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?

There's really no point arguing with you bubbley, you're always on the attack. I responded to your confrontational comment about what I had in my kitchen only to be labelled "touchy" and told I have "double standards". I don't think that's a constructive way to argue so I won't engage with you any more.

I think I would avoid someone like you in real life.

Since I left uni I have had bad eating habits. Started with a diet where I realised I could replace meals with chocolate and fruit or veg and since then have eaten FAR too much sugary crap.
I don't put on weight easily nowadays as don't drink much so have not had much of a spur to really kick the bad habits. Trying now to set better example to dd.
However in that time my body performed some AMAZING medical feats. I remain unconvinced that excess sugary crap when other foods are providing a good balance is bad in the way society believes it to be.
Sorry. Odd tangent. As you were!

I always call it dessert in RL. I just notice most people here refer to it as 'pudding'. Pudding to me is a particular type of dessert. Anyway, not sure what difference it makes. Surely ykwim.

Nope, a high fat sweet for me (I'm assuming by sweet you mean dessert/pudding) would be chocolate cake with ice cream but I don't eat it every day or even every week. We don't normally eat desserts. I never really did growing up so I'm just not in the habit of it (another disadvantage to giving it to children every day - they then expect it as part of their meal). If we have anything after dinner (which we eat as our evening meal) it is usually fruit or occasionally ice cream.( Again, we probably have a different interpretation of 'occasionally'.) The boys don't expect dessert - they fill up on their main meal.

That quite alright Nesta. If you were telling me in RL that I was sucking the joy and pleasure out of my children's lives by not giving them free access to sponge cake everyday and that I was making your bum clench I would probably avoid you too. :)

Bubbley- You twist words. I never said I would give my kids sponge cake everyday, or that people who don't are joyless, just that the term "Nobody NEEDS cake" seemed like a joyless statement.

You must be horrible to argue with in real life. You twist words, add a few more that people didn't say, then throw them back at them.

I know I said I wouldn't engage with you again but you are so infuriating I couldn't resist. That's it now though, have the last word all you like, I'm sure you always do.

Only in the uk would you get such a disgusting combination of children's food.

"Only in the uk would you get such a disgusting combination of children's food."

Disgusting to who though? Adults are not the customers here - I can imagine most kids loving it!

Oh come on the poor children are starving by lunch and THAT is what is presented to them. It's not fair and it's disgraceful.

"Oh come on the poor children are starving by lunch and THAT is what is presented to them. It's not fair and it's disgraceful."

I dunno- I reckon most kids (and non bum-clenching adults) would see that as a good result. What would you suggest instead?

"Oh come on the poor children are starving by lunch and THAT is what is presented to them. It's not fair and it's disgraceful."

Yes, injustice on the scale of, say, poverty in Africa.

I would hardly call feeding children at lunch at school - often for free - is "disgraceful".

And may I point out the foods eaten in many other countries are the same or less nutritional than in the UK.

What on earth has poverty in Africa got to do with this school lunch. What a pathetic argument.

Let's reduce everythin to the lowest common denominator hey - it won't kill them and it is classified as FOOD so hey let's just put up with it.

pink custard sponge for the troll..... :o

It was just a random example to take the piss out of your hysteria!

It's not an ideal meal but not shocking. I agree with other posters they should have had rice instead of spaghettie hoops. They could have had fruit instead of the sponge pudding, Just out of interest OP if they had packed lunches what would you put in them?

I am just wondering how the council are supposed to provide avocado and nuts in the necessary quantities for £1.90 a day AND persuade the children to eat them?

Yes, many of them would, I know, but I doubt they could do it on a regular basis for £1.90 a day.

When nuts get involved there is also the allergy issue. Many schools won't allow nuts anywhere near the school due to pupils with severe allergies.

We have to be realistic about what a canteen can provide for £1.90, that will be eaten by the majority, that provides a rough nutritional balance.

Carrots, I was giving examples of what I feed my children. Not insisting that all children eat the same thing for lunch. Children will(or should!) get most of their necessary fats and energy from the main part of their lunch - cheese, milk, yoghurt, meat, veg, bread/potatoes/rice/pasta(preferably not of the sugary sauce coated tinned variety) etc. so I am simply disputing this apparent 'need' for cake or other sugary dessert/pudding/sweet that some people think is essential to balance their child's diet.

I have no desire for a row with you bubbley and would love to feed my ds a healthy diet. I base what I feed him myself on the advice I have had from the hospital about maintaining his weight.

He eats as much of everything you mention as he can manage, except meat as he is a vegetarian, but could not maintain his weight on this alone.

The hospital have advised things like toast spread with butter, letting the butter soak in, spreading it again and then spreading a layer of peanut butter and on top of that a layer of nutella. Personally that disgusts me but that is the level or calorie per bite we are talking about.

He is not THAT unusual a case either as we live in a small village and I know of several children with similar issues.

He cannot eat that much in one sitting so eats several times a day but I am afraid that without some of these foods he would be severely underweight.

Schools have to cater for all, on a very tight budget, and the fruit was there as an option as well.

Us too carrots, with the addition that whilst not veggie, they cannot have milk (medically diagnosed isues) and that elminates a lot.

But I am firmly of the mindset that believes treats are fine, as long as they do nt replace or prevent the eating of more nutritious foodstuffs. I actually think you can do harm but denying treats as well as giving too many of them. Certainly when ds1 was on a gluten free diet for a while it caused him to repsond by raiding fridges, other ki'd lunches etc in an attempt to eat far more of what he was craving. He did end up eating more I expect. He's more easily managed on a GF CF diet but whilst the CF is necessary the GF was problematic to an extreme.

The ostbexciting thing the boys seem to have done this week in their minds was a fruit smotthie making comp for pud one day, cost a fortune in fruit but worth it. Tonight though we are bakibg- for teh school cake sale and becuase it's cub camp this weekend and every family takes one cake to create the stash used as snacks and puds. We will enjoy that too.

' dairy eg yoghurt, cheese, butter, milk, nuts, avocados, some children will have meat to add into this as well.

Interesting

no nuts at our school sue to allergiesd (am happy to comply, small fiddly for me nothing compared to possible death for said child). No dairy for 3 / 4 of mine. The DF one will eat avocados but the ok-dairy one won't touch them.
Meat is abit hit and miss here, textural thing I think.

God it gets complicated chez Peachy

My ds eats the fruit and veg enthusiastically. As a family we have a very healthy diet full of veg, pulses etc. That is just not enough for him though, even with extra cheese, olive oil etc.

I know there is a problem with obesity, but kids still need more fat and protein in their diets than the average adult as they are still growing. As long as they are moving around plenty this isn't a problem. They definitely shouldn't be having low fat versions of products - skimmed and semi-skimmed milk being the obvious exceptions or be eating, say the same kind of low fat diet as a 40 year old adult trying to lose two stone.

The common problem with overweight kids seems to be, apart from lack of exercise, what they drink rather than what they eat.

The obesity epidemic is a relatively recent thing. Kids having pudding has been going on for a while (!). Anyone denying their kids cake should not be doing it from fear of obesity.
They should be shoving them outside to run around though.

I don't really have a problem with the meal OP described. And I think I'm a food Nazi.