Free school meals from Sept 2014

jellyhead

As a child I often had a slice of cheese on toast, or pilchard on toast as a hot lunch, then had a hot meal in the evening.

If one of us has a large lunch then I still cook the same evening meal but give them a smaller portion, or they have salmon and broccoli but without potatoes, for example.

onlyroz

ViolaLass wrote: »

I don't understand why having two hot meals a day would cause your child to be overweight. Surely portion size is the issue, not whether the food was cooked or not? I had hot meals at school and usually pasta or similar at home (still do now) and I have never been overweight.

I had an extremely overweight friend who was not allowed a hot meal in the evening because her parents only wanted her to have one hot meal a day. As a result she had three deep-fried cheese patties each day for her lunch followed by peanut butter and HP sauce sandwiches for her dinner. So I agree that it's the quantities of food that matter and not whether it is hot or not.

Person_one

onlyroz wrote: »

I had an extremely overweight friend who was not allowed a hot meal in the evening because her parents only wanted her to have one hot meal a day. As a result she had three deep-fried cheese patties each day for her lunch followed by peanut butter and HP sauce sandwiches for her dinner. So I agree that it's the quantities of food that matter and not whether it is hot or not.

The nutritional value too. That menu makes me feel nauseous just reading it!

ska_lover

I think this is just ridiculous.

Tax payers funding free meals for all school children in these certain year groups.

Another joke thought of by the government

onlyroz

Person_one wrote: »

The nutritional value too. That menu makes me feel nauseous just reading it!

I think the main problem with my friend was that she was effectively given free rein over what she ate from the age of 11. She could eat whatever she liked for lunch and then choose whatever she liked from the kitchen cupboards for dinner. And most 11-year-olds aren't capable of making sensible nutritional decisions.

The only thing my school did to encourage healthy eating was to make the chips twice as expensive as everything else, so if you wanted them then you had to spend half your dinner money to get them. Later on they tried a scheme where you could get a card stamped if you chose healthy options. These stamps could then be exchanged for a free swim at the school sports centre. Needless to say the scheme was a flop.

moomoomama27

ska_lover wrote: »

I think this is just ridiculous.

Tax payers funding free meals for all school children in these certain year groups.

Another joke thought of by the government

Totally agree!!!

Free meals for every child regardless of their finances? ...... Why?

What vital things will be cut from schools to fund this, oh I know teaching assistants!!!

fawd1

Deleted_User wrote: »

I wouldn't want DD to gave 2 hot dinners a day and we always encouraged as parents to be mindful of childhood obesity.

I didn't realise that the temperature of food affected it's calorific value. Screw eating less to lose weight, I'm just going to leave my pie and mash on the side for half an hour to cool down and lose weight that way!

Seriously though, the portions they serve in primary school on a day to day basis must be about equal nutritionally to a packed lunch. A sandwich, yogurt, fruit and some of sort of cheese is what we're encouraged to give our kids. Must be at least 500-600 calories in that.