What was in your school packed lunch when you were growing up?

[Enjoyingthesedays]

How did it compare to your child's packed lunch now?

I was mostly on free school meals for my whole school life, but for about three months I wanted packed lunches and my mum obliged with a Primula sandwich, a cut up lime (because the cool kids had a cut up lime), an apple or pear which I never ate and a juice carton. I was about 9 or 10. It didn't last, my mum simply couldn't afford it. School dinners were dire, even worse when you had to stand in a separate queue at secondary if you were on free meals. There weren't many of us, it was a very middle class school, and we stood out like a sore thumb. Me and my friend used to run in and grab the pack up bags with a sandwich, biscuit and juice carton in. We didn't stick around for something more nutritious, none of us did.

Cheese sandwich on white bread
Penguin
Packet of crisps

A cheese of egg sandwich
Crisps
A mini cheesecake or trifle
Um bingo or Kia ora

My kids don't have PL now but in primary

Bagel with quorn and salad
Carrot sticks
Grapes
Biscuit type thing
Yogurt tube
Mini cheese

Chicken or tuna salad sandwich on whole meal bread, apple, chopped veg like carrot sticks, yoghurt. Can’t remember what I used to drink.

A slice of bread, often moudly. Usually buttered. Sometimes jam (once the top had been scraped of mold)

Had to choose whether to eat it early as i hadnt had breakfast. Or wait until lunch.

Sandwich made with sandwich spread (urgh) or tuna
packet of crisps
something like a club or trio
maybe some fruit

Ham or cheese spread sandwich on white bread. Square crisls/wotsits/quavers/mo sterling munch. Kit kat or penguin. Flask of squash. Late 80s to early 90s.

So different from what I give me DC. I always give them a large helping of veg & fruit, water only rarely chocolate.

50-55 ?

I got free school dinners. Everyone knew. I remember my Mum forgetting to give me packed lunches for trips. (Or half a sugar sandwich & an apple from the garden). I was bullied a lot. Awful.

@CantFindTheBeat thanks, fortunately it got better as I got older. I still feel bad about stealing from other kids, even though they probably don't even remember.

1970s primary for me
in my Winnie The Poo lunch box I had:

A flask of Ribena
An apple from the tree in Autumn, otherwise no fruit/veg
A sandwich bag of peanuts to share (can you imagine that now!
Monster Munch
Club (orange if I was lucky, but we got what we were given) or a Trio
Paste or Sandwich Spread sandwich,
Sometimes we had a flat/wide pot of raspberry ripple mousse which may or may not have thawed by lunchtime. A horrible synthetic mush…which I loved at the time!

Sandwiches, crisps, fruit (normally an orange or apple), something like a Breakaway or Kit Kat, jelly (not the individual pots you get these days but a portion of one that been made from those blocks you dissolve in water. My mum used to put it in a Tupperware container and one day took the wrong one out of the fridge and I ended up with peas).

😂 Did you eat the peas? I used to gobble them straight from the freezer (I still do!😋)

corned beef on white bread with salad cream ,packet of shops own brand crisps or sometimes i had the fancy ready salted ones that came with the little salt packet and some sort of biscuit penguin/trio/viscount/club/ waggon wheel ,no juice as there was jugs on the table with water /orange/blackcurrant juice

I was at school in the 70's and 80's in Ireland.In Primary School we went home for lunch in Secondary School I had lovely sandwiches with different filling cheese, salad , ham ,A piece of cake as my mum baked regularly .one thing i think of though is that we had no drink and used to stick our heads under the tap in the bathroom.We were probably all constantly dehydrated and therefore alway tiered in the afternoon.

Same here so I went home for lunch, 20 minutes fast walk each way so barely time to eat. Parents couldn’t afford school lunch.

@Afonavon No, because peas were (and still are) my most hated vegetable. I remember gagging when I took the lid off and saw them 🤮

sandwich - ham/cheese & pickle/etc
club bar/penguin
small orange/piece fruit

never crisps

my kids:
half sandwich
piece fruit
bread sticks
small cake bar
baby bel/savoury snack

also never crisps (have at the weekend)

My sandwiches were ham jam or marmite
With a packet of golden wonder crisps
And a choc bar - viscount, rocky or gold
Carton of ribena on Fridays but rest of week water
Sometimes I'd have a pack of raisins or an apple (wasn't big on fruit at all)

My dc get school lunches but when they have had packed it's been
Cheese or ham sandwich/ chicken wrap/ crackers or breadsticks with a little pot of hummus ir cream cheese
Cucumber sticks, cherry tomatoes and/ or carrot sticks
Grapes, banana, orange or apple
Frube
Baby bell or cheese string

At my secondary school in the late seventies we had 2 ice cream vans come and park on the playground 😲
My mum used to give me money for school dinners but I spent it on stuff from the vans instead.
In summer my lunch consisted of a Twix, an ice cream float and a jubbly (frozen pop). In the winter I bought a hot meat and potato pie from the local shop.
Its a wonder we weren't all obese or diabetic.

I went to school (a British one) in SE Asia, there were never any allergen rules, even when I left secondary in the 2000s!

Ah memories Bichette. Did your ice cream van sell single cigarettes? Ours did. A 99 and a fag for a few bob.

Cheese and marmite sandwich.
Penguin or rocky bar.
packet of crisps.
fruit (which went uneaten and remained in my lunchbox all week).

I’m very healthy now (still with treats though) so not sure yet how my DS’s lunchbox will look once he’s ready for school.

My Mum's homemade yoghurt (which was always warm by lunchtime) and squashed sandwiches.

A sandwich of some sort. A banana. And a Trio.