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)

Butter is not unhealthy. They are talking absolute bollocks. Ask them for an explanation of their reasoning with research to back this up.

Keep giving them the same thing with a note that your child can hand to the lunchbox police. If they kept removing it I would go nuclear on them.

You need to email in a formal complaint about that teacher. They are going to end up giving the children eating disorders.

*How could homemade soup be unhealthy?

They are bonkers.*

Of course it can be unhealthy. Granted, it's unlikely to be, but a soup with lots of double cream or cheese might not be great if eaten frequently.

Why would it? Cream and cheese isn't unhealthy.

And it's still 100x healthier than the UPF hotdogs and pizza, and cake and custard that the school serve.

Could your DD have a Dairylea triangle with the crackers?

Cottage cheese goes beautifully on crackers and is naturally low in fat - decant into a separate pot and tip onto crackers when it's time to eat them. Longley Farm would be my pick!

We had this over a babybel and one chocolate out of a tub of Roses. I told them to get stuffed. I told them that my sons eats a balanced diet and does 3 sports which tie him up all week after school. They told me they were trying to encourage healthy eating habits at school which I said was great but my son eats healthy and exercises non stop and what I send him to school with to eat is decided by me as his mum. Still have ongoing issues and I’m going to have to remind them again to sod off.

Some schools are back - Scotland is earlier as is Leicestershire. I imagine others too

It's a minefield. We have the obligatory email every year about snack. School provide apples (which are rank) parents can provide snack.

No nuts/crisps/chocolate (obvs) They can however (according to the email) provide a cereal bar..a sausage roll/brioche all of which are in my eyes questionably interesting.

but my son and his "dairylea dunkers (he only eats the sticks) and innocent smoothie were food shamed when his teacher told me it wasn't healthy and suggested a "Frosties cereal
bar" wtf

Now he takes a quarter marmite/ham sandwich on wholemeal for snack.

I'd add to this thread that the staff room is like Willy Wonkas chocolate shop in my son's school.

On their governors notes it says the staff are incentivised by chocolate to keep them going..

How can you be unaware that not every school in the world has holidays at the exact same time? Schools in the US are back already too. In New Zealand they have a longer holiday over Christmas as it’s their summer.
You’ve honestly never seen any reference to kids in Scotland finishing up at the end of June?

Unless these instructions are officially produced by a qualified dietician (NOT a nutritionist or other non qualification), dinner ladies and teachers should not be trying to enforce them. By all means get correct information and implement it across school meals and packed lunches, but these made up rules are harmful.

The school are definitely overstepping the mark and yanbu at all. It's control freakery, especially as it makes no sense if they would eat rubbish if they had school dinners. Go and see the head and tell them to butt out!

I hate the lunch box police. Ours tried to ban chocolate. I give chocolate no fucks given.

My three go in with various.

Youngest the only primary varies between cheese rolls, hot noodles, chicken salad pasta. With shocker doritoes, a piece of fruit and a chocolate bar/snack bar with a bottle of spring water. Sometimes lots of fruit, could be an apple plus box of raspberries and strawberries. Sometimes a home baked chocolate and beetroot muffin. Maybe a jelly.

This time of year lots of fruit as everything in the garden is ripe she could feed the class their fruit snacks.

School give out butter covered bagels for breakfast 🤷🏻‍♀️😅

What your children eat is or should be your responsibilty. Absolutely nothing wrong with what you are providing. Keep sending it and get in touch with a senior member of staff.
It amazes me how teachers have the time to do all this lunch box snooping never mind the right to do it.

Ask them to put it in writing. Bet they won't...

It would have been drawn up by a numpty in the LEA.

I’m 44 and we took snacks to school for morning playtime. An apple or a packet of Salt’ n ‘Shake crisps usually!

as a Chair of Govs at a state infant and junior school in England, I have dealt with this nonsense before from the SLT and over thinking instructions from the DoE / DoH or County. If you can find time to meet with the HT and follow that up in writing if you agree a way forward that will help. If the HT is not able to agree, please go to the CoG via email cc the HT. The school have a right to enforce certain policies and make operational decisions but this is a strategic policy that the govs should have agreed before enforcement. This sounds nuts and is exactly the sort of thing I would be putting my foot down over with the governors at the first opportunity and using the same example of asking what the school kitchen is serving and what staff are eating.

They wouldnt be allowed in most schools with peanut butter in them.

Please don't put peanut butter on as it's so easily transferred. Ritz crackers are pretty nice plain. Bread sticks, carrot sticks or cucumber with hummus is quite a good alternative.

I wouldn't put in a fun size bar with lunch. Sandwich or something from above then carrot sticks or fruit. Most schools hate yoghurts!! We used to put fruit based snacks and things like cheese cubes in.

Send them in with a whole lobster in its shell, and a whole coconut for pudding, with a picture of Tom Hanks from Castaway promo shots.

You won't be hearing from them again.

100%. This makes me so mad. My dd would have pizza and chips and then cake and custard for dessert but they're not allowed crisps in lunchboxes because they're too salty, or jam sandwiches and the list goes on. I understand no chocolate bars, no gum and no fizzy drinks but the lunchboxes are so strict and the school dinners are so unhealthy!

The lunchbox policing absolutely boils my blood.

• children need calories.
• children should be encourage to eat a variety of foods without shame and guilt.

it’s perfectly and totally healthy to have butter, chocolate, crisps, cake. Whatever! In moderation as part of a varied diet.

I remember when my children were at primary school that one mother was told off for giving her daughter left over salad from supper the night before. Perfectly healthy, included cheese and ham.
My GC are both very thin, verging on a BMI that is too low. I give them a big breakfast before they go, cereal, whole milk, eggs, toast, jam or spread, but they don't much like the school lunches so could do with a filling snack too. Both eat like horses and would be far better off with a cheese sandwich (buttered or not!) than a "healthy snack" which isn't filling at all. Their school lunches don't seem particularly healthy, pre-ordered but often UHP food without much choice, and they're usually starving by the time they come out of school.

Our school won't allow anything nutty which includes hummus because of the sesame seeds,