No beef allowed: inside the schools that have banned meat

From plant-based menus in California to vegetarianism in Letchworth, many schools are adopting sustainable food policies - with varying results

School dinners are a minefield, as Jamie Oliver discovered when he came up against mothers defiantly pushing burgers through the fence to their chicken-nugget deprived offspring. It's fine to change your curriculum, sack your headteacher, flatten buildings and replace them with uglier ones, but mess with the lunches and you'd better put on your tin hat.

So when MUSE school in Calabasas, California, decided to become the first school in the US to switch to an all-vegan menu - starting this autumn - it's no surprise that reactions were forceful. A whopping 40% of the students were withdrawn by concerned parents - though numbers recovered and are now the highest on record, according to head of the school Jeff King.