TV chef Jamie Oliver has been blamed for putting North Yorkshire pupils off their school dinners.

The "Naked Chef" exposed turkey twizzlers and other processed foods served up in schools in the south as unhealthy, but parents who switched to providing a packed lunch for their children instead are urged to think again.

North Yorkshire County Council has written to parents pointing out that it had scrapped turkey twizzlers and introduced healthier alternatives last September.

"Unfortunately, since the programme many people have associated the meals shown as being representative of all school meals," said the letter from North Yorkshire's client catering manager Nick Postma. "Meal take-up, which was rising, has now fallen following the programme."

He urged anyone with doubts about the quality of North Yorkshire school meals to look at the current menus and encourage their children to try them.

Jamie Oliver's expos of the standard of processed meals sparked a national debate about the quality of food provided for our children and was raised in Parliament.

It was widely accepted that school meals had to be improved, with the accent on fresh fruit and vegetables. Turkey twizzlers, made up of a grey pulp which reputedly bears some relation to turkey, were widely condemned.

North Yorkshire says it moved towards healthier food before Jamie Oliver's series, in which he attempted to persuade reluctant school dinner ladies to prepare fresh food.

Take-up of school meals had increased by five per cent between September and December on the year before.

But that increase has been reversed since the start of the year, apparently as a result of concerns raised by the programme.

North Yorkshire County Caterers provide tens of thousands of meals every day to primary and secondary schools across North Yorkshire.

As well as banning turkey and chicken shapes, some schools have introduced chip free days and menus now feature more home made food, yoghurt, pasta, fruit, vegetables and salad boxes.

The Government has set up a school meals review panel aimed at reducing pupils' consumption of fat, salt and sugar and an increase in healthier foods with essential nutrients.

The panel has been asked to draft minimum standards to send out to schools this autumn with a final version becoming mandatory by September 2006.

The panel is to recommend whether certain types of food should be banned altogether from school meals.

More money has also been provided for school meals. North Yorkshire already spends more than the national average in both primary and secondary schools and the additional funding will enable the cost of better ingredients to be covered.

Catering staff will also be better trained in nutrition and the county council already has plans to carry out more skills training.