It all started in western Scotland when 9-year-old Martha Payne took a photograph of her school “lunch” (above), a dicey concoction of orangy, dried out items that looked as though they’d been sitting out on the Sahara for a day or two. She posted it to her new blog, NeverSeconds, adding ratings for the food’s overall appeal, health value, amount consumed and accompanying pieces of hair (a rarely mentioned but always compelling statistic). As she continued publishing photos and rating her grim school lunches, people sat up and noticed and her blog traffic took off to the tune of one million visitors by the second week, according to Wired.
After only two weeks her stark food photos apparently shamed the local Council into action. Not only did fresh vegetables and fruit start appearing on the menu, but kids could now have unlimited portions of each at lunch. The Council claimed this had always been the policy, even though no one had oddly ever mentioned it.
By this time children all around the world were sending Veg (her blog moniker) photos of their own school lunches and her blog was beginning to attract big media honchos at Time, the Telegraph and Daily Mail.
The local Council Board, however, was most definitely not pleased with all the media attention. Let’s face it. They’d been embarrassed by a talented nine year old foodie whose honest reporting had made them look as though they didn’t know or care what their children ate for lunch. And so, mimicking The Big Red Mandarins in China who pull the plug on any citizen critical of their policies, the Argyll and Bute Council shut down Martha’s blog and she was forbidden to take any more photos in the school cafeteria.
That was the Council’s first mistake. Their second was not taking into account Martha’s huge base of fans and supporters. Among her many encouraging messages, Jamie Oliver wrote on Twitter, “Stay strong Martha,” and urged his 2.3 million followers to re-tweet the message. Which they apparently did because a sea of angry denunciations flooded Argyll and Bute Council’s Twitter account. Getting the message loud and clear, Mike Russell, Scotland’s education secretary, finally jumped in calling for the “daft” ban to be overturned.
Within hours, the leader of the Argyll and Bute Council lifted the ban on Martha’s blog and defended himself by stating, “There is no place for censorship in this Council and never will be whilst I am leader.” One can only guess he wasn’t clear on the definition of “censorship” or a recent case of amnesia had caused him to forget the Council had indeed just censored a 9-year-old girl’s blog.
A number of positives ended this fiasco. Earlier Martha had used her blog’s popularity to request donations to Mary’s Meals, a charity that funds school food in Africa. At last count her followers had raised over $72,000 to feed those children.
And Martha is back to her blogging. So far the most fascinating lunch photo (left) sent to Veg came in from Israel. Instead of the usual boring white plate plopped on institutional Formica, the lunch plate is a rainbow of bright design and colors sitting on a sunny red place mat. Who could have imagined a school lunch could look so yummy in such an appealing blast of happy colors?
How about your own memories of school lunches. Good or bad?
More on Lunch and Food Bamboozlement:
- High Five to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
- 103 Recipes to Spark up Packable Lunches
- Meat that Glows in the Dark Perfectly Safe to Eat
- Hair, Beetles and Beaver Anal Glands in Food
- Is Your Steak Cemented Together with Meat Glue?
- Bogus “Natural” Cereals Booted Off Store Shelves
Leave a Reply