Packed lunches and the "food police"

shetitasatic

Sainsbury's are really into the healthy packed lunch trend (re Jamie Oliver)
The home economist/ nutritionist from our local store had children from our junior school to visit the store and go behind the scenes and look at healthy eating. They sampled all sorts of unusual fruit and veg.

Then she came to the school and did sessions with the children on making healthy packed lunches. They were each given a menu in advance to choose what they wanted, and then she came into school with all the ingredients provided FREE by Sainsbury's. I went and helped for 2 days as a 'Granny helper'

Perhaps you could suggest this to your school. The children loved it!! :T :T

tinkerbelluk

sarahlouise210 - Funny enough that quote is my sig file - I believe it so much - who wants to be the same as everyone else - Tell your daughter she is a wonderful person and that by being different she is making a difference to the world.

Sarahsaver

My kids are proud to be different and love the fact that other kids are curious about their lunches, cheese and marmite sandwiches, hm bread and cakes, fruit, carrots, tesco value orange juice. Only downside is my son is swapping something with a friend and sometimes i find a crisp bag in his lunchbag. The most weird and wonderful things they had are moose sausages, aloo gobi (cold of course) hm coleslaw, a selection of cheese and crackers, pasta with raw veg and mayonnaise, prawns, seafood sticks, home grown boiled eggs.Yesterday they had a sausage roll so i expect the dinnerlady told them off, they have a lack of cultural awareness of british food:)

mummysaver

My children take in all sorts of things in their lunch boxes, luckily their schools and friends are okay with this, usually I have to make extra for the pasta salads as by the time everyone has had a try of the latest dressing or whatever there isn't much left for my children to eat!

Anyway, the previous school that my older children went to was a bit different and I know that teasing would have resulted, so my suggestions are: hm choc muffins instead of biscuits, or even hm jam tarts, something yummy and easily recognisible (children who tease sadly often don't recognise many foods, and riducule what they do not know). Try pittas filled with stuff, or even relent and put in sandwiches, they are easy to make and nutricious (so long as they aren't filled with choc spread!), even if they do just contain ham or cheese or marmite, you know that your children will be able to eat lettuce etc at home. If you use hm bread, perhaps you could try rolls, as these are less easily distinguished from shop bought ones! (or that may be my bread making skills making my loaves a little odd looking!).

I also try to vary things a bit, sometimes I pop in mini sausages in a tub, with a small pot of ketchup (Sainsbury's used to sell ready done ones, but I prefer to do it myself!), or hm sausage rolls and pasties - easier to eat than pies as well, and really not particularly odd to have these in your lunchbox.

Crisps - put them in a box/tub if they take them. Pringles did some little boxes a few years ago, and you could fit a handful in there, but I just used to put value plain crisps in them!

Fruit is fairly universal and doesn't really need disguising.

The fruit shoot bottles are a good idea, I buy them every so often to use for school, I have to tip the drink down the sink (dd3 and ds can't have it!) but the bottles are a great size, and cheap to replace when the children lose them. Also in the summer you can freeze them when they're half full, and then just top up in the morning, and they keep the lunch cool till it's eaten.

As they get older your children will begin to stand up for themselves and so won't worry what other people think as much.

DD2 had a health eating thing at her school, and one morning they all opened their lunch boxes and discussed what was in them, we had no warning of this so I'm not so sure that some parents were very happy, but I guess that it meant an accurate picture was presented. DD2 still talks about one girl who had three choc bars and two packs of crisps and nothing else (except a bottle of pop!) - though I understand that the teacher spoke to the girl's parents to check if this was normal, and suggested that perhaps a wider selection of food could be included! :eek:

Sadly there does appear to be peer pressure over lunches, and whilst it seems totally ridiculous to most of us, it is often easier to adapt what you give your children or disguise it, you know that your children eat well at home and that the lunch box, though "in disguise" is fairly healthy, so I shouldn't worry about adapting it a bit.

savingmum

Great thread - so sorry that so many little ones get 'bullied' over this

My 2 have been veggie since birth so lunchboxes have been the norm and i have found that we have gone in circles.

They are dd (14) & ds (16) we have gone through phases of following where I admit to jam sandwiches on white bread!!! to totally h/m and everything in between.

Mine have been lucky in that normally everyone wants to see what they have in their boxes.

Currently we have dd in a 'I'm too busy to eat due to sports practises phase' so I send her with 2 sandwiches she loves marmite or nut roast/hm bean burger with pickle sandwiches on either hm 50% wholemeal or hovis shop brought whole/white. With this I add 1/2 a cut up apple in a small pound shop 6 for £1 round container ( apparently a whole apple takes too long and she admits to throwing it away!!!) and hm cake or shop museli bar or a school bar ( conc fruit bar from asda).

I must add this is what she takes and sometimes what she brings home!!!! when she will then eat it - their lunch hr is 1.20pm - 2.20pm. She eats a huge breakfast of sheddies and fruit and OJ so I'm not worries as long as the lunch gets eaten when she is home.

Now ds is in a 'need shed loads of food to survive phase' so he has 3 sandwiches of the above or cheese & salad, cheese spread, granose mushroom pate ( in a tube and so good value), peanut butter, egg

He gets the other 1/2 of the apple, another round container of sometimes cucmber & lidl cherry tomatoes, sometimes, cashew nuts, seed mixtures( obviously he is in 6th form so allowed to bring in nuts etc) - these are popular with everyone as they all love to munch these!!.

He does get a value penguin type of bar as well, together with leftovers - today it was h/m pizza - monday he took left over cold nutroast and roast potatoes - and everyone wanted to know what he had - he is quite proud now of his unusual dietary likes!!!!!! he loves cold spagetti with some olive oil & mixed herbs and he always remembers to bring home the spoon or fork ( small baby one from 15 yrs ago - just the right size for a lunch box)

They both take water in reused bottles plus ds takes another one of squash

Sorry this is a long post but just wanted to add the perspective from one with older kids and to say carry on, do what you have to - decanting things from the value wrappers- been there done that and you'll find they grow to be eaters who love their food

ms_london

thriftlady wrote:

Apparently one girl told him his cheese sandwiches were 'gay'

Haha!! Off topic I know, but that comment made me laugh!! :0)

chardonnay_2

HOLsale wrote:

homemade tapenade, tabbouleh

holsale - what kind of foods are the above? - i love trying new stuff.

Penny-Pincher!!

DD sits with her best mate who is an indian little girl. She frequently brings curries and samosas to school and she doesnt have any problems or kids being horrid. DD usually takes a sarnie in but sometimes has chicken with rice or pasta. She has also had HM sausage rolls, quiche, chicken legs etc. Her general packed lunch is:

Apple
Banana (breaktime)
Raisins
Sarnie (ham/cheese or marmite)
crisps
HM Biccie
Bottle of weak squash

Some kids these days arent very pleasant, but generally they only repeat what they've seen from parents/friends or teachers. Its very sad isnt it?!

PP
xx

jackieb

Our dd's school was in the news reently because they banned rubbish bins in the canteen. The school said they were appalled by the good food that was going to waste and they make all the PL children take home all their wrappers and uneaten food so that parents know what they're really eating.

Householders who live next to the school were worried that the children would just dump their rubbish outside but I havent seen any of this so far. I always collect my daughter from school anyway so I'd see her dumping anything.

It's not very nice to have a half eaten yogurt which has obviously spilled come back home to you again lol. I think it's quite a good idea though.

thriftmonster

Thanks everyone - it' great to know there are other alternative lunch boxes out there - we'll just have to start the revolution...

Update - both kids got negative comments, but just replied along the lines of "I like it and it's none of your business" However ds1 also had some positive comments as well. :j

To put it in context, ds1 was badly bullied last year at school by a group of girls in his class and lunches was one of the areas that they picked on - amongst many others. However one of the girls involved last year apologised to ds1 today when he returned to the lunch table - which we decided had shown courage.

They're looking forward to pasta salad tomorrow and a HM trifle in tubs - swiss roll with fruit and jelly which I found on another thread - thanks to whoever posted that. Will also be trying Squeaky's sausage and rice salad next week as that looks great too.