Leading article: Turkey Twizzled

Monday 31 August 2009 00:00 BST
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For a generation whose palates were educated on Turkey Twizzlers, school meals will never be the same again. From this week, every school canteen option must be a healthy one. Even if you choose pizza every day, it will be a more nutritious version, not the pizza of the past.

Which prompts two thoughts. How was the fatties' delight, the chance to eat chips with everything every day, ever allowed to take over school canteens as it did? And why did it take Jamie Oliver, a high-profile television campaign, a child-obesity threat, and several years of public debate, before sanity was restored?

And as a second thought, we submit a plea of indulgence for the genius who invented the Turkey Twizzler. In a country where mothers preferred to feed their children fast-food through the school railings rather than expose them to the canteen's "healthy options", was the Twizzler really so bad? Made no more, it belongs with the Spam of yesteryear, ripe for a revival.

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