SIR - The recent edict' that schoolchildren should be forbidden to use tomato ketchup on their school meals seems to me a real criticism of the food they are offered.

Could be the poor kids are trying to inject a little flavour into the highly health-giving, but completely tasteless, food confronting them.

If so, they have my sympathy, as do the cooks who prepare their meals.

As far as I can see, virtually all food now available in this area is so healthy, clean and nutritious that it has no flavour whatsoever.

I am inclined to think that - thanks largely to the malign influence of supermarkets with their emphasis on the shelf-life, shape, size, colour, appearance and, of course, profitability, with little if any interest in the actual taste and flavour of the food they purvey - very few people born after 1945 can have any idea what real food used to taste like.

No wonder the British public is so fond of curry, chilli and other spicy food, as well as the ubiquitous ketchup - at least that way they get some flavour into hopelessly bland battery hens, etc.

Ian R McDougall, Hawkswood Avenue, Heaton