School Meals v Packed Lunch

suffolkb

£2.55 for 250gm of cheese seems a bit pricey.Thats over a tenner per kg .
My daughter`s school lets the kids take a packed lunch,but they are not allowed to use the dining room to eat in.Not much fun in winter.

misty

My son takes a packed lunch - they have to bring home anything they haven't eaten - so we see exactly what they have eaten. I pack it so know what he has got. The school dinners at his school look quite good - we had sample menus but I make him a hot meal at night and I don't feel he needs one in the day too. The school regularly send home leaflets about healthy eating and the types of things they would like to see in packed lunches. It winds me up everytime but one of the dinner ladies said some of them come in with all sorts of crap - even though there is a ban on crisps/sweets and chocolate in school. However, when the kitchen was being refurbed the school dinner kids were given a packed lunch by the school - so the parents were paying for the school to give them a packed lunch instead of making it themselves. Even worse they were giving them a sausage roll from Hampsons, a yogurt and carton of juice.

Rachie_B

my son has school dinners,tried packed lunches but TBH it was costing more than the £1.50 per day school dinners cost,hes skinny but can eat for wales lol

they have a new menu with mostly healthy options ,with chips etc featuring rarely on it im glad to say i like the fact he gets a hot meal in the winter too

my youngest goes fulltime in sept and will have to have packed lunch as hes sooooooooooooo fussy with hot meals

but he loves picnis style meal

his box wont be anything like the example above though !

wholemeal ham sarnie / pitta pocket
yogurt
raisins
plain biscuit
orange juice / water
mini scotch egg / bread sticks / rice cake
piece of HM pizza
cold sausage

would be the kinda thing he will be having

ive worked in schools and yes a lot of the boxes are mainly junk and thats sad

i remember one child had a half a sarnie with crusts cut off,choc spread was the filling ,then he had 2 kitkats and a bottle of coke

and thats it !

i know my youngest is fussy but surely these kids will eat things vaguely more nutritious than this

as for schools pushing to have school dinners ive not heard of that and think its a cheek TBH lol

funky-footprints

my son is such a fussy winge bag when it comes to pack lunches, if he had a pack lunch or picnic as he calls it he would only have the same thing every day, where as now he has a varied dinner. our school has gone very healthy actually and im very impressed with thier menu, he now eats runner & broad beans, brocolli ( green trees) brown rice etc that at home he wont touch.

as the above poster commented he also has a warm dinner through the winter which i prefer, and he eats what everyone else eats, i have noticed in his school and paticularly his class, that those that take packed lunches tend to be the fussier ones, and thier mums say most nights they are taking home a full lunch box everynight. Dont understand how they can say, I see what what they have eaten now, as in most cases it is the case of seeing what they havnt eaten. definately a for school dinners vote in this house, but then Im lucky as I know he is getting a good healthy option.

Spendless

funky-footprints wrote:

my son is such a fussy winge bag when it comes to pack lunches, if he had a pack lunch or picnic as he calls it he would only have the same thing every day, where as now he has a varied dinner. our school has gone very healthy actually and im very impressed with thier menu, he now eats runner & broad beans, brocolli ( green trees) brown rice etc that at home he wont touch.

as the above poster commented he also has a warm dinner through the winter which i prefer, and he eats what everyone else eats, i have noticed in his school and paticularly his class, that those that take packed lunches tend to be the fussier ones, and thier mums say most nights they are taking home a full lunch box everynight. Dont understand how they can say, I see what what they have eaten now, as in most cases it is the case of seeing what they havnt eaten. definately a for school dinners vote in this house, but then Im lucky as I know he is getting a good healthy option.

I actually found the same with my own son, very faddy at 4, he will now try anything and eats loads more different veg than he used to because he tried them on school dinners, when I served them up I just used to get a 'don't like' wouldn't try. Re seeing what they eat when I worked in a dinner hall any child not eating their dinner on a regular basis it would be reported to our supervisor, who would then make sure someone kept a discreet eye on them, if further problems continued it would be reported to their teacher who would speak to whoever collected them.

tiptoes

My two take pack lunch though when they changed schools in Feb the Head asked where they entitled to free school meals anyway as the money goes to the school.

Horasio

In my day, school dinner was not much better than pigslop, except for the roast, which was lovely.

I either went home for lunch or mum did me a packed lunch as I was a very picky child.

After seeing Jamie Oliver, I can understand why I didn't like school dinners.

montycat_2

My 3 girls have school dinners and they eat it all .I get free school meals but ,I see the menu and ,it is NOT stodge .Chicken risotto today and yes ,they dio have cake but ,it is homebaked (in the school) using organic wholegrain wheat and reduced sugar .
More kids have school dinners than packed -lunches because of this .

Penny-Pincher!!

I had a similar problem recently. DD is entitled to free school dinners as we are on IS, but I was fed up with her getting the dribs and drabs and being fed total [EMAIL="cr@p"]!!!!!![/EMAIL]!! DD has a healthy appetite and has daily:

Wholemeal Sarnie/Roll (Cheese,ham or marmite)
3 pieces of fruit (banana, apple, pear, raisins, kiwi, grapes, orange etc)
HM Fork Biccie
Low Fat Crisps
Yogurt
Bottle of tap water

This amounts to about £3.50 each week max and I know she's not being fed rubbish, high fat, salt, processed food:mad:

HTH

PP
xx

jellyhead

my son has school dinners sometimes, it depends what it is. they're not fresh enough for him. the veg has been cooked for so long it falls apart as soon as you look at it (he prefers it a bit crunchier), the fruit is peeled much too early on so it's manky, brown, droopy. if they could have bananas and peel them themselves it wouldn't be so bad.

i've been a helper in school and have helped kids get their school meal, so i'm not just taking my boy's word for it about the fruit and veg. besides which they don't have to eat it - as long as they eat the main course, the potato option and the pudding they can go out to play, fruit isn't a popular pudding option so most kids eat pizza, garlic bread and cake and chuck the veg in the bin.

my son takes strawberries, raspberries, blackberries etc. into school in little containers. he tells me he's never seen anyone else on his lunch table eat fruit or veg - ever. and i believe him.