New rules on school meals were brought in this week to coincide with National School Meals Week, aimed at promoting healthy eating. Janet Hewison visited Huntington School in York to find out more.

HOW many of us could resist a lovely portion of chips if they were offered up to us every day on a plate?

As James Taylor, 13, of Huntington School, remarked, they are cheap and they fill you up. They're also on the menu at any secondary school you care to walk into.

But as every good student knows, fatty foods like chips can store up future health problems like heart disease and strokes.

It was these health concerns that prompted new Government rules on school dinner menus which were brought in this week.

These restrict primary schools to serving chips on only three days a week and require secondary schools to offer red meat at least three times a week and fish at least twice.

The Government stopped short of bringing in the chip restriction for secondary schools after a tide of opinion from across the country that said if teenagers were denied a chip choice, they were likely to abandon school meals altogether.

The chip question is one that taxes cooks like Sue Addinall of Huntington School, who works for North Yorkshire County Caterers.

She said the new rules had put in writing what was already going on in most schools. Primaries usually had set menus, and did not serve chips every day, and secondary schools all tried to put on as varied a menu as possible.

Huntington already offers red meat, fish, vegetables, fresh fruit, salad and pasta dishes and three choices of potatoes, but in the end Sue said it was down to pupil choice, and most chose chips.

Sue and her 12 staff serve up meals for around 600 of the pupils at York's largest secondary school and they fry up 200lb of chips every day.

She said: "If we said let's have a chip-free day they wouldn't come in. They'd sneak out of school and go to the chip shop. We tried bringing in things like pitta bread stuffed with curried chicken - they'll have it, but they have chips with it."

James's reaction was that he could cope if chips were taken off the menu on one day as long as there was enough choice of other foods.

He and Tony Farrall, also 13, and friends, said they would like to see more meat on the menu, they thought fish was "too expensive" and dismissed sardines as something only eaten by teachers.

Lucy Botterill, 15, and her friends, were in the minority of non-chip eaters who said they usually ate a sandwich and crisps or pasta.

They said they didn't eat red meat at school either and fish was limited to tuna in sandwiches.

As for salad, the boys claimed they would eat it if it was cheaper.

But when asked which they would choose if salad was 10p and chips were £1, they all said: "Both."

Updated: 10:47 Saturday, April 07, 2001