School Dinners V's Packed Lunch's

galvanizersbaby

vik6525 wrote: »

Oooo, I forgot to add....

ANOTHER reason why my son has cooked lunches is because you wouldnt believe the amount of 'food swapping' that goes on with the kids in sandwiches...
I used to send him in with healthy food, but he'd just swap it for !!!! and junk that the other kids took in. In fact, by the end of it, I think he was swapping his entire lunch. I was sending him in with fruit, yogurts, cereal bars etc, and he was swapping them for monster munch and peperamis'... :rolleyes:

I can recall doing this when I was a kid - my mum used to go mad!

thriftmonster

I did the costings one month - ds2's dinners cost £2.10 per day and are quite variable and ds1 needs £2.50 a day for his canteen =- so £4.60 a day. When I did the costing, I didn't include any cost for leftovers, but did cost up everything else - and the cost varied from 80p to £2.00 a day for the two together - a huge saving. I did invest in 2 soup flasks (also for hot chocolate) and two wide necked flasks for pasta, stew, chilli, jacket potatoes etc. I use old cutlery so if it gets left behind it isn't the end of the world and chinese takeaway containers for salad, quiche etc.

The only thing I would say is that if you send in healthy options, be prepared for your children to take some stick from the "junky" packed lunch kids - both mine had terrible trouble at primary school and ds2 still does - but ds1 has no issues at grammar school.

wendywitch

Don't know if someone has already pointed you towards this thread but have a look http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1483583

thriftlady_2

vik6525 wrote: »

Oooo, I forgot to add....

ANOTHER reason why my son has cooked lunches is because you wouldnt believe the amount of 'food swapping' that goes on with the kids in sandwiches...
I used to send him in with healthy food, but he'd just swap it for !!!! and junk that the other kids took in. In fact, by the end of it, I think he was swapping his entire lunch. I was sending him in with fruit, yogurts, cereal bars etc, and he was swapping them for monster munch and peperamis'... :rolleyes:

At least some other child was getting a healthy lunch:rotfl: My lot all have packed lunches and always have. The older ones prefer not to queue in the canteen where there's only a decent choice if your lesson preceding lunch happens to be near the canteen.

i've never costed it all out properly but I'm convinced I'm only spending about £1 per lunch if that.

woozywendy

I work the lunchtime in our local school and there are some children who do not eat their hot dinners either, they just come in move it around the dinner plate a bit then come to throw it away. We do try our best to get them to eat it but you can only send them back to the table so many times befor you know are beaten. The consistent ones we tell the teachers about so they can have a word with parents.

blackcoffee

I would definatly check the school menu before hand, and maybe alternate according to your childs preference.

our school (£1.70 each, Ive 2 in school) is very good, the school has realy pushed for the 5 a day thing, and my children eat a better variety in school than home, (i dont cook fish dishes, or rice as i hate both ) my 2 try on the old tea time lines of i hate peas thing, or i dont want mash etc ...but in school, i know they eat it.

i couldnt afford to keep my son in packed lunch, his appetite for an 8 year old is huge, my daughter however is very fussy and would pref a packed lunch, but she would insist on the same sandwiches every single day and hates fruit ! i prefer her to have a good cooked meal in school.


with regard to wasteage, it happens everywhere with a bunch of fussy children, or with a group that can see the school playground outside !


because of the money that has been spent upping our menu's the dinner ladies dont realy keep that good an eye on the pack lunchers, so if a child says he/she has finished they pack thier lunch bag up and go. Thier is nothing wrong with the menu's and we all know that, so there is no reason to send in a pack lunch with our children.

i get the opinion the children on pack lunch in my childrens school are the fussy ones, thier parents pack what they know they will eat, however most days you see them going home with full lunch boxes, they arent allowed to empty then in the school bins, which is a good thing, and we have a strict no junk policy, hwever its known the children that abuse it ! ive seen one child with 2 packets of crisps, 2 packets of dairylea dunkers & chocolate bar! and her mother complains that no one is watching her daughter eat as she takes her food home most days untouched !!!

tiff

I do the same as Becles, I use the value plastic boxes with a lid that are 90p. They go in the dishwasher, rather than having expensive lunch bags that cant be cleaned very well.

Although they did improve school dinners, they still arent great and they still have a tiny budget per head so I prefer them to have packed lunch and a cooked dinner at home. There really is no need to have a cooked dinner during the day, in school hols they might get beans on toast but wouldnt get a cooked dinner at lunch time.

Give them squash or water in a bottle, a cheap sandwich filling like tuna, egg mayo, home made houmus in pitta bread or houmous as a dip with strips of pitta bread. A piece of fruit and maybe one other item is all they need, some kids lunch boxes are overflowing - they dont need a picnic!

ethelsmum

My son has packed lunches and has since he started school (he's now in yr 1). I asked which he wanted and he said sandwiches - it means I can make sure he's got food I know he will eat/likes etc. In a class of 17 I think there is only 3 or 4 that have school dinners. I do keep asking to make sure he wouldn't prefer school dinners but he says no. Even when its xmas dinner he prefers to take his sandwiches. He usually has a sandwich (which the dinner lady makes sure he eats first), a yoghurt, cheese-string/babybel etc, fruit cereal bar, biscuit bar/bun and grapes/srawberries or raisens. Also a drink in a reusable bottle. He eats most of his lunch and on the day he eats it all the midday supervisor gives him a sticker.
When my daugher starts school in Sept she will also have sandwiches as she is a very fussy eater and would only have a spoonful of school dinners and then eat all her pudding,

BungleGirl

My daughter (8) has packed lunch three days per week and school dinners twice a week. I ordered a 'laptop lunchbox' online which was really expensive (about £20ish!) but it has been worth every penny. It comes with lots of little boxces that fit inside, one has it's own lid which is great for pasta/rice and there is a tiny pot with a lid for dips/sauce dressings. It now means that she doesn't have any extra packaging that would end up in the bin.

She has something like this:-

Pasta and sweetcorn
Grapes
Chopped carrots
Mini breadsticks and a teaspoon of onion and garlic dip in the tiny pot
Fruit juice in the bottle.

It's great because she gets 4 of her 5 a day in her lunchbox. Oh and the above literally costs pennies!

I like her having school dinners a couple of days a week as she will try new things at school that she wouldn't touch if I put it in front of her (like curry the other day!) also they have to raise their hands before they can move onto dessert so that the teachers can check they have eaten all or most of their main course first. My daughter often has seconds and likes getting little stickers for trying new things!

I meet her at school for lunch about once a month (it's great!) and I'm really happy with what food they have and how it's all organised so well.

I'm happy with a mix of packed lunch and school meals.

Curious_George_2

my DD used to have school dinners when she was in the infants, but since she became a junior she started coming home hungry,
when i asked why she said that the infants go in for dinner first and the juniors go in 2nd, and out of the 2 choices if what you wanted is gone then you have to have whats left and quite often she didnt like it, so hardly ate anything for lunch,
so i swapped for packed lunch straight away, not MSE at all as she is entitled to free school meals but at least this way i know that she has plenty of food that she wil eat and doesnt have to sit there all afternoon hungry