Only 1% of packed lunches meet the nutritional standards of a school meal

[Ifailed]

According to a Government report www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53574164. Without Googling it, how many know what would constitute a "correct" packed lunch for a child - I know I wouldn't?

I agree that school dinners look better written down on the menu than what actually gets eaten.

One mum was unhappy as her Yr 2 son loved salmon which was served on a Friday alongside the option of pizza.

If her son was at the end of the line, he would have to have pizza, which he wouldn't eat, even if there was still salmon available as what was left was for the juniors.

How many portions of salmon were thrown away after the juniors had had their lunch I don't know.

I don't think school dinners work that well due to the amount of children needing to be served. Hot dinners and lunchboxes eat in different halls at our primary schools, so some children would rather eat less, but be with their friends at lunch time.

@ChangeThePassword. Oh absolutely agree that it is possible, but lots clearly don't. Of course, this is only looking at one meal, not the whole day anyway.

One of the things that annoyed me about DS's old school being over zealous with the lunchbox policing was that it didn't take anything else into account.

I make packed lunches depending on the day. So on the days that DS has swimming before school his lunch box is bigger because he'll be more hungry by lunchtime.

In their current school there are also two sizes of school lunch. Which makes absolute sense when you consider it would be daft for DD3, a very small 5yo, to be given the same lunch as her 5 foot sporty brother.

I recently spent time in hospital. The NHS provided lunch bag (for both adults and children) was a very basic sandwich - I ordered cheese which was literally sliced cheese in plain white bread - , a piece of fruit, a yoghurt, packet of 3 biscuits, small cake, drink of juice and sometimes a bag of crisps.
A lot of schools would moan about that ("Biscuits ! Crisps ! Oh the horror") but if it's good enough for the NHS it should be good enough for a school.

apparently both spaghetti hoops and sweetcorn are portions of veg

Why would sweetcorn not be a portion of veg?

I’ve worked in a school in the past where school lunches were compulsory. It led to a fair amount of waste, although not as much as you might think because if the children knew they didn’t like something then they would only ask for a tiny portion. I also found that the children who weren’t vegetarian would never think to order the vegetarian option, even if they didn’t like the meat one. So you would end up with a child sat in front of a plate of spaghetti bolognese refusing to eat it because they don’t like mince, when the veggie option was something completely different. I didn’t eat with the children in the other primary school that I worked at, so the vegetarian option might have been more popular there.

@HalfTermHalfTerm

apparently both spaghetti hoops and sweetcorn are portions of veg

Why would sweetcorn not be a portion of veg?

I’ve worked in a school in the past where school lunches were compulsory. It led to a fair amount of waste, although not as much as you might think because if the children knew they didn’t like something then they would only ask for a tiny portion. I also found that the children who weren’t vegetarian would never think to order the vegetarian option, even if they didn’t like the meat one. So you would end up with a child sat in front of a plate of spaghetti bolognese refusing to eat it because they don’t like mince, when the veggie option was something completely different. I didn’t eat with the children in the other primary school that I worked at, so the vegetarian option might have been more popular there.

Ah yes but then I remember being upset at school that meat-eaters would eat all the veggie option and if I was further back in the queue I wouldn't get any and I am a vegetarian! This was in the 90s when they would only do 1 tray of veggie food as not as many people were veggie then. Although exactly the same thing happened to me on the maternity ward in 2017!

Oh absolutely agree that it is possible, but lots clearly don't

Yeah, but theres no way of knowing what proportion of lunches deficient in calcium were also dairy free. At least, no way from the information I've seen, I'm sure the people that organised the study could tell us.

What is clear is that dairy does not guarantee enough calcium, and dairy free doesn't have to mean not enough.

I’m a teacher. I’ve seen some dreadful packed lunches. One was just two iced ring donuts, but most are fine.
School dinners however are not.
Macaroni cheese with potato wedges and garlic bread?
I’ve had to argue with the cook that no, vegetarians do not eat fish, that one frozen desert she put out contained pork gelatine and she might want to take it back from the Muslim child who had just picked it up and that mayonnaise was not dairy. Her argument was that mayonnaise was white and therefore was made with cream. When I pointed out it egg and oil her answer was ‘how am I meant to know that’.

@FlamingoAndJohn

I’m a teacher. I’ve seen some dreadful packed lunches. One was just two iced ring donuts, but most are fine. School dinners however are not. Macaroni cheese with potato wedges and garlic bread? I’ve had to argue with the cook that no, vegetarians do not eat fish, that one frozen desert she put out contained pork gelatine and she might want to take it back from the Muslim child who had just picked it up and that mayonnaise was not dairy. Her argument was that mayonnaise was white and therefore was made with cream. When I pointed out it egg and oil her answer was ‘how am I meant to know that’.

That's shocking! No wonder some parents have no confidence when child has different requirements. I had to argue with the cook once regarding a last minute menu change, was meant to be a chicken sandwich but she changed it for tuna and was getting annoyed at all the children who didn't want it, including the one child who was allergic to fish.

This is a menu from my local area.. can’t see that it’s any better than a basic packed lunch (ie sandwich + fruit or veg + small treat).

@SnugglySnerd I don’t eat meat or fish either so I know your pain! They did always have a few spare portions but you’re quite right, I think it would only have worked properly if they (the school) had asked parents to let them know in advance if their child would be wanting the vegetarian option on a particular day so they didn’t run out.

Like the time that they ran out of vegetables, so they were giving all the children a spoonful of the vegetable risotto vegetarian main course instead, when there were still vegetarians who hadn’t eaten

When mine were little and has packed lunches , schools used to mind their own business as long as kids were fed
As they dont know what they eat for dinner etc to balance it out
Also having a son with food phobia i put in what he ate , which was very basic and he would go hungry rather than eat
But he's 17 now healthy , sporty nearly 6ft , still doesn't eat a lot but a pkt crisp or choc bar in his lunch doesn't look likes its done him any harm

[quote questionssquestions]@SushiGo so that NHS write up is of part one of the study, published in 2006. The figure in yesterday's BBC article comes from a follow up study that was run in 2016. The percentage of so called healthy packed lunches increased from 1.1% in 2006 to 1.6% in 2016.[/quote]
Thank you, that's interesting.

I hadn't really clocked the dairy component. One of mine had (diagnosed) lactose intolerance so her lunch boxes would fail!

I don't understand why the study only weighed what the packed lunch children actually ate, as opposed to the school lunch children? Given how many children I have had at my house on playdates who eat absolutely no vegetables I suspect the statistical result for research into what all kids actually eat for lunch would be entirely different!

The absolute crap teachers have told my D(S)C is unbelievable. It’s not necessarily the teachers’ fault but the stuff they teach is all micro-level ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food (and often wrong)

I spent years doing supply, I have actually seen a can of coke on a display of 'high fat foods'.

School dinners do vary a lot, one school I was at did a fantastic meal deal that was well balanced.

Another actually had compulsory breakfast. It was a pain as the time was split between classes and kids don't want to do things for 15 mins when they know they are about to go for food.

Their lunches were also good (they actually had a French Chef) but a lot of kids didn't eat a lot of the food.

Secondary school food in this country is an absolute clusterfuck. Sodexo run my DC's academy. Most of the kids ate plain boiled boiled pasta with cheese every day.

I remember when dd was in about year 5 they did a massive overhaul on school lunch boxes. Occasionally ide chuck a chocolate bar or pack of haribo in there because you know it's nice to have a treat. After the first time she had something taken off her she told me she just used to hide it from the dinner ladies.
Just what a growing child needs to do, hide their food
What's even worse is when dinner ladies INSIST on a half eaten yoghurt coming home to show us how much they have eaten

Don't even get me started on how many times I've had to explain that fish is not vegetarian! This has happened since I was at school and when I started teaching although things are better now. I've even had this discussion in restaurants back in the 90s.

My favourite school dinner story (as a teacher) is when it was the day of the xmas lunch. A menu had been pinned up describing the roast turkey, stuffing, sprouts, potatoes etc or "vegetarian option". When I enquired as to what this might be nobody seemed to know. I was eventually given that traditional festive delight...macaroni cheese and asked if I would like gravy on it!
Happily the school where I work now understands what vegetarian means and makes quite and effort to make some different things. They cater for halal diets and various allergies too so that at least is an improvement in school meals.

most packed lunches fail because of either no veg or insufficient protein a wafer thin slice of ham is not enough neither is cheese spread most have carbs and fruit

@SnugglySnerd Don't even get me started on how many times I've had to explain that fish is not vegetarian! This has happened since I was at school and when I started teaching although things are better now. I've even had this discussion in restaurants back in the 90s.

We get this as well, we’re vegetarians, we also don’t do dairy and my son has a severe dairy allergy. Fish gets presented as vegetarian so often, we go for the if it has skin, scales or fur when its alive then we don’t eat it. We do eat eggs, so many people weirdly think eggs are dairy, I mean, where are all these cows squeezing eggs from their udders!

My son was going to have school dinners on a Friday as a treat, the first Friday he had plain pasta with cucumber, on the second friday he had plain toast. Both the vegetarian and ‘normal’ option contain dairy so they have to provide a specific allergy free meal. Each time it was forgotten, argh!

I find it hard to believe that only 1% meet sensible guidelines, but who knows what the actual guidelines are. My child only likes 4 vegetables so I make sure he is offered one of these at every meal, including in a packed lunch. At school dinners if the vegetable served is one he doesn't like he won't eat any. They also have to choose between pudding or fruit, so he rarely has fruit. I know he would have a more balanced diet if he took packed lunch but he wants to be like his friends.

They must be really bad to be worse than our school meals, which are appalling and even worse if you are at the back of the huge queue and there isn't much left.
DD has packed lunch, so she actually gets to sit and enjoy her lunch hour, rather than spend most of it queuing. She has usually had meat/cheese salad wrap, 5 or 6 cherry toms, fruit and a biscuit or yoghurt.

I find it hard to believe that only 1% meet sensible guidelines, but who knows what the actual guidelines are.

Probably adult diet guidelines such as less than 5% fat or no salt, so anything with cheese in it automatically falls foul of the guidelines, or some such nonsense.

@bluechameleon @CallarMorvern the paper on which this figure is based requires that your lunch include: starch, protein, fruit, veg AND dairy. It must not contain chocolate, crisps or any drink except water, milk or pure juice.

@SnugglySnerd My vegetarian DS has a similar Christmas dinner story - he was presented with the vegetarian option (some kind of broccoli bake I think) and when he asked what it was the dinner lady's answer was "I don't know"!

@SimonJT sorry to hear about your son's school meals but the idea of squeezing eggs from cows' udders has really made me laugh