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Prue Leith wants to ban school packed lunches?

221 replies

SneakyGremlins · 29/03/2019 18:08

Good luck with that.

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

OP posts:
Fazackerley · 01/04/2019 12:32

What's the difference though? They are both labels! Probably sensory issues are why all small children are picky- they don't like a particular texture, smell etc. Often they can overcome it or grow out of it. Some don't, but the majority can learn to eat most things whixh i presume is ehat we are all striving for?

PhilomenaButterfly · 01/04/2019 12:49

DD didn't "learn" to eat greasy foods, she's growing out of her sensory issues.

Fazackerley · 01/04/2019 13:04

I can't think of many people who like greasy food tbh

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SneakyGremlins · 01/04/2019 13:12

I do when the fair's in town Grin

OP posts:
PhilomenaButterfly · 01/04/2019 13:36

No, Fazackerley, but DD used to retch walking past the chip shop on the way home from school. Or if DH was making chips for himself, even if she was at the other end of the house.

BooseysMom · 01/04/2019 16:43

@HexagonalBattenburg.. lol. I've also said no to packed lunches as DS gets FSM. The meal choices at his school are good and well-balanced if you always opt for the main and a dessert of fruit and not cake. I give DS the choice of what he wants to eat every day and we enjoy going thru the menu options together but he tends to choose pizza or cheese roll packed lunches every time he doesn't like a main which is often. They do come with a piece of fruit though. He doesn't like fish and chips on a Fri so it must be bad!

JenniferJareau · 01/04/2019 17:46

It won't happen. Pru is of the era where you ate what you were given and were grateful for it. Picky eating simply wasn't an option unless you wanted to go hungry.

MythicalBiologicalFennel · 01/04/2019 19:59

I used to be picky. I would much much rather have gone hungry than eat something I didn't like. I just got used to being hungry pretty much all the time.

I would eat pretty much anything now Grin I don't think I had sensory issues. Simply my tastes have changed. Also eating time at home was so stressful I used to have a knot in my stomach anyway. I am hoping not to replicate all this with my DC now Smile

ineedaholidaynow · 01/04/2019 22:31

Finnish schools seem to be able to cope with picky children

Ifartglitterybaubles · 02/04/2019 00:01

I don't think people realise how bad Sensory Processing Disorder can be. I have three dc, two will eat anything. If you offered my youngest a bowl of ice cream or a bowl of broccoli he would eat the broccoli.

Ds1 will not eat food that 'touches' another food on his plate, no sauces or 'wet' food, no potatoes in any form, no sweets, cakes, or cereals. He will only eat one brand of chicken fingers or dippers, plain pasta, one brand/flavour of crisps, he will only drink milk or water. Sausages have to be Walls skinless if we give him 'normal' sausages we have to peel the skin away. He will try a small amount of sweetcorn or cold sliced red pepper (has to be red) he won't eat fruit at all.

This is a child who can sniff out a slice of (has to be orange) Warburtons bread from a bread line up. He lives on ham (has to be Tesco) sandwiches at school but no butter whatsoever. Add in the smells of the dining room and the noise and he struggles every single day, even his breakfast (toast) has to have no butter/spreads.

This is the reality of Autism/SPD. No amount of cajouling, forcing, or even begging will make him eat a food he can't. I say can't not won't. He will sit there and starve. Add in a severe nut allergy that triggers his already high anxiety.

We supplement his diet with vitamins and even those have to be a certain brand.

I'd like to know how private or Finnish schools would cater for him. Bear in mind he is very high functioning and thriving in mainstream.

Natsku · 02/04/2019 06:34

That level of food issues in a child in Finland should mean they would be under the care of the children's psychiatric clinic and so would have a diagnosis and a care plan and the school would have to deal with his food accordingly.

Starlight456 · 02/04/2019 07:00

I think the biggest issue is that the quality of the food is so bad . My son is at secondary . He pays nearly £2 for a sandwich or buys a pasta pot . Costs far more than it costs me so I encourage packed lunch

Starlight456 · 02/04/2019 07:14

I have also read some schools don’t have catering facilities and are giving hot dinners for free dinners,

What happens to the parents who can’t afford dinners?

Ifartglitterybaubles · 02/04/2019 08:26

Its a sore point for me at the moment. We offer him whatever we're having every day, I leave a small plate with different foods on the table at meal times in the hope he will try them, thats how we got him to eat sweetcorn and peppers. The thought of him sitting there in sensory overload whilst he is told to est foods that he can't because someone else thinks removing the choice of packed lunches is upsetting.

I laugh when my friends say their child is just 'fussy' They have no clue.

My son, who is very rule oriented/literal with a huge sense of fairness came home last week and told me he is not allowed a small packet of chocolate mini digestives in his lunch. This is one treat he will now eat and enjoys, why? The school is a healthy lunch school so no chocolate allowed, unless you're eating school lunches that is then chocolate cake or mousse is allowed. He can't understand as to him it isn't fair. He even asked the head why and pointed this out it took me asking the SENCo to intervene.

KeptTheBeachesShipwreckFree · 02/04/2019 08:41

For two ks2+ aged dc here it would cost £86 per month for school dinners. My youngest is in ks1 so has free school meals but my eldest takes a pack-up with sandwiches that vary by the day and by the week (cheese salad, tuna mayo, cheese & pickle, cheese & onion, chicken curry mayo with salad, corned beef and brown sauce, salami & smoked cheese, pastrami etc etc) along with an apple, some cheese, a yoghurt, some raisins and a cereal bar. If my dc had a school meal every day they'd choose the same thing (jacket spud with cheese) day in, day out so they actually get more variety with their sandwiches.

We buy tesco value stuff with Iceland bread and a big bag of small apples from home bargains for £1 so pack-ups can cost a lot less than a school meal. It also feels like one less thing to pay for because it's part of "the weekly food shopping" rather than a separate payment to school.

ClaraMatilda · 02/04/2019 08:55

I'm a picky eater due to sensory issues and would have been eating bread and fruit most days if my primary school had had this policy. I only found out that I'm autistic as an adult, so would have been categorised as 'picky' rather than 'with SEN'.

At secondary school, I stopped eating lunch altogether when a rule was introduced that students couldn't eat anywhere except in the canteen, so I couldn't sit outside with my sandwiches. I think this was intended to cut down on littering. The secondary school canteen was much noisier and far more overcrowded than the dinner hall at my primary school, and I'd hated the latter, so there was no way I was going to sit somewhere even worse to eat.

As an adult, I'd still go hungry instead of eating a food I have an aversion to.

These kinds of policies are probably absolutely fine for the 'average' child, but that doesn't make them a good idea.

Thewitcher · 04/04/2019 10:48

"Picky eating simply wasn't an option unless you wanted to go hungry."

Which many kids would.

UnPocoLoco2 · 06/05/2019 14:11

My kids get free lunches because of our circumstances and ks1 free meals . I think each meal is about £2.50 and that's an upfront fee of over £50. We could never afford that. We are grateful for free school meals but of course we would send in a packed lunch if our Dcs were fussy

wornoutboots · 06/05/2019 14:17

I couldn't afford to pay for lunch for my 3 kids. Over £30 a week!!

UnPocoLoco2 · 08/05/2019 09:49

I hope prue would offer to foot the bill too

ineedaknittedhat · 08/05/2019 13:21

What's the matter with packed lunches? At ds2's primary school he was regularly given pizza with chips, who in their right mind thought that one up?

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