Apples or apricots, avocados or asparagus, juice or milk: Just in time for the start of school, the EU program for healthy snacks for millions of children in kindergartens and schools is back on track.
Around 250 million euros are ready for the beginning of the school year, informed the European Commission on Monday. In previous years, around 20 million children participated in all EU countries. The program has been in existence since the beginning of the 2017/2018 school year.
In Germany, too, students are dependent on healthy snacks: in 2017, there were ten thousand tons of fruit and vegetables for around 2.5 million students. For the flowed from the EU just under 32 million euros, German authorities gave more than nine million euros.
"Pent-up demand" in Germany
According to the Federal Nutrition Ministry, children from twelve federal states receive fruit and vegetables, and milk supplies children from 14 federal states. In order to participate in the program, the federal states must submit regional strategies to the EU Commission with details of the budget or period. The aim of the program is to introduce children to healthy eating. In addition to fruit and vegetables, there is therefore information in the classroom.
Just recently, Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner announced that she wanted to educate schoolchildren better about healthy food: a study commissioned by her had revealed "pent-up demand" among teachers and educators. As far as the implementation is concerned, there are already concrete proposals in Bavaria: for example, the Free State is planning the new school subject "Everyday Competence and Living Economics". This should include topics such as agriculture and nutrition.
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Above all, the consumer organization Foodwatch criticizes the unhealthy food in German day nurseries and schools - and therefore demanded binding standards in the individual federal states last year.
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