Prue Leith wants to ban school packed lunches?

[SneakyGremlins]

Good luck with that.

www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/amp/47733670

Wtf! How can she even try to promote healthy eating while stuffing herself with cakes, biscuits and pies on Bake Off! What bollocks!

😂😂😂 it’s just as well she’s not in Ireland we Have ONLY packed lunches no such think as a school dinner here 🤣🤣

Would love to see it with a child like Ds. He is a restricted eater on the verge of being tube fed. He needs his packed lunch of safe foods or he doesn’t eat at all

I wish the Pru Leiths of the world who want to improve the nation's health would recognise the value of a hot evening meal eaten as a family.

She may mean well, but she us undermining the role of families.

In Spain there’s no such thing as packed lunches. In public schools some kids especially from families who can’t afford the school lunches go home for lunch (usually to their grandparents’ house where they’ll get paella), or in private schools all kids stay for lunch. Like the PP in France, fussy eating just isn’t tolerated. You have to at least try the food. Of course, it’s not beige crap that gets served in the UK. My DS today had Greek salad for starter (with black olives, cheese, vinaigrette), then the main course was pork, potatoes and grilled green peppers. Dessert alternates between yoghurt and fruit every day. I don’t know if it’s less diagnosis/less visibility, but sensory processing/food restrictions don’t seem to be a thing among kids here. Maybe because our food is actually real, edible food?

My DD has a packed lunch today:
Whole-wheat crackers
Boiled egg
Carrot sticks/red pepper slices
An orange
Chopped strawberries
A homemade flapjack
And 2 small yogurts
Nothing wrong with that at all!!

That's weird, my Spanish friends talked about their 1970s packed lunches, which included diluted heavily sweetened wine. And always white bread. I guess Spain has changed a lot.

I don’t know if it’s less diagnosis/less visibility, but sensory processing/food restrictions don’t seem to be a thing among kids here.

Before having ds I had no clue how restricted a person's restricted diet could be (My only insight to it previously was mumsnet)....do you think maybe you just haven't come across children who have issues with eating?

Maybe because our food is actually real, edible food?

Having a restricted diet due to sensory issues, pain associated with eating, fears around food etc is chuff all to do with this.
As a family we eat good home cooked food, my dds have no issues around food.

Does Pru want to pay for every kitchen to be upgraded(and the transport costs for those who 'buy in')
Can she pay for the staff?

Does Pru just want publicity?

Natsku yes at my daughter's school different dietry needs are met - but not 100% fully. Some children have very severe allergies so their parents won't risk any error of school meals. An awful lot of children in the school have ASD which means various different food 'issues'. There are children who can not have wheat, dairy. It is just easier in order to ensure these children actually eat and that food is safe for them that their parents send a packed lunch. Going by the 30 children in my daughter's class the amount that would require an 'alternative' menu is about half of them. The school does offer some alternatives but they simply cannot for everyone 100%. So if a no packed lunch rule was bought in pretty much half the school would have to get 'special permission' for a packed lunch.
However is that then fair to a child who has no specific diet need but simply does not like a certain food. I don't believe anyone should have to eat food they don't like. Would an adult who cannot stand the taste of lamb buy a lamb joint to eat? No they wouldn't. Parents know what their children will eat and many prefer them to have a packed lunch rather than spending lunch time in tears.

You couldn't pay me enough to eat the stuff that's toshed out from the school canteen. I'm not even convinced that the 'chicken' drumsticks were avian in origin last week. They definitely looked to be more rabbit shaped than bird. One of those came with seven chips - the kids show us their dinners as they can't believe how crap they are. It certainly doesn't cost nearly three quid to provide a single chicken drumstick and half a potato - and it doesn't give a six foot fifteen year old enough calories to go through a GCSE PE assessment.

Do you imagine she has engaged with teachers, school leadership or actual pupils to find out if this is workable?
Yeabollox has she.

I don’t know if it’s less diagnosis/less visibility, but sensory processing/food restrictions don’t seem to be a thing among kids here. Maybe because our food is actually real, edible food?

Utter rubbish. I watched a heartbreaking documentary about mother’s with autistic children in a rural part of a Central African country a couple of years ago. Some of the mothers were walking miles every single day (some even having to carry the child too) to buy the only foods their child would eat because they knew their child would rather starve than eat the fresh, homegrown, homemade food.

It would cost me £3 per child a day and I have 3 children. There is no way I could afford £45 a week on school lunches.

My children today (they are teenagers) took a wholemeal wrap stuffed with chicken, raw peppers, lettuce and cheese, a savoury muffin, apple, homemade granola bar, cheese cubes and some chicken pieces.

The menu at school today was pizza and chips, hotdog (tinned) and chips or burger and chips.

I go into lots of schools, from nurseries to colleges. Most school dinners are rubbish and only have a vague resemblance to what is advertised on the menu. In several I have been in recently, I was unable to identify what they were serving up. They are generally very carb heavy too. There are very, very few I would be happy for any of my family members to end up eating.

So basically everyone would have to eat a vegan, gluten free meal for a quarter of their weekly meals (5/21 meals) to make it accessible for the majority of the school, I'm also assuming nuts are already banned and still would be?

Vegetarians and vegans expect a choice to be given, in addition to being able to supply a packed lunch, so why should families who eat meat not get a choice over a quarter of their meals, and have to pay for the privilege! I expect parents would be kicking off about this and, as a vegetarian who eats a mainly vegan diet, I'd support them in this. Yes they CAN eat vegan food, whereas vegetarians or vegans wouldn't eat meat, but vegetarians and vegans expect a suitable meal and so meat eaters should be able to get a meat based dish. Maybe once a week not serving meat i still say there should be a choice of dishes though would be ok and wouldn't be a big deal, but school/government/Prue Leith shouldn't be making that decision on a quarter of the meals a child will eat in a week

I don't think I'd ever support this, but maybe if it was free you could think more about the positives of trying new foods because their friends do etc, but having to pay when your child pushes food they don't like, around on a plate and then comes home starving so you basically provide a packed lunch type meal after school followed by their evening meal later, means your food bill is increasing because you are paying for an extra 5 meals a week per child. That's without looking at the people who currently save a lot of money by doing packed lunches, especially if they have more than one child, now they have to find dinner money and then may still end up spending the majority of the packed lunch budget as the kids come home hungry most days!

Ds2 is very picky but he could find something he liked each day even if he might sometimes have jacket potato days in a row. But school dinners are just not worth the money. I don't suppose they will be unless the budget available is increased.

I have a child that can't eat anything (multiple intolerances), I have to provide all food for her so we know it's safe. Her packed lunches are far healthier than anything served in the canteen at her school.

My other one doesn't eat anything- picky? Will eat when he's hungry? I don't think so. No packed lunches at his school- all must eat a school lunch. So he weighed the same at six yo as he did at 2 and a half. I had a thread a few years back when we were in holiday, and I was in tears because he wouldn't eat and it had been four or five days.

Some people just cannot eat. Even if their famished. He's about 7th centile for weight now, in Y5.

she is really disabilist isn't she, not a fucking clue about autism. or pverty, when you can feed a kid for a day on less than the cost of school lunch.

See- I'm still so upset from that holiday, that I used the wrong "their"!

I think Jamie Oliver had good intentions but didn't realise the enormity of the task and expected his celeb status to get him further than it did. He did at least try to offer healthier alternatives to the food they already enjoyed rather than changing the meals completely, offered a range of different meals daily, and spoke with the children, teachers and kitchen staff to try and work out the issues that came up

I think a lot did actually come from that, a lot of places have added a daily option of something like baked potato and variety of toppings / salad bar / pasta bar if they have the room and these do provide healthier meals and are often the go-to when people aren't fussed on the options that day actually giving them an extra alternative or the one they would have chosen has sold out. I think it made schools look more at what the children were eating and the effect it may have on their learning

He certainly didn't do what he set out to do, and I think he was extremely naive, but his intentions were good and he did put the work in and he did try to make it work when obstacles appeared. I think there has been positive changes in schools since then, some more than others but I think all have at least one improvement whether it's no fizzy drinks, chips once a week, no dessert other than fruit/yoghurt, healthy food lessons, healthier versions of children's favourites, healthy alternative meals like salad bar etc. It didn't get close to where he wanted, but he did make a difference for the better

I can't see this going any further, it sounds like a throw away comment anyway, but also because it's just not practical and I don't think that Prue will be putting the work in to try and make it happen

My dc have packed lunches, a lunch costs £2.20 a day so £132 a month for 3 dc. It costs me a 1/3 of that to make a packed lunch that I know is healthy and not bland beige food.
DD is at high school and she only gets a 35 minute lunch break. 1200 kids trying to get lunch at the same time is chaos so she packs a sandwich as it’s easier.

If she's found a way to fund, source, prepare and serve a tasty & nutritionally balanced lunch like French school children enjoy (4 courses usually eaten at a leisurely pace around a table with the teacher, linen tablecloths etc) then I agree packed lunches should be banned. If not she can fuck off if she thinks I'm going to spend £2.30 a day for my kids to eat a shit beige meal.

If the quality of food was improved do you think it would be more workable in this country? It obviously works in Finland and I assume they must have children with food sensory issues. I’m also assuming the food offered isn’t pizza, chicken nuggets etc. Although that is probably the food of choice for many children in the UK

DS also goes to a private school where packed lunches aren’t allowed, although there is a choice of different mains. He is quite happy with that. In fact he has never had packed lunch at school, even when it was an option at Primary School.