Bhubaneswar : Jolted by the death of 23 children in Bihar after eating midday meal, the Naveen Patnaik government has decided that before food is served to children, a member of the school managing committee and cook would taste the food and rate its quality. Reviewing the midday meal scheme in the state schools on Saturday, Naveen said the food-tasting would be mandatory. The headmasters and headmistresses concerned would see that it is followed diligently. Currently, the midday meal programme is running in 63,531 schools of the state. The Chief Minister also instructed that all the schools would have their separate kitchens. So far, only 36,000 schools have their own kitchen sheds. To ensure that the food served in MDM is of good quality, a third party verification of the food would be done. Each month, the third party would check the food quality in 300 schools of a district. After the Bihar incident, several complaints over midday meal have poured in from different parts of the state. On Friday, at least 39 students fell ill after consuming food in Dhenkanal district.