The school lunches here are definitely far superior to the school lunches available in Florida.

Unlike in Florida, where the "cooking" consisted primarily of re-heating, this food is cooked from scratch on school premises, and it's real food, served on a plate, not cardboard, and eaten with a metal knife and fork, not with bendy plastic utensils or fingers.

There's also more choice here. There are always three hot options, of which at least one is vegetarian. If the child doesn't fancy any of those, they can have cheese, crudites, fruit and yoghurt instead. And Sophie's school cook even sent home a note to say that if any children particularly disliked any of the options, she'd do her best to accommodate them; she wants all the children to actively enjoy their lunch-times. I thought that was very sweet. Oh, and they don't use GM foods, don't serve beef, and their sausages are organic.

Here's the kids' current school lunch menu.

And here's the Florida menu. Take a look at the choices for Mondays. Hmmm, should we serve the kids healthy food, or should we see which companies we can make deals with?

Today's choices here are salmon fillet, chicken risotto, or cheesy vegetable fingers, served with pasta or rice, and roasted vegetables or peas, followed by fresh fruit salad with ice-cream.

In Florida, today's menu consists of chicken noodle soup, garden salad, breadsticks w/ marinara sauce,assortment of fruit/ fresh baby carrots, with milk to drink

Which doesn't sound too bad, but the soup would be out of a tin, the breadsticks from the freezer, the marinara sauce out of a jar, the "salad" would be iceberg lettuce, and the fruit generally bruised and nasty looking. And my kids would refuse to eat it because they didn't like the taste.

Which is the other main difference in the school menus : the kids say the food here actually tastes good.