School lunchbox police

[Beyondbeliefsometimes]

Just after some input on others thoughts. Kids have come home from school that they are to have a healthy snack at school. The last few years my kids have been taking a fruit and the youngest also 3 cream crackers with a slither of butter (she doesn't like much butter). My youngest only eats fruit for breakfast, so 3 hours later she is hungry and does need a carb of some sort. Occasionally she will have bread sticks.
She has now been told that she isn't allowed butter, it is not healthy, she is to have dry crackers.
Their lunch consists of a sandwich, a yogurt and a small fun size bar. They have been told there is too much in their lunch bag... On a Friday when school dinners are hot dogs or pizza, they occasionally, very occasionally get a jam sandwich as a treat, they have been told this is not healthy enough. Yet if I paid for school dinners they could eat the healthy alternative of pizza or deep fried chips and sausages... Make it make sense to me! Also not allowed sugar free squash which they will still be getting as my youngest has constipation and needs lots of fluids to help and that doesn't happen when drinking water only. They have also been told their lunch bags will be checked. Yet dinner always involves a cake of some sort!

It is the dry crackers for me... Is this bat crazy or am I so out of line that they dry crackers is suitable. Jeepers we used to dare each other as kids to eat them dry it was that hard to do

(both my kids do afterschool sports 5 days a week and gymnastics at weekend. Both always need their clothes taken in as they waist size is much smaller than their height, you cna count every rib they have from across the room. So definitely not over weight. We are also in NI so back to school already)

Tell them to fuck off.

They’re your children, you’re paying for the food and you will deal with any negative outcomes.

Are the teachers following the same rules with their lunch? Most likely not.

And say no to their lunch bags being checked.

That’s too far.

dry crackers? No. Butter is not unhealthy. They can jog on.

I'd speak to the chair of governors. I would imagine a dinner lady is applying her own interrpetation of a healthy lunch. I have had words with parents who have sent in a McDonalds Happy Meal as a school packed lunch as it upsets the other children, but crackers and butter, really?

In what world should adults at work be subject to any rules that are put in place to manage children being educated in large groups?

If the rules are an issue in themselves, then challenge that, but not with this ridiculous notion.

What an absolute joke. I would be raising this with management staff and making a complaint of it doesn't change. What you're packing sounds a great deal healthier than some of the hot lunch options.

How come they're back at school already? I thought the summer holidays didn't vary?

Surely they allow butter on sandwiches ?
Would they allow cheese spread on the crackers or is a bit of Dairylea forbidden too?

@HauntedbyMagpies Scotland (and weirdly Leicestershire) will be back by now.

This is hilarious. Cream crackers are ultra-processed foods, and Jacob's, at least, make theirs with (OMG, clutches pearls, look away now if easily offended) palm oil. And the school is objecting to butter. Won't somebody think of the rain forests???

(For the avoidance of doubt, this is not aimed at the OP. I don't worry at all about UPFs, and I think a lot of food scolding is classist bollocks. But even on its own terms, a "healthy snack" campaign that calls out butter and not cream crackers is moronic.)

I would be tempted (not really, but it's fun to think about) to send the kids in with a note saying "Actually it's not butter, it's this mahhhvellous vegan spread that I source from Japan. £180 a kilogram but soooo worth it. I can get you some if you like. Honestly, it's so like the real thing that I can't believe it's not butter!". Then let them send it for chemical testing if they want to.

More plausibly, you could ask the school for a complete list of banned (or allowed) items, and the name of the nutritionist who drew up the list. (They did use a nutritionist, right? I'm sure the list was totally not drawn up by the head teacher's assistant, who's a bit of a wellness freak.)

This is crazy. A little butter for growing children is not unhealthy! Can you give ritz type crackers that have a bit of fat in them but can appear butter-free?

their lunch also sounds completely not excessive in terms of quantity.

I don't have a problem at all with this. They are trying to get your dc to eat healthier. Is that really so bad? I do absolutely get the hypocrisy given their own lunches on a Friday, but I still don't mind it. They get to be the bad guy and your kids eat healthier.

I make muffins for my dc packed lunches I was told ‘no cake’ I said I will send them and you won’t confiscate them (my dc know to just start eating and that no adult is allowed to touch them to remove food) . They are literally healthy muffins (egg and spinach savoury ones or protein ones made with almond flour peanut butter and banana no sugar)

I’m with you on the butter on crackers but not on the lunch.

Jam on UPF bread, I’m assumimg yoghurt with sugar and/or sweetners and chocolate bar is not an acceptable lunch is my eyes. Quanitity over all food sounds fine but it sounds way over the sugar guidelines.

So glad my children left school before all this nonsense came in. How would little one feel about oatcakes or breadsticks with a smear of peanut butter, hummus or Philadelphia? Can't see Marmite passing muster because of the salt content, even though you only have a tiny smear.

Try smooth peanut butter in the crackers.

Quite agree about the batshittery. You'd think they had other things to worry about..

Scotland and Northern Ireland are back and some school who do 2 weeks off at October half term are back.

I forgot about allergies. PB and probably many other things likely to be banned.

We are lucky that our school hasn’t banned anything they said they follow advice from allergy uk that banning foods actually doesn’t help

But butter isn't unhealthy. Surely all things in moderation should be the message.
Allowing cream crackers but not butter doesn't make any sense.

Leicestershire is back already. And Scotland.

Are there some alternatives you could send, so your children are fed, whilst you challenge this and enquire exactly what’s acceptable?

There’s no point in going to the chair of governors. The governor role is strategic and this issue is operational, therefore the responsibility ultimately, of the head, from whom, presumably, this diktat has come.

Approach the teacher, followed by the head if necessary. It might be a harsh interpretation of rules by a midday supervisor, in which case, the head still needs to know about it.

Meh, swap to Laughing Cow (other cheese spreads are available).
When my youngest DC was at primary they were allowed chocolate cake but not a chocolate biscuit. So a chocolate covered mini roll was allowed but a bourbon wasn't.
I appreciate that they need to put a line in the sand somewhere as some parents are thick as mince but so often the arbitrary line makes no sense at all, and the person making the judgement has no understanding of nutrition at all.

I got called in because my DS was taking in leftovers for lunch. Soup or stew in a flask was apparently a concern for the dinner lady.
It turned out that home made soup with bread was unhealthy, but with a cheese sandwich was ok, and hot stew poured over (cold) mini Yorkshire puddings wasn't healthy, but stew on its own or with bread was ok. Bonkers

Could it be that they have adopted a blanket rule that foods with more than a certain arbitrary percentage of fat, sugar or salt is banned, regardless of the quantity the child is eating? This bodes ill for the science and maths teaching if so.

Really??? Oh wow I didn't know that. Poor kids! Although I expect they probably began theirs earlier