School lunch rant - Would you complain?

foxy-roxy

I can't believe the TA didn't want to apologise, I mean how can we expect children to respect adults if the adults don't apologise for something when they are wrong? Apologising when you are in the wrong shows respect and a good attitude.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

thorsoak wrote: »

Whatever happened to Gypsy Tart??? :rotfl:

For those of you too young to know ..... see http://greedydave.com/gypsy_tart_and_school_dinners

We called it Gypsy Farts

liney

I have awful memories of school dinners and remember vividly the DL asking who wanted the skin on the custard whilst waving it, almost threateningly, around on a spoon. _pale_

Our school dinner menu has a veggie choice each day much like the one above, but frankly as my son has a cooked dinner at home at night i find it rather expensive and unnecassary to book them

hermanmunster_3

I feel that "Healthy Eating" should be a choice ... and frankly it is no good eating "healthily" if you smoke or drink to much - waste of more money.

I have never met a patient who didn't "eat healthily" according to them.

I am sure however that I don't eat particularly healthily and neither do my kids but we are considerably healthier than most of the rest of the population for numerous other reasons.

DS has taken the same things to school for lunch for the last 5 years - sorry 10 years - namely marmite sandwiches on white bread, crisps and chocolate. I am afraid I would I would be one of the mothers fetching chips tp give the kids at lunch time if the food police started on me.

clairehi

Jandy1234 wrote: »

If someone felt compelled to give the child a cooked meal, it could be she still seemed hungry after her food was eaten and someone had a soft heart.

Did you eve nread the OP?
The TA took the child's lunch away, told her it was unhealthy and would make her fat and then gave her a school lunch instead! She didnt get a chance to eat it!
The TA reduced the OPs child to tears- and you think thats soft hearted? Nice.

Morglin

I think perhaps this 'food police' routine by some schools has gone too far.

If a child has a healthy breakfast and a healthy evening meal, then what they have for lunch is not that much of an issue.

I don't know any kids that have got fat or died by their teens, simply because they ate an 'unapproved' packed lunch!

I sometimes wonder how us of the 'older generation' survived without government nagging and school interence in our diets.:whistle:

Lin

gwhizz75

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

By the way elvis86 being vegetarian is no more of a choice to some of us than being gay is for others. Being a vegan is who I am, for others being a vegetarian is who they are just like being gay is who you are. I couldn't eat anything from an animal as it's just not who I am.

I'm sorry, this is OT but what you are saying is just wrong. I'm not homosexual, but if I was, I would be quite offended by your comment. Being a vegetarian or a vegan is a choice you make based on your principles, and based on knowledge (that meat comes from dead animals). Being gay is biological, it is determined by the very make up of your genes. Nobody is genetically a vegetarian! Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against vegetarianism but to compare food choices to sexuality somewhat trivialises the matter.

Biologically, humans are omnivores. We are built to be able to eat and digest both meat and plants. Choosing to be a vegetarian is a great choice based on ethical, environmental or health concerns but the word "choosing" is key here. You don't choose to be gay.

jellyhead

If I were the OP I'd be very upset (especially as mine is only 4 and easily reduced to tears - I'd be taking him home for lunch every day if I thought the assistants were likely to remove his lunch and make him eat macaroni cheese, which I love but he hates). In this instance if I were the OP I would also be angry at the implied criticism, especially when school seem to have less of a clue than the OP. If they don't like the strawberry milk then offer plain milk or water instead, sure, but why remove the entire lunch?!

I am wondering if their concern over your daughter's vegetarianism is because they think she eats too much fruit and veg, and not enough protein or carbs. I was a parent volunteer in a healthy eating lesson around 6 years ago and I remember a plate picture, showing which proportion of your meal should be carbs, how much should be protein etc.

If the assistants have a similar thing in mind, especially if they assume that hummus is a plastic cheese dipper thing, they might be worried that your daughter doesn't have enough variety etc.

For starters, I'd make sure they know that hummus has more nutritional value than a dunker. If they worry about protein could she take a cube of cheese, or a flask of lentil soup?

If they want her to have more carbs, what about slicing a toasted pitta into soldiers for her to dunk? or putting the hummus (I don't know how to spell that, sorry!) into a mini wholemeal pitta.

There must be ways of agreeing between you and the school on healthy veg lunch ideas, because surely the school has had more than just this one veggie to feed? It's often the parents choice rather than the child's, and as you say giving them macaroni cheese 3 days and a cheese sandwich on the other days is not really feeding them well.

If the school wants the children to have something made with flour and cheese that's fine, but why can't they add some vegetables and turn it into pizza, veggie lasagne, soup with pasta and grated cheese on top etc?

Other schools manage it. I like the menus that alanalea posted, and others have said they have the rolling 3 weeks menus too. Ours has a good selection, but I suppose in a school with 400 pupils it might be easier to provide a better selection.

I think even a tiny village school should be able to provide a vegetarian selection. Meat eating children don't need meat for every meal anyway, and would enjoy vegetarian meals I'm sure.

jellyhead

Spendless wrote: »

So I don't believe that all the time it's 'so you can see what your child eats'. Though I never asked the official reason my guess it is something to do with the local council and their 'rules' on collecting waste.

Our school newsletter boasted of an award that they'd got for being greener or something. It essentially said "Aren't we great for reducing our waste" but they'd clearly achieved this by making the sandwich children take their waste home

I didn't mind though, my boy often threw away my plastic pots or drinks bottles, and I do prefer to see what they've eaten.

FATBALLZ

If it was me I'd get the idiots name and take it to my MP. Deffo see the head. What a bunch of morons, you couldn't make this stuff up.