To think banning fried eggs is a step too far?

Oats have a lot more benefit though. My DH is diabetic and has had associated high blood pressure and cholesterol. Regular intake of oats has lowered both and hasn’t adversely affected his glucose levels.

I used to love it all. Our liver was lovely. Very tasty. I used to like the meat pie with shortcrust pastry too.
And yes, the scoops of mash.

What’s harmful for a diabetic isn’t harmful for a non diabetic.

besides, primary school puddings aren’t made with sugar. That’s why they’re so gross

Microwaved scrambled eggs are less nutrient rich than fried (assuming good quality oil is used).

I would have expected more vegetables - like max 1 fruit and more than two vegies/salads per day. Particularly when puddings are to include fruit.

I also would have expected at least one dairy per day.
An egg fried in Olive or Macadamia Oil is pretty healthy.

Definitely better than 'restricted sugar cereal'
A fried egg will always be way better than any type of processed cereal (not talking about porridge, but the type that comes in a box and is processed crap). Even the less bad is UPF and will have some sugar on it.

To put it bluntly - kids are getting fatter and fatter. When I take my kids swimming now, it’s a rarity to see a healthy weight kids. Too many have back fat, tummy fat and quite clearly are having awful diets.

We can pretend that parents are feeding them healthily and we can pretend there’s moderation going on but there clearly isn’t. For most anyway.

So unfortunately, schools need to pick up the pieces. The odd fried egg doesn’t cause obesity, but add it onto a piss poor diet at home, it tips the balance. If parents won’t feed their kids well, then schools have to. It’s as simple as that.

Nope, lots of lived evidence for it on diabetic forums, where people are checking their pre and post meal sugars and eating to try and keep them as stable as possible. Aka being in type 2 remission

If you want children fed well at school you have to build the kitchens again. And have dinner ladies who cook it there from a standard nationalised recipe.
But I don’t know if that would be possible today. The long list of wants and essentials to avoid for some would make it far too difficult to do I suspect.
From halal, kosher, vegan, vegetarian, no nut, shellfish, dairy etc etc.
In the sixties, shellfish allergies did not matter as it was never on the menu. Nut allergies were unheard of. And the other eating requirements were not something catered for. You probably had to provide your own lunch.
So you probably could not do it today.

And you ate it off a real plate, and went back up for your dessert, not like the horrible plastic prison trays they use now, with the dessert going cold on the tray whilst you eat your mains.
I will say, though, at least they don't make them eat liver now. School liver was vile, all tubes. I used to cut mine in tiny pieces and bury it in the mashed potato so I could get it down.

Laughing at the idea this is a “step too far”, we have a LONG way to go before we can start saying the pendulum has swung too far. We are in a mess. I’d like to see a reduction in ultra processed stuff more than anything else, but with the need to keep everything as cheap as possible, plus some profiteering in the meantime by some third party providers, that’s not happening.

I think if you look into the most recent research, good fats (not trans fats) including animal fats are not the baddies in terms of cholesterol, heart disease etc that they were once seen as.

Carbohydrates are more dangerous because blood sugar spikes trigger the production of cholesterol. I think carbs are now seen as the problem to a greater extent. We need fat in our diet so some extent.

And we need cholesterol, too, in our systems, to function healthily.

But a fried egg once a week - if they're banning those, that's just bonkers.

I think it depends on how the eggs are cooked to be honest. If we have them they’re done in a pan that only requires a tiny drop of oil wiped around it, to produce a decent fried egg but I doubt schools would be able to replicate that. I would have thought scrambled eggs a decent option as these can be microwaved or cooked in batches with minimum oil.

Cake with pink icing! Those cupcakes with really hard icing on them (not like 'cupcakes' today that are huge dollops of goo). Bakewell tart! Syrup sponge puddings! I've never liked custard but fortunately it was always optional - I remember the big metal jug of custard with yellow streaks running down it - bleurgh - but it was popular.

There were a lot of children on free school meals at my school - in those days, they got metal tokens with which to buy their meal at the till, otherwise you paid - I think the cost for a full meal was around 50p when I was at secondary school in the 80s. It might well have been the only meal some of those children got in the day, but it was a filling, appetising meal.

That sounds like an advert for the likes of ZOE which was not based on any good research

And Shredded Wheat which is literally one ingredient

I love eggs but fried is a treat. It also smells more than poached or boiled.

I wasn't a skin lover, myself, though I loved the skin on rice pudding when my mum made it at home. Never got it on school rice pudding. Come to that, never really got it on school custard. I reckon they skimmed it off, probably because of all the kids who didn't like it. You'd have been out of luck.
I had forgotten about the chocolate custard.

We hardly ever had ice cream, though.

Never did fried eggs at breakfast club, it was beans on toast. Why not have that?

I agree, there's a misconception that fried eggs are fatty, but the egg isn't, just needs to be well drained: the egg doesn't absorb the fat it is fried in, so drainage/something to absorb the fat like kitchen roll, is the key here. Scrambled eggs are much fattier as the butter (yes it has to be butter!) is mixed in the dish.

My kids are currently offered the following for breakfast at school: white toast (butter, or butter and jam), scotch pancake (butter, or with jam) or cereal. On Fridays they’re offered chocolate spread. I think it’s a strange set of rules - I doubt a pastry differs that much nutritionally to a thickly buttered pancake other than the latter is dry and horrid (we are in NI and they seem to love them cold here 🫤) but under these rules there will be no change.

I’d have mandated minimum two portions of veg with lunch and no highly processed cereals. I guess the issue is lack of budget and often cooking facilities.

Indeed. Some loon somewhere decided it was cheaper if you got rid of the kitchens and all the dinner ladies and just had a sort of heat up kitchen. Look how much you save ! Idiots.
My school dinners cooked from scratch by local ladies were delicious. And the puddings were indeed fabulous. Chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce.
Pink custard. Cornflake tart. And fish and chips always on a Friday.
We did have a playing field to play on that nobody had sold off to run around on.
And yes, we were mostly slim.
It is more a case of what we did not have in our diets. Very little fast food. No chicken shops. Or additional things with dinners. Ready meals were not commonplace. No huge bags of crisps, garlic breads, naans, bhajis, samosas, pizzas were not a regular thing, nor was pasta much. Burgers rarely, chips once or twice a week.
And portion sizes were not as massive as they are today. Hard to explain to those who have never had an old fashioned school dinner.

I'm going to be a bit controversial here, I actually liked the skin on the custard, most of the other kids hated it. I especially liked the chocolate custard we had sometimes. 😆

Oh, God yes, who doesn't remember sponge with currants in (fly cemetery) and custard, Jam roly-poly and custard, and semolina with a big dollop of jam in the middle. This was in the 80s for me, but same sort of thing. I think our school had shares in a custard factory...

I welcome these requirements, even though some children do get nutritious food at home.