School lunch rant - Would you complain?

Amara

Go to head. It's ridicious.

looby75

Becles wrote: »

They are currently doing a trial of healthy school dinners in County Durham and all primary school children are getting a school dinner. There is still a lot of cake/sponge puddings and some junk food like fish fingers and burgers though, and the portions are small according to my 11 year old. He has the meal and dessert, then comes in and has a normal portion of whatever main meal I have cooked as he's starving!

pretty much what my 9yr old son says too....and has been confirmed by a friend who is dinner lady at his school. The co in charge still decided the was too much wastage and cut the amount of food sent to the school recently and now there isn't enough to go round

It's getting sorted soon though or so the staff have been told.

moggylover

poet123 wrote: »

I think it is rather patronising to assume others cannot provide suitable lunches but "we" can.

There will be kids who take in unsuitable lunches, just as many kids watch unsuitable films/TV,are exposed to unsuitable or unpalatable facts of life, but where do you draw the line? to me, there are far more important issues around child welfare than a lunchbox containing some crisps. In fact, I think we are taking action is this area because we are impotent in so many other areas of infuence which affect the lives of kids.

The behaviour of kids in school is dependent on many factors, the least of those imo is often the contents of their lunchbox.

In my school in the 60's and 70's we were allowed packed lunches, so I assume yours must have been somewhat different.

I'm not being patronising, nor am I making assumptions. I have seen lunchboxes day after day that contained such wonders as some cheese strings, a couple of choccy bars and a packet of crisps! I was horrified, as was the school teacher, and we made sure that there was fruit available in school (from PTA funds) so that at least something worth eating could be given to the kids each day.

We have lost the plot regarding food quite desperately in the UK since the 70's and I feel that health authorities and schools TRYING to improve the diet of children cannot be seen as anything to actually complain about.

In the 60's and 70's obesity problems in kids were a rarity, but I know many children (myself included) who were not that physically active and who preferred to be somewhere quiet with a book. Our food, however, was just FOOD: cooked on the premises and served up, no choices and no fuss just fuel to get on with the day.

These days, fads and fancies and over-processed tripe has become the order of the day and kids are suffering for it but as soon as someone tries to address this we have an army of over-educated, middle class nonsense that refuses to acknowledge the problem and insists that parents must always have the choice.

Look around the poor fat kids in the classes and then tell me that the parents must have the choice!! Personally, I consider over-feeding a child or feeding a dreadful diet to be equally as much a case of child neglect as starving one and it is one of those occasions when I do not at all support personal choice I'm afraid.

The numbers getting fed carp both at home and in their lunch boxes are fairly high. Many parents don't even admit that the food they serve IS carp. I've had someone tell me that her children are well fed because she shops in M & S! Yes, but crisps are still crisps no matter where they are bought, and a pre-prepared and microwaved meal day after day will contain more salt and sugar than necessary whoever produces it!

I do think that the TA in the OP's post has gone waaaaaaaaay too far and obviously has little idea of what is and is not a good food. However, that does not mean that the principle of improving the diet of children (and thus the nation eventually) is a poor one, and if a few mothers get their noses put out of joint because their meal standards are shown up then tough, they needed that wake up call:D

Not sure what area you were in, but I lived in Berkshire during the 60's and 70's and it was only when I was due to leave the grammar school that they decided to bring in the packed lunches idea. We got a set menu each day and the only other choice was salad (egg and cheese usually:D).

Buttonmoons

I went to a primary school in a poor area, but the meals were always quite decent if I recall. I left in 98? I think!

There was always 2 choices, plus some salads at the side you could pick from usually a bit of lettuce with a hard boiled egg or some cheese! We got hot dogs once every 3 weeks, but if you choose the hot dog (which WAS tiny btw) you didn't get anything else on your plate, but you did get a cup of milk with it (normally just water) the meals I can remember were just normal things, mince and skirlie, then you could pick a veg and some boiled spuds etc, jacket pots with beans, mac n cheese, cauliflower n cheese, sausages in gravy etc. Listing that, probably wasn't all that healthy :rotfl: but my younger sister started at that school the year I left, and that is when the dinners went down the pan, turkey twizzlers etc, I hadn't even seen one of those before!!

Puddings were always some fruit, or a digestive and a dairylea triangle, and usually a pudding in custard, but I never took that unless it was chocolate cracknel.....:drool:


Oh I just remembered, those cheesy wheel things. Oh those were nice! I'm away to try and find a receipe!

dizziblonde

The thing is that school meals HAVE got a tonne better than they were. When I was doing my first teaching practice I remember my stomach physically turning at the sight of grey hotdogs, grey burgers and the smell... was flaming disgusting. These days if I walk through the dinner hall there are other colours than grey and I generally think "ooh that smells nice." They were disgusting in the early 90s, often cooked off-site and bussed in.

Mind you my last school cook went off sick - the uptake of school meals suddenly went through the ceiling as we got a cover woman in who didn't view cooking vegetables as some bitter war of attrition until all atomic structure was removed!

pelirocco

My 4 yr old grand daughter has just asked me if butter is unhealthy ....apparently one of the nursery school workers has told her she shouldnt have it in her lunches !

meritaten

pelirocco wrote: »

My 4 yr old grand daughter has just asked me if butter is unhealthy ....apparently one of the nursery school workers has told her she shouldnt have it in her lunches !

the nursery school worker had probably heard the news report that a highly respected cardiac surgeon had declared that he would ban butter completely!

Its just one persons opinion but....the media reported it and now butter is unhealthy.
tbh on the one hand we have butter - made from natural milk and cream and churned until solid. on the other we have 'healthy' spreads made from a variety of oils and chemical solidifiers, colourings to make them look like butter - oh and a few plant extracts.
I choose butter every time it not only tastes better but i am pretty sure that in a few years scientists are going to declare it is better for you than the so-called 'healthy' spreads!!!
oh and just one other thing - children actually NEED fat in their diet!!!

silvasava

Hmm - I remember seeing an email circulating some time ago that spreads & margarine were just one molecule short of plastic (yeah & some of them taste like that too) I've gone back to butter - in moderation & only natural ingredients.
I'm old enough to be quite nostalgic about my school dinners - I particularly remember chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce & the dinner ladies asking who wanted seconds.........ahhhhhh!

POPPYOSCAR

silvasava wrote: »

Hmm - I remember seeing an email circulating some time ago that spreads & margarine were just one molecule short of plastic (yeah & some of them taste like that too) I've gone back to butter - in moderation & only natural ingredients.
I'm old enough to be quite nostalgic about my school dinners - I particularly remember chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce & the dinner ladies asking who wanted seconds.........ahhhhhh!

Me too!!! We also had a pink cake/pudding with a pink sauce - loved that too!

ailuro2

the pink sauce was strawberry custard, nothing strawberry about it, I think they just used to add a dollop of cochineal to ordinary custard to turn it pink:rotfl: (crushed beetles in custard, oh if only we'd known...)