The “About Me” section of Martha Payne’s blog NeverSeconds opens with: “My dad says I should call myself Veritas Ex Gustu, truth from tasting in Latin but who knows Latin?” The 9-year-old from Scotland certainly did find truth in tasting and made it her goal to share that truth both with her classmates and the worldwide web.
This May, Martha Payne began blogging about her daily school lunches, which were consistently lacking in nutrients and often sprinkled with human hairs of unknown origin. She structures each post by including a photo of the day’s meal and then rating it on the following criteria: Food-o-meter (taste), number of mouthfuls, courses offered, health rating, price, and pieces of hair found.
Most elementary school-graduates have experienced hair-contaminated, or at least just inedible school lunches. However, not many can claim credit for fundamentally improving the nutritional value of their school’s cafeteria provisions- before their 10th birthday. Through her blog, Martha did just that. NeverSeconds reached viral status within days of its creation, receiving praise from many thousands of readers including celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. The subsequent media attention pressured Martha’s school to make some rapid changes to their meal program.
Just weeks after Martha started blogging her cafeteria observations, the local school council announced that unlimited fruits, vegetables and bread would be made available to its students from then on. That’s right, it took less than a month for one 9-year-old to transform and improve the quality of food provided to her entire school!
Martha’s blog and the progressive action it instigated exemplify the importance of individual efforts in order to produce broader, positive change. She has also been working towards global change through her Just Giving page for Mary’s Meals and by setting up Charity Children– a fund raising program at her school. After all, in her own words, Martha is “very lucky to have lunch at all.” She took a photo, presented the “truth in tasting” school lunch from her perspective, and prompted beneficial change in school cafeteria systems on both local and national levels. Martha’s story proves that we all have the power to make a difference- you can do it too!