to think that this is a pretty shocking school dinner?

[anchovies]

Today my boys had Caribbean style chicken with spaghetti hoops and garden peas. Pink sponge and custard. Strawberry milkshake.

£1.90 a day.

Thought there must have been some sort of mistake but have just checked the published menus and that is what they had planned for today. Only other main meal was the vegetarian option which they are not allowed (again with peas and spaghetti hoops.) Could have chosen fruit for dessert.

Mentioned it earlier to my neighbour who also has children who have school dinners and she thought it was fine as "the carbohydrate is in the spaghetti hoops".

Wrote (yet another) email to our local council but am now thinking I may be wrong?

I love the random school dinner combo thing. Means DC will eat random home cooked combos too when its getting towards the end of the month!

Just wanted to add in response to one post above that it is possible to provide nutritionally balanced, tasty food for £1.80 a day in my council area (although this is going up to £1.90 after the summer). For example yesterday at DDs school the menu was shepherds pie with mixed veg or vegetable burritos with wedges or carrot and cheese salad. Another day this week it was chicken curry and rice or veggie pasta. There is always fresh fruit, fruit salad and yogurt available as well as a more 'puddingy' type thing although DD does not like custard and gets an upset tum with too much icing so tends to avoid these. This week as its the last of term they had ice cream.

I do agree that the meal as described by OP was weird rather than shocking but then again I wouldn't feed spagetti hoops to a dog - uurgh!

Personally I think lack of exercise and the habit of snacking is the cause of the epidemic in most cases. there were always kids who ate crap on the estste I grew up on, but they burned it off like nthe rest of us.

Now, my kids have a 45 minute lunch break with only 15 minutes allocated to play and homework preventing much evening park play (assuming p[ark not trashed by teens again) from age 5. Pah!

Anyway the most random food combos turn up now for a reason: fridge and cupboard emptying season. For £1.90 per head per meal, sensible economy such as using up leftovers has to be part of the deal no?

Carrots, I don't have any problem with the butter and peanutbutter at all (wouldn't give nutella personally). We don't drink cow's milk and we only eat fish. I have a high metabolism myself and spent many years struggling to keep weight on when I was younger and even now when I am bf I lose weight very quickly so I have had to have extra meals during the day so i have plenty of experience in coming up with high calorie meals. Of course it would be easy to just ply myself with cake and chocolate but I know there are healthier options so I stick to those.

Not sure why people are getting the idea that I never eat sweet things and never give them to the boys. I have said I don't mind them occasionally so the only thing we are really differing on here is frequency and the belief that some posters have that sweet things are necessary for fat/energy etc.

Peachy "treats are fine, as long as they do nt replace or prevent the eating of more nutritious foodstuffs."

I agree with this but IMO including something sweet with/after every meal or most meals does replace more nutritious options.

Obesity isn't the only thing to think about with unhealthy food.

Many schools, including private schools still have fish and chips on a friday. Think about the extremely high fat content in chips and batter but I'm sure many parents don't mind.

I think as a one off it's okay-ish but does sound like a weird combo. Why do jamaican chicken then serve it with tinned sketti? . Sure rice or salad and baby pots would have been yummy but oh well - is it because of the strike do you think? They weren't sure about numbers etc so opted for something easy?

I am not suggesting that children be shoved full of cake and chocolate to maintain their weight either.

I was just pointing out the different needs within a school and the cost issue within a school.

The school provided the healthy alternative - no one had cake and custard forced down their throat.

I also presume that this is not a regular meal at the school as the OP seemed surprised by its appearance.

I see no problem whatsoever with the school providing a meal like this once in a while.

Personally I feel the spaghetti hoops are of far more questionable nutritional value than the sponge. Didn't some elderly people end up with malnutrition from relying too heavily on such foods?

It doesn;t have to bubbley, quite often we'll have home made crumble with fruit and plenty of nuts and oats in the topping; baked apples; smoothie; the ice cream is home amde and I know exactly what's in ti and am happy with it.

Occasional cake and cutard hurts nobody, indeed custard is a source of calcium. It is overall diet that needs to be watched not individual foodstuff. A healthy child getting enough nutrients, not too much salt or sugar and who is a sensible weight is fine. Within that range there are very many ways to feed them.

So, saturated fat is ok now? But sugar isn't?

Some saturated fat is necessary in your diet as is some sugar but if you are eating things like dairy products, meat etc and fruit, veg, bread, pasta then you will cover that requirement. Topping it up with sponge cake and custard, crisps, chocolate means that you're getting more than you need. If you want to do that every so often then fair enough, that's your choice - I have said several times already that I eat stuff like that occasionally too but I'm under no false illusion that it is good for me or a source of anything essential for my diet and including in your diet regularly is not healthy because it means that you are regularly exceeding your body's requirement for them.

Does this make sense to anyone? I'm not condemning you for choosing you to eat things things everyday I'm only objecting to people saying they're necessary/essential/won't do any harm if you exercise.

Seeing as we have to limit our intake of these things is it better to cut out dairy and/or meat or pudding/dessert with custard or cream? The problem is that some people will just eat it all and if you want to look up the recommended limits you will see that will push you (and your children) over them.

but they won't do any harm if you exercise! What harm does a bit of cake do to a normal healthy person who exercises enough? Please do share.

MsTeak. Go read about saturated fat and you'll see for yourself. Sorry, don't have time today.

I suspect have an orthorexic parent is far more harmful than having cake and junk food as part of an healthy lifestyle.

I'll just quickly point out that 100g of butter has 80g saturated fat. A woman should not eat more than 20g saturated fat a day which would equate to 25g of butter in the whole day. How much butter is used in cake/cookies? Then put that alongside the butter you use otherwise and all the other dairy products and meat you eat during the day. It adds up quickly.

I know all about saturated fat. I fear you don't though. People seem to think its demonic, but age old normal fat is saturated, butter, cream, animal fats are all saturated. And its far better for you that hydrogenated and trans-fats in mucked about procecessed food.

You want a real healthy diet for your children? Forget modern notions of diet foods and healthy options, eat food your great grandmother served up. Meat, fish, vegetables, potatoes, butter, cake and custard. Little to no processed food.

Bruffin, so now everyone who eats healthily has orthorexia? You really are a bit silly.

Msteak ddid you even read my previous post?

"Some saturated fat is necessary in your diet" First line!

Then I went on to list all the sources of saturated fats that are part of everyday diets - the same ones you just listed. If you include cake and custard alongside everything else, it pushes you over. Seriously, if you want to accuse me of not knowing something then at least read my posts before you tell me things I already know and just said myself.

Saturated fat isn't necessary. There's not a great deal of saturated fat in vegetables, legumes etc. and meat and dairy are far from necesary for a healthy diet.

This fear and loathing for the simple sponge and its dastardly companion, 'custard' is making me :)

At my school in the 70s we had it several times a week in various varieties (Currant, Apricot) though it was not as popular as Chocolate Crunch. None of us was fat - well, there was one girl, in 4P - and as far as I can see it's the post-sponge generation and its children that have a greater obesity problem.

I think I have just empirically proved that there should be more sponge in everyone's diet. And fewer ricecakes, those little exploded-polystyrene-puff things, so popular today, unheard of in mine. Yes - that's it - it's the ricecakes wot's doing it!

Not going to even bother entering into the processed food debate because that's a given and I'm not sure if that comment was directed at me because I have not mentioned giving 'processed' food to my children.

LET THEM EAT CAKE

Timewasting. Go have a read. Some sat fat is necessary but you don't have to get it from dairy or meat. I didn't say it was in fruit and veg - that was to cover the sugar part that I mentioned alongside pasta, bread etc.

No bubbleymummy, there is eating healthy and then there is taking healthy eating to the extreme where it becomes an obsession, that is damaging.

Sigh... Once again, obesity is not the only problem. Let's see how many people who gre up in the 70s end up dying from heart attacks in the next few years before we start saying how healthy you all are.

LET THEM EAT SPONGE, I think you mean!

The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that I've never been fat, considering I was built entirely on sponge in those crucial years. If you sliced me horizontally I think you would see layers of pure sponge, shot through with pink custard, giving a pleasing battenburg effect.