Pupils are being fed in schools for 37p a day

Children are being fed for as little as 37p a day in the capital's schools.

As the row over the quality of school dinners escalates, an Evening Standard survey has found education authorities are spending an average of only 50p per child.

Experts say that is not enough to provide pupils with healthy, balanced meals.

Rose Gray, co-founder of the River Café ¡nd the charity Cooks in Schools, said today: "It's ludicrous.

I think the amount of money spent per child should be 80p. You could make really good meals for that."

Yet our survey found:

53.5p and Tower Hamlets about 57p.

Although fresh ingredients are generally cheaper than processed food, preparing meals from scratch involves more time and skill. Yet schools increasingly cannot afford to employ trained cooks, relying instead on "food preparers" who just heat things up and add water to powdered potato.

"There's no nutrition in that," said Ms Gray. "But nutrition, diet, energy and concentration are all related to eating well. How can you educate your children if they don't eat well? It's been proved that if a child eats a lot of sugar and salt first thing they become hyperactive and then go to sleep.

"Eating well is crucial for learning and is also part of a child's education. I don't understand how it has been a subject left so long to rot."

Many parents feel just as strongly. When the kitchen at St Paul's Cof E primary school in Primrose Hill was raided by worried parents they found tinned and packet food and freezers full of reconstituted meat - Fish Sunshine (breaded cod), Robbie Rolls (pizza-style pancake), crumbed crunchy fish and chicken hot dogs.

They found virtually no fresh vegetables or fruit and no oil and flour for cooking.

Even the headmaster, John Wilkinson, admitted: "I understand why there is so much concern about the standard of the food. It has plumbed new depths. Things have to change."

The Government has also demanded improvements - but has not said how schools are meant to pay for them.

Celebrity chefs are doing their bit to help. Jamie Oliver has transformed the menus in Greenwich's schools and Ms Gray did something similar at Thomas Fairchild School in Hackney where the budget is a "generous" 68p per child.

"We took raw ingredients so we peeled potatoes, podded peas, made tomato sauces. But I still literally had to beg, borrow and steal to provide that meal at that price," she said.

"We're creating a website to help schools improve their food, but the money is still the main thing. Somebody's got to come up with the money to pay for the food - and I feel that is the Government's responsibility."

Oliver has launched a "Half a Quid a Kid" campaign after finding for himself how hard it is to provide a good meal for 37p.