How to stop the lunchbox police!

Becles

DUTR wrote: »

Was the serving 33g though?
I suspect possibly more 100g

How on earth did you arrive at that conclusion?!

I wouldn't give a 4 year old child half a malt loaf in one go. Ours gets cut into 8 slices.

Here's the menu from our County Council for school dinners:
http://content.durham.gov.uk/PDFRepository/TaylorShawPrimarySchoolMeenu.pdf
There's an awful lot of cake and pudding on there!

Fridays annoy me. For example in Week 1, the child could have a pizza whirl and chips followed by hot chocolate fudge cake. I don't think that is very healthy.

With the choices thing, they tend to pick the bits they like best and leave the stuff like veg. My son found that when he tried school dinners as the last sitting just got random veg and stuff that nobody else wanted!

onlyroz

Money_maker wrote: »

How ridiculous :rotfl:
Sounds like they're trying to increase the uptake on school dinners which may not sound as daft as you think. Last I knew just under 4 years ago is that numbers of school dinner children was down and staff were under threat.

It's no wonder when they cost a tenner a week - you can get a decent telly and broadband package for that much. I do packed lunches for all four of us for less than that. Trouble is, my son rejects sandwiches made from bread with any kind of seed in it or on it, and he randomly becomes "allergic" to chicken/tuna etc as e whim suits him..

Frogletina

Things were different when I was at school

As a young child I went home for dinners, but there was a tuck shop in my infants school (never had any money to buy from it though!) Don't remember one at my junior school.

At secondary school we were not allowed to have packed lunches - but we were able to buy things at breaktime, I remember buying milky ways - proper ones mind you, not what they are today.

The dinners though were all cooked on the premises, and most of the time were fabulous. No choice of food then though, dinners were collected for a table of 8, and one person would serve the rest of the table. I however was the exception to the rule as I was a vegetarian and one of the cooks fried me an egg every day.

KxMx

patchwork_cat wrote: »

If you read my link in previous thread you will find that in fact fats are recommended for children including sat fats at a higher level than adults.

Exactly. While I would never advocate feeding kids junk 24/7, it is a fact that growing, active children need good and bad fat in their diet. Something most zealots forget!!

I do think this whole saga gets taken far too far. Why take a few sweeties and let the little boy have the cake? 5 mins in the playground and the sweets would have been burnt off! And others point out, schools leap on crisps and chocolate as forbidden but the dinners they serve can't always be considered healthy.

VfM4meplse

*max* wrote: »

I'm pretty sure "paeds" in his post means "children".

Correct, a commonly used term amongst those of us that treat children in a clinical capacity.

meritaten wrote: »

Your post was totally out of order and has been reported!

I make no apology for disliking Soreen malt loaf. Perhaps you would like to grow up or cultivate an IQ? Alternatively you could stop "reading" the redtops. Or perhaps you were part of this mob?

SusanC_2

I think all this discussion/debate about whether specific things qualify as healthy or not is rather a red herring. The key issue is really the unhealthy attitude towards food and eating that some schools are cultivating in children as young as four. Multiple people said that their primary school age children had turned down specific foods because the message they had been given from the school was that they are "fattening". That is not a good message and seems highly likely to be setting children up for future problems. The message should be about *balance* and *moderation* with regard to food - not that foods are "fattening". Normal primary school children should not be worrying about whether their food is "fattening" and the fact that schools are causing them to is very disturbing.

bedpotato_2

I see a new trend: calling "junk food" "treat food" instead. Giving it a euphemism to lesson your guilt and increase denial is not going to change the facts. Junk is junk. Also, by definition a "treat" is something extravagant indulged in on a rare occasion. Feeding your child crisps on a daily basis means it is no longer a "treat" so stop lying to yourselves. You're making fatty junk a regular part of their diet and sending them the message that junk food is for incorporating into regular meals, as opposed to occasional snacks once in a blue moon.

No wonder so many poor kids are obese.

And, by the way, a "balanced diet" means consuming the right proportions of proteins, carbs, fats, fibres, and fruit and veg. It means knowing how much you should be having of each thing and eating accordingly. It does NOT mean an excuse to eat a wide variety of junk on a regular basis and when confronted about it whine to someone: "crisps are OK because I'm feeding a balanced diet." Em no sorry you're not. You're feeding junk. Instead of teaching kids "fats are bad" we should be explaining to them that fats are fine as long as consumed in small amounts. Don't they teach the Food Pyramid any more in schools?

moomoomama27

bedpotato wrote: »

I see a new trend: calling "junk food" "treat food" instead. Giving it a euphemism to lesson your guilt and increase denial is not going to change the facts. Junk is junk. Also, by definition a "treat" is something extravagant indulged in on a rare occasion. Feeding your child crisps on a daily basis means it is no longer a "treat" so stop lying to yourselves. You're making fatty junk a regular part of their diet and sending them the message that junk food is for incorporating into regular meals, as opposed to occasional snacks once in a blue moon.

No wonder so many poor kids are obese.

Rubbish!

Lets call them higher fat options then, to appease you! I have no guilt when I allow my children higher fat/sugar foods, because I do so in the knowledge that they have a healthy balanced diet, everything in moderation, with plenty of exercise! No obese children here, and have done this with all 3 children!

adouglasmhor

HappyMJ wrote: »

What do you mean? Soreen malt loaf has 2% fat. 0.6grams per serving that isn't much. The ingredients are Wheat Flour, Raisins, Invert sugar syrup, Malt flour, Malt extract, dried whey, Vegetable fat, salt, yeast and preservative e282. None of that is too bad except maybe the e282.

e282 calcium propionate, found naturaly in cheese and some other dairy products stops yellow mould growing in baked goods. Not that terrible unless someone has a dairy problem.

newcook

As susanC said, its more to do with the fact that schools are telling children as young as 4 that they have taken away the cake/chocolate/crisps because it will make them FAT!
The country already has a problem with teenagers being anorexic or on a diet of somesort or skipping meals because they want to be skinny like their favourite popstar. It is disgraceful that schools feel they can tell a child that if they eat this or that then they will get fat.

On the malt loaf thread, there were people saying that of a weekend they would offer their children a treat but the treat was being refused because they didn’t want to get fat!

The schools should start teaching the children the games we all used to play in the playground and giving them more than 1 half an hour P.E lesson a week.