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Milk food at school organizations in the Czech Republic and EU
KLUIBER, Petr
Milk and milk nutrition are an important part of the balanced diet for children. Milk contains proteins, which are easy to absorb and which are necessary for growth, development and the renewal of tissues. The fat contained in milk is a rich source of vitamins and carbohydrates, which are an easily available source of energy. What is more, milk also contains a number of minerals, out of which calcium is assigned the greatest importance. Because of the dangers caused by the insufficient intake of calcium, this fact is being taken in account in school catering. The impact of the school catering on the health and further development of children is considered largely important in all the EU coutries. However, the regulations of school catering are different in each country. These regulations range from non-biding governmental recom-mendations on the size of portions or meals offered to the full restrictions of certain products and the national system of standards, which are to be found for example in the Czech republic, where every school canteen has to follow the standards of the so called "basket of consumer goods". Apart from school catering, there are projects which support the consumption of milk and milk products. The most significant of these projects in the Czech republic is the project School milk. It has been implemented in 1996 and it is run by Laktea company, which restarted the supply of milk and milk products to children in cooperation with schools. The School milk project won the support of the Czech goverment in 1999 and, after joining the EU, the project has started develeping fully. The project School milk can be considered successful and desirable as it started with 426 participating school, but there are 3000 schools involved in it today. Similar projects are running in many other EU countries, where each member country can choose for themselves for which products from the EU list they will get the funding. They also have the opportunity to change their projects depending on their needs. Apart form this, the participating countries can support the project with other resources and can provide the milk for full price, partially subsidized or for free. Equallly, they have the right to change to containt of certain milk components, such as to lower the percentage of fat.
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