Jamie Oliver's f-word tirade at parents over 'disgraceful' packed lunches

TV chef Jamie Oliver has lashed out at parents over the food given to children - saying he is "bored" with being polite about the issue.

He said 70 per cent of packed lunches in the country were "disgraceful" and he would like to see them banned.

• Less than half of pupils walk to school

Oliver said headteachers were too frightened of some parents to tell them what they should be giving their child to bring to school.

Oliver criticises parents in his new TV show Jamie's Return to School Dinners, which is the follow-up to his successful Channel 4 series on improving school meals.

In the film Oliver said: "I've spent two years being PC about parents, now is the time to say 'if you're giving your young children fizzy drinks you're an a*******, you're a t***. If you give them bags of crisps you're an idiot. If you aren't cooking them a hot meal, sort it out'.

"If they truly care they've got to take control."

Oliver said after the screening of the new programme: "I have seen kids of the ages of four or five, the same age as mine, open their lunchbox and inside is a cold, half-eaten McDonald's, multiple packets of crisps and a can of Red Bull. We laugh and then want to cry.

"I have no doubts that these parents love their children," but if a teacher says that your kid is very tired at the end of the day, it was wrong, he said, for parents to think the solution was "a can of Red Bull because it gives you wings - you might as well give them a line of coke".

He said he had seen this happen across the country in rich and poor schools.

Asked whether he would like to see a ban on packed lunches he said: "Many of us would like to say yes, if there were facilities for better hot meals in all schools.

"I would love it but that will not happen."
He said: "Packed lunches are a problem. Most of them, whatever anyone says, aren't appropriate."

A lot of heads would feel empowered personally to take stuff out of packed lunches and swap it for something appropriate but many head teachers are quite frightened of parents and don't feel able to do that.

Oliver would also like to see a ban on junk food advertising for children and in the new film tells Tony Blair that a voluntary code sounds "a bit wet".

In the programme, Mr Blair promises Oliver an extra £240 million to improve school dinners for another three years.

After a huge campaign sparked by the first series Mr Blair agreed to commit £280 million for proper ingredients and training.

But Oliver said that he was "p***** off" because £45 million of that was based on a Lottery promise that hadn't actually been signed off.

In Jamie's Return to School Dinners, he goes to Lincolnshire, where kitchens were removed from schools to save money during the Thatcher years and where nearly 50,000 children take a packed lunch.

The programme sees him attempt to reintroduce hot meals into the county by collaborating with local pubs and restaurants.

Oliver said he was "not saying parents are bad" but that the problem was they had not been taught how to provide their children with a healthy meal.

"These young parents haven't been taught from the family unit which is the best teacher.

"For whatever reason, be it work or whatever, they haven't done that."

He said cookery lessons should be compulsory, not voluntary as the Government recently announced they would be.