Schoolboy's Film Of Disgusting School Meals Becomes Award-Winning Hit

Schoolboy's Film Of Disgusting School Meals Becomes Award-Winning Hit

A pupil who filmed his school's disgusting meals has seen his efforts become an award-winning documentary.

Zachary Maxwell, now 11, started filming his school lunches two years ago because of a dispute with his parents about whether or not he should be allowed to take his own food to school.

While his mum and dad wanted him to eat the school's lunches, which sounded appetising on the school's menu, Zachary wanted to prove that the menu descriptions weren't accurate.

In the movie Zachary claims salads at P.S. 130 Hernando De Soto school in Manhattandon't include the delicious variety claimed on the menu published on its website.

In one clip he talks about how the education department enlisted the help of celebrity chefs including Rachel Ray and Ellie Krieger to create appetising healthy options, but then he shows the limp salads the school was serving which didn't feature the ingredients the chefs had recommended.

Now the schoolboy is being hailed as a budding Jamie Oliver for crusading against low standards of school meals after he and his dad turned his undercover reports into 20-minute film called 'Yuck: A 4th Grader's Short Documentary About School Lunch'.

In the trailer for the film, Zachary, from New York, says: "The city's Department of Education says that it's committed to providing 'delicious and nutritious meals through their food service program'. But the lunch being served at my school was nothing like what they were advertising on their website."

The documentary has already won the budding young filmmaker several film festival awards and it is set to be screened at the Manhattan Film Festival next month.

And since the film's release, he has been asked to serve as an adviser to the New York City Department of Education's Office of School Food.

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