Rebecca Sly is a mum, a food educator and in her words, a “passionate advocate for better school food”. She’s also a Food Foundation Food Ambassador and a member of the Citizen Advisory Council – a group of citizens from around the UK working with the government to make sure that the new Food Strategy reflects the everyday needs of people and communities.

Rebecca lives in Devon, working with schools across the country to help get more children eating nutritious, nourishing meals and give them a meaningful food education. As Rebecca says, “school food is often a child’s most reliable meal of the day, yet it is still treated as an afterthought rather than a public good. No child’s ability to learn or thrive should be determined by their household income or postcode.”

Rebecca preparing some delicious, nutritious food

But while her life and livelihood now revolve around making sure kids eat healthy food and learn good cooking skills, Rebecca’s own childhood was a different story.

“Growing up on a council estate in Stoke-on-Trent, money was tight at home, and my parents cooked to live rather than lived to cook. Meals were often simple and convenient, with frozen ready foods and occasional treats like pop, crisps and chocolate – although we did always enjoy a Sunday roast together.”

Rebecca also struggled with her weight from an early age and lived with obesity until the age of about 11 – with unhealthy food the norm: “A typical school lunch might be a cheese, jam or egg sandwich on white bread, a can of Tesco Value pop, a chocolate biscuit like a Penguin, and a bag of Tesco Value crisps. Sometimes I’d have chips and gravy at school with a shortbread biscuit. Sometimes I’d have a salad plate – but these weren’t available all the time.”

She did, however, experience the good food and cooking at her grandparents’ house, which was a “different experience entirely.”

“They cooked everything from scratch, grew their own vegetables, and one of my grandads even hunted game birds, which I found fascinating. Those visits sparked my love of wholesome, home cooked meals and really left a lasting impression on me.”

Rebecca helps ensure students have access to fresh and wholesome food

But it wasn’t until Rebecca had her daughter that food became a really central part of her life. “When my daughter was born, things became very challenging. I left a domestically abusive marriage when she was only a few weeks old, moved back to England from the Isle of Man, and had to rebuild our lives from scratch with just a suitcase and a police escort.”

“For several years, things were extremely tight. We relied heavily on reduced items from supermarkets and the vegetables from my allotment. Cooking became my lifeline. I made all of my daughter’s baby food, pureeing vegetables and protein and freezing them in ice cube trays.”

It was, for Rebecca, an eye-opening experience. “I realised then that providing real, nutritious food on a busy schedule isn’t easy. It takes planning, budgeting and creativity. Meal prep became my best friend. I wanted to give my daughter a better nutritional foundation in life that I’d had – and for her to grow up knowing what real, sustainable food was.”

Home-made food has become a priority for Rebecca

Since then, Rebecca’s built a career out of food and cooking – equipping both parents and children with the skills they need to understand and prepare good food.

“One of the biggest challenges I see is the lack of food literacy, particularly in schools. Many kids leave education without understanding where food comes from, how to cook basic meals, or how food affects their bodies and wellbeing.”

But Rebecca knows that food education and literacy is just one part of the puzzle. “Our food environment is dominated by cheap, ultra-processed convenience foods. These products are aggressively marketed, readily available, and often feel like the only realistic option for families under time and financial pressure. The dependency on these foods isn’t a personal failure, it’s a systemic one.”

“In school settings, this plays out through underfunded meal budgets, inconsistent food standards, and a disconnect between education, health and food policy. We can’t expect schools to fix public health problems without giving them the tools or resources to do so.”

A selection of nourishing dishes

So, what does Rebecca want to see from our leaders when it comes to food?

“The government needs to invest in school food as essential infrastructure. That means properly funding free school meals, strengthening and enforcing food standards, and embedding food education across the curriculum. Food literacy should be treated with the same seriousness as literacy and numeracy.”

Her final point may sound radical to some. But with more than a third of UK primary school children now overweight or obese – and a future that increasingly looks like a tug-of-war between big pharma’s weight-loss drugs and big food’s engineered, addictive products – perhaps it’s time politicians started thinking a little more like Rebecca.

And Rebecca’s calls for action don’t just stop at better food education. “We also need policies that make nutritious food the easy choice, not the hardest one” she says, “like tackling the power of ultra-processed food manufacturers, supporting local and sustainable food systems, and recognising food as a social justice issue, not just a market commodity.”

In her roles as Food Ambassador at the Food Foundation and member of the Citizen Advisory Council for the Food Strategy, she’s able to bring some of these calls directly to the people responsible for changing our food system – sharing her story and using her expertise as mum, food educator and cook to advocate for policies that will have a real impact on people’s lives.

As Rebecca says, “food is a basic human right and food justice matters deeply. Involving citizens in policymaking is crucial for policies to reflect the real-life challenges we face. Decisions can’t be made in isolation from the people they affect.”