A recipe for healthier, slimmer children? Or a typically gimmicky reaction from Downing Street to the media storm created by Jamie Oliver's television series on school dinners (and the meatier exposes by the Guardian's Felicity Lawrence)?
Not everyone was raving about what Alan Johnson, the new education secretary, is dishing out today for schools in England - pupils will be limited to two portions of chips a week and served at least two portions of fruit and vegetables with every meal under the guidelines - but it smelled good to the Campaign for the Children's Food Bill, a group of 160 national organisations arguing for reform.
Johnson's statement that the "health of our young people is not an area for compromise" was particularly welcomed by Richard Watts, coordinator of the campaign, but he adds: "The acid test is the attitude the government takes to marketing junk food on TV."
Ofcom is currently consulting on weak options for restricting junk food adverts but not the one campaigners want of a ban before the 9pm watershed. This, says the industry, would cost between £120m and £240m a year. But then the health benefits would be between £200m and £1bn a year
If a third of children under 16 are obese or overweight, Britain certainly has a problem. Schools can't solve it on their own protest headteachers. "Children eat at most 190 meals a year in school. It is much more important to educate parents and to limit the food industry's marketing campaigns," says John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
Mr Dunford, not a man usually dscribed as svelte, adds cheekily that the Department for Education and Skills might have more credibility with schools if it practised what it preached in its own canteen. "When is the department going to ban the sale of crisps, chocolate and fizzy drinks in its own buildings?" he asks.
Watts agrees schools can't do it on their own but that's no reason why they shouldn't do something. "The state of school food was so bad that it's important that minimum standards are put in place. School meals are an important part of kids' diets and set an example to many families."
