About the bloody packed lunches?

Goodness, way too old for that kind of fussy nonsense.
Sandwich and fruit. And No snacks at home unless that is eaten. Sorry I am very harsh but I can't abide food waste.

Expensive much....

Maybe make your own one up using picky bits.

• buy breadsticks individually wrapped or the long ones and snap them. Do some carrot batons too
• Dollop of cream cheese in a small pot container inside lunchbox or a separate compartment. and hummus too some days
• boom, homemade dairylea dunkers

I remember pack lunch hell of primary. I ended up just giving one bread folded over with filling and a bit of fruit.
Break was another bit of fruit.
Insulated lunch box with ice pack as dc couldn't cope with warm sandwhich

Ah the stunt sandwich. We used to make a sandwich Monday - send it in packed lunch every day in week and then throw it away Friday. Basically DC ate as little as possible of packed lunch at primary cos when you were done you got to go out to play which was an infinitely bigger draw. Used to experiment with what we could get down them - pepparami, cheese strings, museli bar, crackers, rice cake, fruit.

Stunt sandwich just there to reassure teachers we did know what a balanced lunch was. Wed just accept it would never be eaten.

I still hate home made sandwiches for lunch. The bread goes soggy and always has a weird smell after having been sat in fpil/wrap all morning. I have access to a fridge at work but lunch boxes sit and sweat on a trolley. Grim!

Try putting other options in .ake their own lunch ables with cheese. Chicken crackers and stop putting cake in there. It's no necessary. Put grapes or orange slices in as they are sweet enough to be seen as a more pudding type treat.

don’t bother with the bread or crackers. Just give the protein and fruit/veg (and the treat). Life is too short to quibble over a slice of swiss Roll. I also found pasta salad went down well with little cubes of ham, cheese and chopped cucumber/baby tomatoes. Bread when it’s hanging around in a lunchbox for hours can be a bit unappetizing.

Give them fuck all.
Starve the them until they appreciate your efforts.

My 3.5 yr olds only have their left over lunch as snacks until I put tea on the table. Means the food isn't wasted and I don't have to put any effort into sorting snacks.

Ugh it's pretty obvious...don't give them treats if they don't eat the main lunch. The snack after school is whatever lunch they haven't eaten.

I think a sandwich and a piece of fruit is completely fine. Mine used to get that and a very small yoghurt (Petit Filou or those small squashy ones). That was enough for her and she was able to eat it reasonably fast. I think it's also fine to tell them that they need to eat whatever they've left before they get any other snack. I always did that too.

They can have the treat at home/in the park once they have finished their lunch.

Yeah but what I’m saying is that what is eaten from school dinners is more substantial than what other posters are recommending to replace the sandwich with.

Really there’s not much we can do about waste other than give them more time to eat, so at best we can ensure that the food provided is filling.

90% of the time my DC eat all of their packed lunch. I'm surprised to hear so many don't!

(They get a wrap with protein, Greek yog with fruit in, usually homemade sweet treat, some veg and a piece of fruit)

OP if you give them the stuff you want them to eat and tell them you'll leave the treat out but take it to school for them at 3pm

I don't understand your point.
My point was whether it's the school provided hot lunch, a home provided massive sandwich, a home provided tub of pasta or just some "cucumber and yoghurt" - so much of it is simply not eaten.

thats really interesting - how old is your dc?

I would cook chicken drumsticks fro my dc and then added in melon sliced and a rice cracker - one from a large packet, as they didn't do the packets back then.

That was what she liked and didn't want bread or wraps as part of her pack lunch.

can you work with the 7/8 year old to get their input and together come up with a plan

tbh cooking off 20 chicken drumsticks on a Sunday night and cutting 2 melons into 10 pieces and then bagging, same with rice cracker was really easy and every day they just pulled the bags out of the fridge and placed in their lunch bag.

They both eat a decent breakfast with out quibble and a good evening meal - so I felt fruit, protein and a rice cracker was ok compromise for school.

I think sometimes a yoghurt was also added

My daughter has been homeschooled this year and it is eye opening how much she has grown just because she has time to eat properly. She has almost doubled in size, and she’s in a good BMI now, she was underweight previously.

I’m the same. I really wouldn’t eat a sandwich in a packed lunch myself. My kids like things like pasta pesto instead, and I tend to take leftovers from the night before. We all have little metal pots to keep it hot/ fresh.

Lots of people don’t like a sandwich either at all or after it’s sat for hours.

I would personally leave out the sandwich if they never eat it!

Ok.. it’s not because they’re all on their mum’s “salad and a yogurt” diet though is it? It’s because they shove a few forkfuls of pasta in then want to go out to play. Which is much better for them than eating a few slices of cucumber and then running off to play.
Time is likely the OP’s problem too when it comes to food waste.

Snacks? Treats? Stop spoiling them! That is occasional food, like once a week.

I make packed lunches daily, meat/cheese salad sandwiches or cold leftovers like lasagna, one or two pieces of fruit and portable vegetables like cherry tomatoes or cucumbers.

I totally understand but for a little kid in a noisy dinner hall there's so many distractions. It's very easy to accidentally not eat.

We had a rule that was the treat only goes in the lunch box if yesterday's sandwich all got eaten before we got home from school. It was the food waste I hated so I didn't mind if it got finished on the way home.

It got to the point that DC got the impression that eating all the lunch was a key achievement within a school day!