu , a very high price compared to other autonomous communities, where the price per day is around three or four euros and much higher than in other neighboring countries. In France it varies by zone, but it does not usually go up to more than a euro and a half, partly because the midday staff is integrated into the school. There, by the way, the green mayors of some cities imposed 100% vegetarian menus a couple of courses ago and there were loud protests from various sectors, not only the farmers, who argued that the authentic French diet was being attacked since childhood.
The aFFac, the federated association of families of students from Catalonia, considers that the midday strip is one more educational space and it makes no sense to sublet it to companies that are almost never dedicated to education, but to catering. Until that happens, they believe that things are going better, and the food is of better quality, when it is managed by families, as is the case in 40% of the centers, and not by the administration, whether they are regional councils or the City Council, who are in charge of the canteens in the other 60% of Catalan schools.
“In this way, the concessionary company is more pending to do well so that the contract is renewed. With the administration, he wins a public contest and, unless he flagrantly fails to comply with the specifications, he will maintain it ”, sums up Lidón Gasull, president of the aFFaC.
At the Els Encants school in Barcelona, a public center similar to the one in Maresme, whose building was already built thinking of a specific educational project, of respectful education, related to the ideas of the Escola 21 group, several parents of the center related to the world of food (among them a nutritionist and a cook) organized themselves to create Vatua l'Olla, an ad hoc dining service for the school, but which they have later exported to other centers such as Anglesola under the name La Xup Xup . The main difference with other concessionaires is that they buy the products directly from their own certified organic farming suppliers, and they already plan the harvests based on that order. “We do not buy processed product. Neither tofu nor seitan, we do everything in the kitchen”, explains the coordinator of the service, Laura Fernández.
The children served by Vatua l'Olla eat white meat and eggs once a week and red meat every fortnight. “We are a very carnivorous society, children would surely prefer a meat lasagna to the one we give them, chickpeas. And a potato omelette with fennel, carrot and spinach, it is better to eat what is not green. But there are dishes that are widely accepted, like falafel”.
There is, as in almost all centers, an ovolacteovegetarian menu, a halal menu and others adapted to food allergies. Fernández is wary of many other school menus from large concessionaires that also work for hospitals and that call themselves eco, local and zero kilometer: "If they give them green beans in January, how will it be in season?"
In Els Encants there was no yogurtate nor is it expected. “We use a very good one made with fresh milk and natural ferments that we buy in bulk from the La Selvatana farm and we put it in glass containers to avoid generating waste, so it is not acidic at all. There are always children who have a hard time, but they already know that there is no sugar at school”.
In another nearby center, the Escola de la Concepció in the Eixample, some families were also allowed to authorize their children to put sugar last year, but this year the option has been eliminated. "It took a while to implement, it is one of the great recurring themes that usually arises in the dining room commission," says one of the mothers who are members of the commission, Ares Montardit.
Gasull also believes that the greening of the menus has generated tension in recent years but it happens less and less. “He has uniformed. Families may have preferred that their children eat something, but they are becoming more and more aware everywhere, ”she believes.
What does worry the AFFac a lot is the lack of "equivalence" that this system generates, even within the public network, since families that can spend more time worrying about food end up having much better school canteens than the rest. .
The example of Els Encants, although interesting, seems to him a difficult exception to imitate. “But you can take it as an example. If a school manages to do that, talk directly to their providers, imagine what the administration could do. We have to guarantee the participation of families in the canteens, but not transfer all the responsibility, because the capacities of families change depending on the socioeconomic environment”.
