Most children don't know their ash from their elder

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times:

"For most children, leaves are mush that stick to railway lines and hold up their train through the suburbs or what their grandparents used before tea-bags were invented."

If you watched Jamie Oliver's School Dinners , I'd say that was the least of our problems. The children on that programme had no idea which vegetables were which and thought they were either onion or celery. They couldn't name the vegetables at all. Coupled with that , they wouldn't even eat them and their reaction was as though they were being offered the most disgusting food in the universe and it was going to poison them. Not even a lettuce leaf, nor would they try raspberries. The gooseberries I could identify with. I used to find them to squishy and disgusting but I at least tried them. As for chicken...no way. Pasta? No way. Then there was a pediatrician talking about how he was treating children of 8 who had impacted feces to the extent they were vomiting fecal matter. This is so fundamentally tragic. We have nations where children cannot find enough food to eat and suffer malnutrition as a result. Then we have nations where children are suffering malnutrition because they have a pathological dislike for real food and nourishment. Nations which can supply and grow proper food for their children have children who are ill from lack of adequate food. I ask again...what are we doing to our children? If they can't recognise trees, that's one thing, but if they can't recognise food ..that is a national emergency. Grow our own and feed our own. The tree article, however, points us in the right direction. People need to stay in touch with nature because we need nature to survive.