School Meals v Packed Lunch

Mado

No school dinners on offer at our school so they'd better no dare tell me what to send...
I imagine that if you add a leaf of lettuce to the sandwich it will pass with flying colors... that's the kind of thing they want!
But good idea to ask them.

Problem is I guess that they are trying heavily handed to help as I am sure some kids could benefit from being rewarded if they change bad habits and that 2 wrongs (bad school dinners and some parent's bad pack lunches) don't make a right.

On a complete different track, I just had a big go at the PA meeting as they only offer SUGAR at the tuck shop for any school event. Reply: you don't make money if you sell fruit ... So just to prove them wrong, I'll be organizing a fruit kebab stand for the school fete. Wish me luck
PS: does anyone knows of any H&S issue that should definitely keep me away from that idea?

Becles

There's a mass on at school in the morning, so it'll be difficult to catch a teacher before school. Instead I've written a polite letter to the head asking why they are inspecting lunchboxes and why my son came home thinking his lunch wasn't healthy. I've also mentioned how poor I think the school dinners are in comparison.

I walk to school with a neighbour. Her little girl refuses to eat normal food so her lunchbox has just a packet of crisps, sweets and biscuits in it :eek: It's these children they should be trying to educate, as they are the ones missing out on nutrients etc.

Savvy_Sue

Mado wrote:

PS: does anyone know that should definitely keep me away from that idea?

Normal food hygiene standards - absolutely spotless chopping boards not previously used for meat, separate hand and utensil washing facilities. Should go down a storm ...

... especially if you can get a chocolate fountain to go with it! (Scroll to the bottom of that page for small pictures of what I'm talking about if you think I've gone bananas!)

(Sorry, the food police won't approve but they are absolutely delicious!)

VixxAnn

Its probably developed from a good idea at school thats just been taken too far. I think its totally wrong that they intimidate the children by checking and awarding point for their lunch but I do feel that schools DO need to educate children on the good foods to eat and why certain things are not so good.

You obviously sound like you feed your children well, but we all know there are plenty of people out there who are not bothered about the wholesome nutritious foods and will just let their kids eat cheap processed unhealthy food. If we believe what's on the TV then there are apparently adults out there that don't even know what Brocoli and other vegetables are!!! So schools definately need to incorporate good nutritional standards into the lesson plans - just not dictate over packed lunches !!!

BrokeBrokeBroke

Mado wrote:

On a complete different track, I just had a big go at the PA meeting as they only offer SUGAR at the tuck shop for any school event. Reply: you don't make money if you sell fruit ... So just to prove them wrong, I'll be organizing a fruit kebab stand for the school fete

Isn't that just SUGAR in a different form? (Yes, I know there are vitamins etc in fruit, but there is also a massive amount of sugar)

How about yummy scrummy popcorn (WITHOUT SUGAR! ;-)) I think that counts as a whole grain and is one of my faves! (with hot melted butter - which is much better than low fat 'goodness only knows what's in it' spread)

Debt_Free_Chick

Becles wrote:

My little boy (age 6) came in from school tonight and asked if he could have decent food in his lunchbox. I was quite shocked by this, so have just questioned both of them about it over tea.

Apparantly school now has a 'lunchbox police' who analyze each childs lunchbox. They get a point for each healthy food and notes are made on a piece of paper. My son only got 1 point today for an apple.

However, his lunchbox contained a round of cheese sandwiches, a chicken leg, an apple and a 2 finger kit kat. I've always sent them with a similar balanced meal, plus a 'treat' item.

I'm at a loss why a chicken leg (oven roasted so no fat added) and a cheese sandwich (home made wholemeal bread and cheddar cheese not processed) is not healthy

Overall their diet consists of mainly home cooked foods made with fresh ingredients. We have few processed or junk foods. Neither child is overweight and they are both in good health and rarely catch the usual bugs that go round.

I'm just so cross that someone is mointoring what I feed them and giving my children what I consider to be bad advice. I'm tempted to write to the headmaster and complain as I feel it's none of their business.

Ironically I refuse to send them for school dinners as the menu mainly consists of chicken nuggets fish shapes, potato shapes, chips and the infamous turkey twizzlers :mad:

Let me try and take an unemotional view on this.

Chicken leg is not as lean as breast. Now I'm not suggesting your child should only ever have the breast ... bear with me Did it have the skin on? That would increase the fat count. Add that to the cheese and I'd say that the fat count is on the high side of average. Skinless chicken and cut the cheese would be better.

There is only one piece of fruit and no veg/salad. I know these things are difficult in a lunch box, but you could skin the chicken, shred it and add it to a wholemeal roll with salad. It's relatively easy to use a leaf of lettuce to "wrap" the contents so that they stay in the roll.

I would have added a bag of raisins or sultanas in place of the kit-kat (yet more fat, sorry ) No need to buy the special kiddie bags - just buy a jumbo sized bag and decant into a little tupperware box or a small freezer bag.

To be fair, it's not that long since we had a thread about the appalling state of school meals & Jamie's School Dinners. And we were all for the schools doing something about it. When I watched JSD, I was equally appalled at some of the packed lunches that children had, provided from home. I'm not appalled at yours ... but I agree with the school that it could be improved.

I would have given a point for the wholemeal bread, another maybe half point for the chicken, but then deducted a point for the cheese and another for the kit-kat.

I can see that my view does not accord with the others, but I genuinely hope it gives you a different point of view to consider.

On the points system .... well, kids get points for just about everything else they do at school. And it's a well proven method of earning rewards for good behaviour. Does no-one use it at home? I agree that kids have to be educated about good food, but how do we actually motivate them to make the change, without some sort of reward system?

Agree with the suggestions that you should ask the school for details of the scoring system. It may give you some new ideas for the lunch box .. or you may find something in the list to argue about

Hope this is helpful - genuinely meant to be constructive.

Regards

swizzlebabe

My son`s school has `healhy eating status` which means that even before jamie looked into school lunches,there was a salad bar and lots of fruit.

However after looking at the menu I thought my little one would be better on packed lunches, he is fussey and I thought £7 a week was a lot(even more so now I know only 37p or so is for food]

No chocolate is allowed in lunch boxes, fine by me, but some don`t like it, if they have fruit in there lunch box, they get a token to but in a large jar, when it was full, they would all get a sweet!! I don`t think so! Mum`s complained and this was changed. Not sure what they will get now, as jar not full yet, but will be some other form of treat.

I think that before this lunch box inspection, you should have been told about it. They could have always have had a sneak look before, and if they thought all the kids were eating crap, done something about it, they have no right saying anything to the kids at this stage.They could invole the kids to design a healthy lunchbox-have a comp or something.

jellyhead

your lunch box was better than most children eat for school dinners and i'd be upset if they'd criticised my sons lunch box too - it's not as if you sent him in with crisps, chocolate and coke! i'm surprised that they didn't send out a letter about this first, my school would have outlined the points system in the weekly school newsletter. at least that way you could have explained to your son where he will get points and how healthy you think his lunch box is.

what probably happened is that they got some year six children to go around and just count the fruit/veg portions!! mind you most lunch boxes would score higher than a school dinner in that respect, and many kids don't eat the veg option of their school meal anyhow.

Becles

I can see your point Debt_Free_Chick, but I still disagree with the cheese!

Both my boys like cheese and would eat pounds of the stuff if I let them! They always have proper cheese and I never buy Dairylea and other processed kids brands. I think proper cheese is much better for them as it doesn't contain the additives that processed cheese does.

I don't agree with feeding children a very low fat diet. They do need a little fat and there is no harm in having a small treat item. I've never called foods 'naughty' or similar, and just explained that some foods are not healthy but it's ok to eat a little bit of unhealthy foods as long as the rest of your diet is healthy. Hopefully they won't get the guilt factor when you eat an occasional bar of chocolate as I think that is bad. It must be working as neither is overweight, both are full of energy and they rarely catch colds etc.

The fat content in lunch may have been high, but his tea had a low fat content so it would have balanced itself out over the day. We had lean beef and onions with vegetables and fresh fruit salad afterwards.

Bendybops19

When i was at junior school i remember we had helpers that used to make sure we didnt leave a thing in our lunch boxes! I actually used to go into school dreading lunch time because if i was full or didnt fancy something, that wouldnt let you leave until you ate it!

I understand that it needs to be checked that every child has something to eat and they arent just eating crips/chocolate, but they dont need to be monitored to that extreme!