Prue Leith wants to ban school packed lunches?

[SneakyGremlins]

Good luck with that.

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

After being served the most over salted and inedible of my life in her restaurant I don't think she is in a position to ban anything except her own chef.

I have seen what they will be serving at primary school when my son starts in September, there is no way I will be letting him have a school meal.

@bookmum08 Your school must be an outlier then if half the pupils would need a special diet. But agree that the parents need to be able to trust the school kitchen to provide the appropriate foods for those with allergies and intolerances, that cross-contamination etc is taken seriously. It can't work without trust. I trust DD's school (she has Coeliac disease) and there have been no issues in the nearly two years she's been there, or previously at daycare (same thing, all children get a hot lunch - which is probably a big part of why it works, the children are eating like this from daycare onwards, they are used to it)

But I disagree with you about children shouldn't have to eat something they don't like. Their tastes change and they won't find out they change if they don't keep trying foods. DD has always hated pea soup, takes the smallest portion when she has it at school and fills up on bread but they had it again last week and she came home excited and surprised, telling me that she likes it now

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

Yeah it's not stuff like pizza and chicken nuggets here, chips never appear. For example last weeks meal list was lasagne and cabbage salad (raw chinese cabbage I think it is), peasoup, mincemeat sauce and potatoes with grated carrots, blood sausage and mashed potato with lingonberry jam and green salad, cheesy fish soup with rye bread and cucumber. There's always salad as well. The children serve themselves so can choose to only take a little if they don't like it, and they are allowed to go back for seconds or even thirds if there's enough.

But I don't know how it works with children with sensory issues. I suppose if they are severe enough that they wouldn't eat the lunch they would get a doctor's note like the children with allergies do and get given a special lunch.

Just remembered one thing that probably wouldn't fly in the UK - the children are encouraged to have xylitol chewing gum after their meal for their dental health. They don't give it out any more like they used to do but most children will take a bag of gum to school and have some after lunch. No issues with gum being discarded anywhere but the bins.

I've worked in 4 schools and the state of the school dinners is quite upsetting. Portion sizes are the same for the little ones as it is for the older children, it's not balanced, the vegetable options are weak and lots of the time the vegetarian option includes fish or even more bizarrely 'ham and pineapple' on last months school menu... I'm not saying it's all schools though as there's one school in my area where, if you get on a course there, you jump for joy because the dinners are amazing.

When my youngest tried the hot dinners, she didn't like them and filled up on a roll of bread. This led to constipation. Even though meals are free for key stage one, it's best mine are packed lunches. This way I know how much she's eaten! Never had another problem with constipation since. My eldest is packed lunches too, she loves the fact she can sit and eat straight away. The queues for hot dinners is very, very long! I actually don't think I could afford hot meals for both anyway. Also I don't see what's wrong with a brown breaded sandwich, yoghurt, fruit and a biscuit?!

I couldn't afford to pay £6.60 a day (probably more as secondary is more expensive) for my three so it just wouldn't be possible.

I work in a special school and the school lunches are the same as the rest of the schools in our area but they do make adjustments for sensory needs but they have to have been assessed first or they just get normal dinners.

£2,10 for a dinner in my kids school, having 3 kids i couldn't afford to pay that each week. My 6 year old has free school meals at the minute so i just make pack lunch for the other 2.

I do agree to some extent.
We live in France and my DC eat in the canteen for €3.20 a day (€1.95 if you are a low income family).
They are taught what a properly balanced meal is and there are very few adaptations made - there's an alternative for porc and when my DC had an egg allergy they provided him with something else on omelette day.
The menu is excellent and is the same provided to older people in residential homes in our town. Two days a week it is mostly organic and they buy locally whenever possible.
Plus it reinforces the idea of equality that's so important in France, because everyone eats the same.
That said, quite a few families still choose to take their children home for lunch and bring them back for afternoon lessons (packed lunches aren't usually allowed).
My two usually eat much better at lunch time so I'd rather they ate their main meal then and I can do something simple and easy in the evening like soup and bread or pasta.
However, this system relies on a properly funded canteen, means-tested billing and someone around to collect the children and feed them at home if they choose, so it probably wouldn't work in the uk.

Our school lunches are v good actually but my son was swimming 5 times a week by y6 and the portions were so small I ended up giving him a packed lunch because he needed more food!

If you are paying £2.30 a meal the food cost in that is around 75p, the rest is the cost of staff, premises etc.

If this had been around when I was at school I would've gone hungry every day. I didn't have a diagnosis then so little chance of a doctor's note. I could barely even stand the smell or bustle of the dinner hall.

I would be extremely concerned about how they would manage allergies and also nutrition teherakkkt based on my experiences so far...

We were told how fab our secondary school meals were ahen ds1 started 5 yrs ago. Held up as a standard for school meals.

Now its one small slice of pizza, a muffin and water no veg, no fruit for nearly £3. I can send in a box full of raw fruit & veg, either a sandwich/wrap or chicken legs etc a biscuit, juice for less than that. I cant afford £30 a week for crap lunches for 2 kids.

Sod off Pru.

With three primary aged children, school meals would cost £138/month, more than our gas and electric combined.
I don’t consider that a sensible use of funds when packed lunches cost £15-20/week, contain more fresh fruit, veg and protein, and I know for certain do not contain allergens for two of them. (Same logic applies to me and my partner too, we take lunches to work.)

Also, last time my dairy allergic child had a school meal it was half a microwaved ‘jacket’ potato with a scoop of over-boiled mixed veg. For £2.30. He couldn’t have the pudding. Last sports day they provided sandwiches and he couldn’t eat those because the kitchen couldn’t possibly make one without butter.

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

Tbh I don’t think it would work as simply as the school serving better quality food. When a French school cantine serves grated carrot or endive salad, followed by pork casserole and couscous, then a piece of Brie, and natural yoghurt (with sugar on top) and / or fruit for dessert... none of these foods are considered weird or unusual by the French kids because they have been eating this way since they were weaned. They have been taught to eat «proper» French food since day one - not baby food or children’s food. So they just get on with it, they know that nothing else will be offered, as it isn’t at home. That’s lunch, that’s what it is, you eat it.

A lot of it comes down to cultural differences and beliefs about the right way to bring up children. As a big generalisation, Brits tend to want their children to learn by experience, to develop their own tastes and preferences, find their own way. French parents already know the right way to do things (how to eat for example), their job is to teach this to their children so that they grow up properly.

Autistic children have had a very bad deal in France for a long time, not accommodating their food choices is the very least of it. They are rarely in mainstream education, and when they are it’s the parents who are expected to do all the adjustments, not the school (this is changing slowly but France is 50 yrs behind the UK in terms of provisions for autism). So I suspect the reason that it seems like there aren’t many kids with real food issues us that they either aren’t in the mainstream school in the first place, or they go home for lunch. Ds2 has a 2.25 hr long lunch break at his school. There are plenty of nounous (nannies) round here who collect 3-4 kids every lunchtime, feed them at home, they have a rest, then back to school.

The reason for not allowing packed lunches here btw is quite different to Prue Leiths: despite the increasing popularity of a lunchtime baguette for adults, most families would not see a sandwich / picnic lunch as an appropriate lunch for a child to have everyday. So they’d send in food that needed to be reheated and eaten with cutlery which would be a hassle and require cantine staff to reheat individual meals to a safe temp. Also, if there is an outbreak of food poisoning, the authorities wouldn’t be able to trace all the food that had come in and out of the cantine.

Sorry for the total derail/ massive post: as a Brit parent living in France I find these differences really interesting and tbh difficult to negotiate at times!

It can work well but the money has to be there to pay for it which is impossible at the moment with state schools unable to afford gluesticks.

My children go to an independent where everyone has a school meal. Parents are invited to book in to join the children whenever they like and I can honestly say it’s restaurant quality. All of the staff are able to have a free meal daily and they all choose to as they are so nice. This means that you do get a family atmosphere, with time to chat and teach table manners. All allergies are catered for with different areas of the kitchen designated to different foods, including for one child who has such severe allergies that he can only eat rice and chicken.

There’s a huge salad bar at the start and then 2 meat options and 2 vegetarian/vegan. There is always a selection of puddings including one hot one, fruit and yoghurt. The children are allowed to choose their meal and then have a taster pot of something they have never tried so that they know if they like it for next time. As a result my children are happy to now try anything.

Interestingly, there are very few overweight children at the school, one I can think of who joined the school in Year 4 although this is obviously also because they all do a lot of sport, daily really.

Some of the mums moan about the portions being too small but they are actually the correct size for the child’s age. I think we have just lost sight of what a proper child portion looks like. There are different portion sizes for the year groups and children are allowed a piece of freshly baked bread at the end of the meal if they are still hungry.

This can obviously only happen because we pay a big whack in school fees but I think this is the ideal. There is no way that this could be replicated in state schools without a massive culture change and lots more money.

This also works because specialist teachers teach science, music, pe, ict, d&t etc so teachers are not snowed under with the workload. This means that they don’t mind giving up half of their lunch break to eat with the children as they have time every day to catch up on admin.

I mostly agree with her. Our school dinners are generally very good. The caterers frequently do tasting sessions when you can go in and eat lunch to see what it’s like - plenty of salad and bread every day, a meat and veggie option plus pudding. They are produced to far higher nutritional standards than the vast majority of packed lunches I see.

And for every child we have with a genuine special need (allergies, diagnosed sensory issues) we have two more whose parents are the problem and kick off whenever their child is expected to behave like everyone else, or eat a vegetable.

Does this lady even have kids?? Does she know the terms 'food allergy' or 'fussy eater'

Also bear in mind that the school meals listed on official stuff and what children get served can be different things.

Our local "menu" looks okay - a bit too much stereotypical children's food but the carbs and the veg vary every day. In reality the children get mashed potato, baked beans and sweet corn every single bloody day. And

"did you like the lasagna today, little fennel?"
"We had pizza and mash mummy"
"Didn't you have pizza and mash yesterday?"
"Yes we did"

So sometimes my children have packed lunches!

When DD was in reception her teacher came to me to ask me to put her on packed lunches as DD was eating nothing. Teacher said she was being good and trying the food each time but clearly hating it so much that after one taste she was going hungry rather than eating it.

So I don’t think a blanket ban would be wise or fair.

I'm in my early twenties so it wasn't that long ago I was in secondary school.

Looking back - pizza, jacket potatoes, a tub of pasta and sauce - but just a tomato sauce, no other veg. If you ate in the canteen there were always boiled potatoes and beans and carrots available - but the main component was still pizza, chicken burgers recognized them as birdseye and other crap.

In sixth form we got fed up of this so we used to walk a mile to the local co-op for a meal deal, that actually contained fruit and/or veg.

@NotAnotherJaffaCake

How do you know whether a kid has issues or it's just parents kicking off? And what about kids with undiagnosed sensory issues, should they just be left to starve?