British kids and eating habits - IABU ?

yes, welcome to the UK. our food is 90% beige, processed, fried, because we are an island and it hides the taste of the bad imported food and poor food we grow ourselves.

I didn't actually realise it myself until we hosted a Ukrainian refugee.

Yorkshire puddings - beige
fish and chips - fried
crisps - fried
sausages and cold meats - processed
pasties - processed meat
toad in the hole - processed, beige
shepherds pie - beige, processed meat
chicken nuggets - processed, beige
pasta - beige
english breakfast - fried

Probably because home boiled beans taste like shit to most people 😆😆😆

European kids do have tantrums though and they’re everywhere even where inappropriate. Just got back from Spain where it was ‘normal’ for 3/4 year old kids to be sitting on the floor of a bar screaming their lungs out at 11pm on a week night. Hellish

The Kids menu was designed to make the feckless feel right at home.

It would be perfectly possible to provide healthier meals than in the OP on a budget - but it simply isn’t seen as important here.

She's apparently not able to deal with the aggro from her 4 year old!

oP has a valid point, school meals should be healthier, loads of kids, and adults eat shit food…and not because they are pooor. I lived in Japan for a bit and school dinners were well funded and really good and healthy.

Haha we are locals. Not too many tourists in our part of Asturias.

You’re right but people hate to hear it.

Here we go. So European children do not have tantrums ?

Is it the same reason French children do not have ADHD ? (because their difficulties are ignored and the children are taught to shut up and put up)

Give me fish fingers and tantrums over emotional neglect any day.

Mainly yes, on the weekend he also cleaned the house. He also drove us as my mum didn't drive. (My mum was a drinker for many years and had cancer. She is much stable now but wont to do much apart from putting clothes in the wash and dryer or make rice and cook a steak). He is my hero and a proper man (in case there was sarcasm in your question)

The moment I read ‘we cook everyday from scratch’ I just knew it would be yet another of those judgemental posts from someone who has the time and money to feed their children good quality food from scratch.

Not everyone can afford to do so. Not all the mums are married to a dad who earns a nice big salary in the city which means they can be a stay at home mummy who can spend all afternoon cooking meals from scratch.

Fresh food is a lot more expensive than processed food. That’s why a lot of children from disadvantaged families are overweight. Posts like this anger me because it shames parents who can’t afford to buy fresh food all the time or where both parents work busy jobs/ can’t afford a nanny and therefore don’t have the time to cook ever from scratch.

Sorry but I think I would much prefer the Dutch diet - I can't think of anything worse than taking a packed lunch to work with a salad with chickpeas or pulses. Im not surprised your husband's colleagues comment 😆😆

The is not a typical school lunch for nursery. My DD’s nursery lunches were all protein, fruit and veg. Ditto her current school lunches. However she takes a packed lunch of a sandwich, cucumber sticks, yogurt and fruit.

Oh and we cook all our own food for dinner. Saying that Brits don’t is narrow minded bollocks.

You have the education to understand nutrition, the ability to read, the money to buy fresh ingredients and the time to prepare them. Good for you!

My kids eat all of the things on your lift, they also eat lots of fresh veg and fruit, good quality meats, meals cooked from scratch, everything in moderation! They also have the odd packed of crisps and biscuit, the horror!!

Just send your child in with the packed lunch. That's it. They'll have to eat what you give them.

As does Italy yet the average BMI in France and Italy are the lowest in Europe, with the lowest % of overweight people.

There’s obesity everywhere, but equally everywhere you see a dichotomy between the obese camp strongly linked to poverty; and the non-obese camp which is linked to more disposable income, higher education levels, healthier diet and more exercise.

In the non-overweight camp the diet is noticeably better in European countries than here - much less reliant on processed food - hence the term “Mediterranean diet”. Longevity in Spain, Italy, France, Sweden is higher than the U.K. (although Ireland fairs well on that score).

You simply wouldn’t get a French school serving the menu in the OP.

But that sugar turns to alcohol during fermentation, so obviously wine is healthier than grapes.

Chin chin!

I've just been to Italy and there were plenty of chips and nuggets etc on the "Baby Menu" and pretty sure I heard some screaming kids too....

Oh and we wean at 6m because that is what research suggests is the best age, not because the English have "weird" eating habits. It's no coincidence that the external signs of being ready for solids appear around 6m old, almost as if we evolved to be this way?? 🙄

They may stock them in tourist areas perhaps?

. Locals do not buy them.

School lunches are nothing like what we serve in the uk. Which are cheap and shameful as a treacher it used to beeak my heart knowing that some of those on free meals it could be their only food all day. It was masked as healthy because we didn't provide salt to add to the chips!
Here
Always a salad to start

Healthy main. Fish or meat with veg or rice or a veggie option such as stuffed tomato or pepper

Pud. Yogurt or fruit

The diet in the U.K. is atrocious, you only have to see the many obese children walking around. I would give them a packed lunch with fruit veggies and protein.

This has little to do with the UK diet and more to do with kids being kids.
They'll always want to push boundaries and say their friends are getting better stuff/staying up later/allowed to play xbox all day.

I'm not disagreeing that school meals are rubbish. But you're being unreasonable to expect the school to base their menu on what makes your parenting easier. They need to provide a certain amount of calories on a strict budget, and that budget doesn't stretch to multiple professional chefs providing healthy nutritious meals.

Kids learning no isn't an easy lesson, but it's necessary. Don't blame the UK for that.

What do children in Malta have for school dinners?

She's from Malta she says.
A country known to have an obesity problem.
40% of children overweight or obese and 65% of adults overweight or obese (Source: Eurostat)