Forget about retraining dinner ladies, it's time for parents to go back to school and learn to cook, according to Barnet's head of catering.

Teresa Goodall, whose official title is environmental services manager - catering, said there is a lost generation of adults who have never learnt to cook, and so their children have no idea where their food comes from.

Welcoming the publicity that has followed celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's recent TV programme about school meals, Mrs Goodall said her main focus now was on parents.

"I want parents to become more involved," she said. "I want them to take an active part in choosing menus. There's a good deal of educating to be done. We all lead busy lives, but there is a generation of parents who have never cooked."

Citing optional cooking classes for parents and co-operation between schools and parents about complimentary menus during the week at school and at home, Mrs Goodall pointed out that everyone needs a bit of food education, even though Barnet started serving school dinners years ago.

"We have been above the Government's nutritional standards for school meals for years, with balanced meals, low-salt, low-sugar baked beans, no nuts in meals, only vegetable oil, only vegetarian jelly and yoghurt with every meal. I have to say we have been doing lots of things in Barnet for a long time. Mary Karaolis, the headteacher of the Ravenscroft School in Barnet Lane, Barnet decided three years ago she didn't want to serve chips every day, for instance."

Mr Goodall said she welcomed the Government's plans to bring in new regulations in 2006 and to make school meals part of the Ofsted inspection. School meals in Barnet cost between 61p and 63p a head at primary school, and between 75p and 80p at secondary level, and are bought within a large purchasing consortia which allows Barnet to buy healthy products much more cheaply than if it was shopping at a supermarket.

Jan Parker, headteacher of The Fariway Community Primary School, in The Fairway, Mill Hill, has been encouraging her students to eat more healthily in the wake of the Jamie Oliver publicity by giving lessons on where the food comes from and refusing to serve dessert until the main course is finished.

"You should see the difference in how much is thrown away - it used to be more than a big bin, and now it's less than a quarter," she said. "It's because I'm giving them an incentive.

"They get stickers if they finish their food and if they can name and eat fresh vegetables. But some children have no idea. One asked me 'I've got ham, is that a vegetable?' If all they eat is processed food, they have no idea about the origins, so I'm doing assemblies, and writing about healthy food in the newsletter. But I'm hopefully going to give parental workshops as well.