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?

bubbley, why not cake and custard? It's only unhealthy if you eat it all the time. As part of a balances diet, no food is wholly bad.

What's a healthy carbohydrate by your standards then?

I think if you break everything down into units of fat, grams of sugar and carbohydrate limits you end up feeling like you're eating a bowl of science for breakfast.

Food can be one of life's great pleasures and breaking it down analytically just takes all the pleasure out of it. A varied sensible diet, fruit and veg and a few occasional treats can cover all bases.

Sounds really crappy

And that is exactly why mine have packed lunches.

School food is vile. The menus don't make sense. And that sounds super fucking grim.

What about alcohol then? Not for children obviously... but why would a healthy adult imbibe when it's full of useless calories?

There's a balance and I think that if parents don't find it, they run the risk of their child developing very disordered eating in future when they are free to eat what they like. Nothing should be banned, even pink sponge and pink custard... if it's treated in a matter of fact way, then that's the message that's given to the child, it's just another 'foodstuff', one that we shouldn't eat very often but is fine once in a while.

I'm all for healthy eating but I've read so many posts on here about the mothers hiding what they eat from their children, the children follow a regimented health regime and diet but the parent doesn't...

Monkey see, monkey do... I'm a firm believer in that principle.

"Bad life time habits and obese children and adults are a result of eating crap food."

Strewth - the amount of obsessing and over-thinking for a tin of spag hoops and a bit of pudding!!!!

This seems far more about competitive parenting than effective childcare to me.

Once again:

• Obesity is a function of too many calories taken in for those used - reduce input or increase exercise. Sorted.

• To the body, its all a chemical soup. You may not care for spag hoops with chicken, the body doesn't give a toss - its all calories. Human children were built before the stone age to survive on "Crap food" that people today would run a mile from.

• Everything is fine in moderation - clearly chips, cakes and coke is a daft diet, but so is one purely of tuna, organic lentils and beetroot.

Ds2's primary school menu for yesterday (which he had) was

roast chicken
Sage and onion stuffing
Roast pots
Garden peas and or carrots

Oaty biscuit and milk
Or fresh fruit
Or low fat yoghurt

Today is

Fishcakes with tomato ketchup
Chunky Chips
Sweetcorn and or salad

Banana and choc muffin
Or fresh fruit
Or low fat yog

Friday is

Chicken korma with
Steamed rice and seasonal salad

Iced cornflakes special with custard
Or fresh fruit
Or low fat yog

If he chooses the "puddings" instead of the fruit and yog I am quite happy with that as at home we have lots of fruit and yoghurts.

Jajas, children need calories. Calories aren't bad.
And frankly, where's the difference between sponge cake and custard and a rice pudding? Carbs, sugar and some full-fat milk in both cases.

Am I the only one who now want pink sponge and custard?

Nope.

I loved pink sponge and custard at school

We do mean pink custard don't we? And that sponge with a jam and dessicated coconut topping.....

Bellavita your primary menu sounds like my ds's old one, and it was great.

I feel sorry for children. Can't they just eat something because it tastes nice?

We all had scrummy and weird puddings as children, why deny our own the pleasure?

DS's school dinner menu

With every meal based on Caribbean recipes there is rice. No spag hoops anywhere on the menu at all.
But I bet it all tastes pretty much the same, anyway, whatever it is called.

I wonder whet vegetable Bi Bim Bop is?

I wouldn't get animated about pink sponge and custard. Reminds me of my (70s) schooldays...

But spaghetti hoops should never be on the same plate as peas.

Ever.

Is a simple sponge that bad for you?

Is it not mainly egg, flour, butter and sugar? With a bit of food colouring to make it pink?

And custard - milk, egg and sugar?

I remember having pink sponge and custard for school dinners. Yum yum.
Hate hate hate this kind of weird diet obsessing via children. Even odder when mother is big.
YABU.

binfull... Yes pink custard, I don't remember pink sponge at all... just other bits of sponge or whatever it was? All I know is that it was contaminating my lovely pink custard and whatever it was - sponge or jelly - was unceremonioiusly dumped on my neighbour's plate.

I really wish for pink custard, right now...

Jajas - evetything at DD's school is homemade and made fresh, in the shool kitchen (which is rated as 5 stars - top mark - for its standards) by the school cook. So a sponge pudding is the same as you'd make at home. I suspect many of the recipes, esp when she first started, were from the Dinner Lady cookbook that Jamie Oliver was involved with - very similar namings :)

Not sure about the brought in meals at the school I work at and most of the local state primaries here. I know they are prepared ready for the day in the junior school's kitchen next door, but no idea how they are cooked and produced, or the ingredients.

yearningforthesun Wed 29-Jun-11 16:59:15
Sod the kids, IM going to bellavita's Ds school for lunch.

YY..... bellavita, what's the uniform like at your son's school... and how strict is the age policy, do you think?

I'm coming over too, shall we pretend to be ofsted inspectors? I have spectacles on a chain and a clipboard for a disguise!