To be really, really irritated by this leaflet from the School Food Trust...

[SuseB]

DD came home on Friday with a 'Little Book of Goodness' from the School Food Trust. Is basically an advert for school dinners (DD has packed lunches). Wouldn't have minded but there was actually a page that said Packed Lunches - big red cross, School Dinners - big green tick. Cites a load of research about the fat, salt and sugar packed lunches contain, waxes lyrical about how packed lunches don't contain vegetables.

AIBU to be irritated? Seems unhelpful to make all packed lunches seem undesirable - kids have them for all sorts of reasons (in our house - cost, control of contents and child's preference). I am of course aware that the producers of the leaflet have not had the benefit of seeing my DDs carefully chosen, lovingly prepared and nutritionally balanced lunches :)

The only reason ds wants school dinners is that it's the kind of junk food he'd never get from us.

YANBU. I don't care what people put in their DC's lunchboxes - although let's face it, most schools are so pernickity that there's not much chance of a child going to school with a sandwich, apple, packet of crisps and a can of coke as there was in my day (and I speak as a permanent, eat like a horse size 8 until I got to my 30s and became seriously ill in a manner which affected my weight who has never eaten a school dinner in her life).

I do get mighty pissed off with the school/government Food Police though!

If ever there was a way of teaching a child that skinny is best and leading a child to anorexia and/or bullying it's the school food police, especially for those who already have special dietry requirements or parents with issues surrounding food. I was a very skinny kid, it was just natural, but I was unusual (so much so I was nicknamed Boney Maloney). Now I see so many unnaturally thin girls of my DDs age - 14 and 16 - that it's just scary. Not just slim, I mean painfully thin. And I know that far too many of my average weight 16 yos friends are constantly dieting, TOO aware of the advice to cut out fats and sugars. That can't be good and surely it's not JUST the media that is responsible for it.

Cheerful - cups/grams:

1 cup = 200g
3/4 cup = 150g
2/3 cup = 125g
1/2 cup = 100g
1/3 cup = 75g
1/4 cup = 50g
1/8 cup = 25g
1/16 cup = 12.5g

Hope that helps!

Thank you! :)

We don't have hot school lunches here, so everyone brown bags it. Most days the kids take a sandwich, veggie sticks, fruit, a bottle of water, some kashi crackers and cheese, and some cookies.

If you have hot lunches, what happens when it is something the kids don't like? I wonder, as my DS (who has AS) doesn't eat eggs, potatoes, anything with mayonaise or mustard, or anything processed (like processed meats, cheeses, spreads). It must be tough on some kids not having a choice.

Frubes (or any yoghurt in a tube) are the work of the Devil, as far as I can see they are designed to ensure high velocity splatter.

I fucking hate yoghurt tubes, they should be banned. It doesn't even help when you don't put them in your kid's lunch box, the little snots sit together and he still comes home covered in fucking yoghurt.

Did you know that if you just tear a tiny bit off the corner of a frube and squeeze it really hard, you can almost get it on the other side of the playground? I do. I wish I did not.

Schools far more relaxed about food here, the canteen options are excellent but 90% of kids take a packed lunch. DS1 has a packed lunch full of fruit and veg and other excellent things Mon-Thurs and then gets a nice unhealthy sausage roll and strawberry flavoured milk on Fridays.

sleepywombat it is good to hear they have a choice. DS eats a huge range of foods, but the ones he skips are ones that upset his stomach, and cause major anxiety for him, as he has texture issues.
It is good to hear that they also offer options for those with allergies!

I'd be bloody pissed off at getting a "big red cross" for packed lunches too. What an arrogant and sweeping generalisation. My daughter takes a packed lunch, and, IMO, it's balanced, varied and nutritional. Her lunches never contain what I'd describe as crap though appreciate that's a subjective term but would like to think that if the powers that be were horrified at the contents of a particular packed lunch, they'd try to speak to the individual parent concerned and not imply that anyone who sends their child to school with a packed lunch must be "bad".

Re. Frubes and those asking why they are bad - they contain sugar, syrup, modified maize starch, flavouring, preservative, stabiliser and something called saccharose syrup, whatever the heck that is. Compare that to something like Little Rachel's yoghurts that contain just yoghurt and fruit juice and it's a no-brainer!