ANYONE who has spent any length of time in the great county of Aberdeenshire will know the area has some of the finest ice cream shops in the country.
Quite why that may be is anyone’s guess, as it doesn’t exactly have a climate that screams ice cream at you.
It is more of a hearty plate of homemade soup sort of area and there are plenty of places which serve that too, and then ice cream to cap it all off.
However, it appears that primary school children in Aberdeenshire will no longer be able to enjoy ice cream at lunchtime after council chiefs axed it along with that other great menace to society – custard.
The council blame Scottish Government guidelines for the move, which has gone down about as well as melted ice cream in a blizzard with pupils and their parents.
And who can blame them for being a tad hacked off?
I’m not sure any research has ever been done on the link between ice cream, custard and childhood obesity but if there has then I suspect the findings were fairly predictable in that there isn’t any.
Despite this, Aberdeenshire Council has banned them anyway, along with, bizarrely, grapes on the grounds that cutting them up is “too labour intensive”.
So is shipbuilding but no-one is calling for that to be banned on the grounds that it’s a wee bit fiddly.
Of course, the situation is not the council’s fault as the latest one-size fits all edict from Edinburgh has forced their hand.
Pupils will now be offered desserts which will be predominantly fruit, with variations including jelly, natural yoghurt or a muffin to go with it, three days a week.
Fruit juice and smoothies will no longer be provided and that “sweetened baked goods and desserts etc now have to meet a new criteria set”.
It is because the Scottish Government now recommends that desserts contain no more than 15g of sugar and should be served no more than three days a week.
Cutting sugar from school lunches is a laudable aim amidst a childhood obesity crisis but as with virtually every idea from central government, it is not backed up with additional funds for councils.
It also does not necessarily target the areas that actually need help in tackling the problem.
Getting children from the most deprived areas eating fruit and vegetables at school is a necessity and this scheme should be applauded for doing that.
However, children living in rural Aberdeenshire and other affluent parts of Scotland are far more likely to get a balanced and nutritious meal at home and are far less likely to be obese.
They are also far more likely to get proper exercise – and what better way to feed a healthy, tired child after a good run about than pudding with custard or ice cream?
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