School lunch rant - Would you complain?

pukkamum

elvis86 wrote: »

I have to say I disagree with you there. Its pretty unrealistic to expect a school to have a varied vegetarian menu every day of the week. Perhaps on 1 or 2 days they could make clear that all the food on offer will be vegetarian so that vegetarian children can have a schol dinner that day if they wish? After all, non-vegetarian kids can stomach a meal without meat occasionally too!

At the end of the day vegetarianism is a choice, one can't expect it to be indulged to that degree, IMO. What the school should do is allow vegetarian children to bring a healthy packd lunch without fear of having it taken off them!:cool:

I'm sorry but is being a meat eater not a 'choice'?????
I choose not to eat meat my DH chooses to eat meat.
What about the children for whom vegetarianism is a part of their religion ie Hindus.
I have never read such tosh!!!!!!!

neneromanova

Hang on, What happened to the good old days when I was at school of Sandwich, crisps, cake, yoghurt, piece of fruit and a juice? I'm not large now. We all used to go run around the playground at break and lunch.....

....God I'm dreading my DD going to school. I can see why some people home school!

OrkneyStar

Please let us know how you get on!
Mac cheese is decent enough for a child, but what you gave her is as decent, if not better! How does your daughter feel about it ? Have you spoken to any of the other parents ? I really hope you get this sorted..........headteacher needs to listen to you and perhaps the CA needs to be told more about what is and is not healthy!

reehsetin

pukkamum wrote: »

I'm sorry but is being a meat eater not a 'choice'?????
I choose not to eat meat my DH chooses to eat meat.
What about the children for whom vegetarianism is a part of their religion ie Hindus.
I have never read such tosh!!!!!!!

Exactly

it's really not hard to do a veggie version,

meat eaters get meat lasagna, veggies get veggie lasagna, same goes for pasta, pizza's whatever else they choose to make! millions of people manage to live off a veggie diet without eating the same meal days in a row!

p.s. when I was veggie and everyone I know who is veggie has never touched macaroni cheese!

POPPYOSCAR

In my personal experience it is only when I have taken a strong stance with the schools that I have been listened to.Sometimes they tend to treat parents like the children.If they know you are serious about something they usually back off.

GobbledyGook

I disagree about the vegetarian options. I think the school should be obliged to have something - and it shouldn't be the same thing every day.

I pointed out to the head that they could make it much easier on themselves. They make pizza once a week and they put ham or chicken on it - they could easily leave some as cheese and tomato. They make a pasta bake type thing that is in a tomato sauce topped with cheese and bacon - it could be topped with just cheese or some could have just cheese. They make soup and have lentil and bacon, but could sometimes just have lentil. In their sandwich selection she is limited to cheese. Now I might be being unreasonable, but I don't think having macaroni 3/4 times a week and cheese sandwiches (on horrible bread) twice is a healthy balanced lunch. It would be very easy to make some of their options suitable for vegetarians - it just takes a bit of thought.

Gemma x

Pee

Are schools able to take food off children? Even if you sent them in with nothing but crisps and chocolate bars I've never heard of a parent being prosecuted for feeding their child the wrong thing.

Your child's lunch sounds very healthy and tasty to me and surely is less fattening than the macaroni cheese option.

I would be furious, but would try to keep calm and restrained for the initial discussion with the headmistress. Good luck.

*onlyme*

I would be furious too. Think everything I thought has been said before.

Some schools sound like they can learn a lot from sorting different meals. Our school (as in all Hampshire CC ran schools) have a 3 weekly rotation menu.

Here is the current one..,might give you school some food for thought!

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/caterers/hc3s-menusandotherinformation/hc3s-primaryschoolmenu.htm

Angel1978_2

I am currently having a barny with my daughters school at the moment over her packed lunches.

She has (every day) 4 x crackers, 1 x cheese string, ham, cucumber, tomatoes, yoghurt (not a tub one of those tube things she loves), banana and a juice drink (squash). This was the healthiest I could concoct that I knew she would eat. She won't touch bread so we've had to go down the cracker route.

However, the food isn't the issue. It's the waste afterwards. Currently this school year we've gone through 4 lunch boxes because the school refuse to allow my 5 year old to put her rubbish in the bin afterwards. So there are banana skins, orange skins, messy yoghurt tubes, squash cups left in her bag all day to smell out and grime up her lunch box.

The school say that the don't allow children to throw their rubbish in the bin as parents need to know what they are eating throughout the day. I KNOW she will eat her lunch. She is a good eater and i've carefully put this together BECAUSE I know she will eat it. They aren't letting up even though i've given my permission to throw the lunch in the bin if she doesn't want it (believe me, if my daughter doesn't want her food she's ILL!!!).

I'm completely confused. As is my 5 year old who now leaves rubbish all over the place as she's been told off for putting it in the bin! :mad:

I think i'm going mad!

GobbledyGook

Angel1978 - it's the same with my daughter's school. I give her one of those ziplock freezer bags in her box and once she's done with everything anything that is left goes in the bag and gets sealed. Stops the box getting too manky. Also swapping her plastic lunch box for one of those small cool bad types with the silver lining seems to keep things cooler so less smelly.