To think a leftover happy meal isn’t the worst packed lunch you could have?

My son pretty much spent five years at high school with Ham and mayo sandwiches ( his choice)
Im not the type that cooks everything from scratch and whose kids will happily munch on olives and quinoa as a snack
But yesterday's happy meals is pretty grim even by my standards

To be fair, it may well be the case that the letter stating they required a packed lunch that day was missed by the parents who might simply have assumed it would be provided. That’s an easy error and if more than one child was in this situation, I’d assume that was the case rather than parents deliberately leaving them without. Especially since a few only had a couple of snacks- that might be the parents thinking “well school is providing lunch so I’ll give them a couple of extras too”.

I chaperone my DS on most trips too due to SEN and it’s pretty common for kids to forget things required e.g suncream or water bottles, I don’t think the teachers jump to assumptions of neglect and nor did I.

Because for school dinner the burger and chips are freshly cooked and hot.

last nights McDonalds will be cold. would you give your child cold leftover McDonald’s for their dinner? Or at the very least would you reheat it?

if it’s a leftover McDonald’s it’s not even a full portion. Is it a half eaten burger or. 2 nuggets and a handful of chips? Or is it an extra happy meal ordered to keep for the next day?

also, on just eat McDonald’s will not deliver to schools. But at least this option it would be fresher and at least warm.

They’d get the vapours if they heard what is in DD’s(teen) crappy packed lunch. I miss the days of primary when she had school dinners. Fussy little git!

Well consider me schooled. I’ve never looked into it just seen it on tv at times, wrongly clearly assumed it was better than just packet noodles.

Ramen is deep fried noodles. They’re about 500calories a pack and really high in sodium and low in everything except fat and carbs.

So shouldn’t really be given to kids either. They were invented as Japanese fast food.

I could never feed my child a pork pie. I’ve never eaten one they look like they shouldn’t taste nice so I’ve never offered them one 😂😂

Now cocktail sausages or sausage rolls or the little cheesy ones again fine.

Also if you’re a parent who doesn’t mind a frube they freeze nicely and tend to be just defrosted yet cold in a lunch box by lunch time.

But I know some don’t like things like frubes 😅

I’ve just got some skinny ones from Amazon first discovered them when camping when every Inch of space matters.

You can also get little tube ones to drop into water bottles.

Food threads - particularly about children’s food - are great. They’re stuffed full of hopeless logic and pseudoscience, all packaged up in snobbery, competitive parenting and wild claims about child abuse.

This thread is even better than most: bagels, Ramen and sushi have all been casually dropped in as regular parts of a packed lunch. And the finger of shame has been pointed at…a pork pie!

Riveting stuff. Thank you all 🙏

Ah okay. Yeah I'm getting flashbacks to sweaty sandwiches in my lunchbox as a child. What kind of cool packs do you use? Our toddler is starting preschool soon and we only have the big chunky ice packs.

I mean something that is quite clearly left overs from a take away.

A soup in a flask or some Raman is very different to cold nuggets or pizza. One of mine went through a faze of tagliatelle for lunch.

A peeve of mine actually is the fact schools don’t provide a place to keep food chilled properly or warm anything up.

That’s annoying as well. Even for a sandwich who wants one that’s been sat in a basic school box from 8:30-12noon ish getting warm.

I send in cool packs but from what my child says most parents don’t. When it was really hot I also freeze a water bottle so she’s got an ice cold drink with lunch as well.

Of course. But the PP said leftovers. So I was asking her if she meant in general.

Of course, cocaine and a cigarette would be worse. But no I don’t think much is worse than leftover, cold ultraprocessed fast food tbh.

It shows not only a lack of interest in health and development but also a certain level of neglect imo. Especially because I doubt they’ve followed food safety rules for cooling and storage.

Yes but left over home made food is vastly different to yesterday's happy meal

Any leftovers? I would happily send in leftover soup, lasagne, cottage pie etc in one of those food flasks.

Depends on the bread doesn't it. Pumpernickel or soft white 39p a loaf? There's a huge range. With an equally wide range if fx on sustenance value digestion

Nuggets! Even worse. In both cases you're risking an upset stomach, at best.

McDonald's isn't a meal
Its fine to have on occasion but that occasion isn't at school where kids need to be awake and alert so on this occasion they need a balanced meal.

Which emulsifiers?

what does not great mean, as PP said they weren’t tested for human consumption

The worst packed lunch I ever saw was a pork pie, two pepperami sticks, and two chocolate mousse desserts.

Or a full (warm) KFC delivered by his dad.

I think the cold McDonalds ranks somewhere between the two.

But I get what you’re saying, OP. A pp said bread a margarine would be better- I doubt it tbh, unless they are both exceptional quality.

Im sure they do - a McDonalds cheeseburger has 15g of protein... that also doesn't make it the sensible purchase when short on funds though.

Do you think the kind of person who genuinely thinks a cold happy meal = appropriate school lunch is thinking about long term budgeting OR protein content though?

It wasn't my post, but bagels usually have a LOT more protein than bread. I buy a generic brand and it's 9g per bagel. Bread has carb and not much else going for it.

I mean, no it's not a couple of Benson and Hedges, but it's setting a truly horrible bar for what we consider acceptable for our children.

I honestly don’t think I’d have the balls to send my child in with leftovers. I’m not sure what I think would happen however.

But it just feels like something you shouldn’t do like the old name something that feels illegal but isn’t type stuff 😅

The teacher watching your child open their lunch to cold left over dominoes, nuggets or something.