Free fruit and veg in Reception - unpeeled carrots!!

[Bluehedgehog]

My DD has just started reception and when I dropped her off, I noticed a bowl of manky unpeeled carrots for their free snack.
Apparently the teacher does not have time to peel them but they do kindly break the tops off and wash them but they are not scrubbed and still have the black lines in the peel (i.e. dirt). AIBU to think it is quite shocking to give young children carrots that look like they are ready to be fed to farmyard animals?! What about bacteria? pesticides? .
I am undecided about whether I should bring this up as an issue with the teacher or just provide DD with her own fruit and let them get on with it.

[festi]

off to dream of big purple unpeeled carrots now my neighbours have shut up and gone sleep.

[madhattershouse]

salmotrutta what the success rate? Anything below 25% and it's a no go..above that I'd be willing to put my brats wonderful kids into the test group!!

[Salmotrutta]

Ahem, well, I've just built perfected my Gene-a-Thon machine so I need unwilling volunteers to do a preliminary trial.

[madhattershouse]

[AgentZigzag]

Whatever the success rate is, I'm willing to do the necessary for the furtherance of science given what I have to deal with daily

[AgentZigzag]

Hope you've got some good fly paper there Sal, don't want any repeats of the important lesson The Fly taught us.

(we used to keep rewinding the vid to see his nob in the jar )

[Salmotrutta]

[madhattershouse]

And the results are..?

Don't tell me














They are normal and I'm stuck with them

[Salmotrutta]

Oh it's all fine, they are .. erm.. fine. And the vacant stare will wear off .. I expect.
And don't worry about the rash - perfectly normal.

[madhattershouse]

Oh well, not much change there then!!!

[Morloth]

DS1 has been growing carrots with his Grandpa.

Sometimes they don't even bother washing them, just straight from the dirt, give it a tap to get the worst off and into the mouth gritty goodness and all. As they are homegrown though they are organic which probably means poo of some sort, but I try not to think about it.

I reckon a quick wash would be sufficient. Carrots are like potatos aren't they? Huge concentration of nutrients just underneath the surface?

[madhattershouse]

What do we call it.. the "Reception Rash" or Sals final solution??

[spiderslegs]

Really - bacteria - fuck me - move away people, really.

[catgirl1976]

I don't wash carrots. As everyone else has said a bit of dirt is good for you. In fact I sometimes eat them down at the stables, straight from the manky sack in the tack room without washing them or my hands (which have been mucking out stables) and share them directly with my horses so there is a bit of horse slobber thrown in for good measure. Would be happy for DCs to do the same.

[LaBag]

Quite at those who think that boiling dirty veggies in water removes pesticides and bacteria.

[wicketkeeper]

Can't believe so many people don't wash their fruit and veg before eating, so I'll just put my penn'orth in for what it's worth. Many years ago, at the height of the BSE crisis, I asked an aquaintance of mine, who happened to work in agriculture, whether we should be really worried. And he said we should be more worried about the pesticides on the fruit and veg.

So OP, YANBU. You could always suggest to your DC that they give the carrots etc a quick rinse under the tap themselves. And I would also bring it up in a non-confrontational way with the teacher. You're right - we don't, apparently, have time to peel carrots. We are, in fact, a bit busy helping the new starters to settle in.

[livinonaprayer]

Think this happens in most schools, my new starter loved his unpeeled carrot snack at school last week. Think this can be filed under 'not worth mentioning to a very busy teacher'

[DownbytheRiverside]

We have parent helpers who distribute the fruit and veg to the infant classes. They wash them before distributing them, but don't peel anything.
Many of of the children bring their own fruit snack, then they have a choice of one or the other or both.

[Triggles]

The OP stated that the carrots are washed and the tops broken off before the children eat them. So I don't really see what the problem is. A bit at calling the carrots manky simply because they're not peeled. Rather silly, IMO.

In our school, the teacher doesn't "choose" the snack anyway- the same snack is distributed throughout for the children. DS2 has eaten unpeeled carrots at his school as well, and I'm quite happy for that to continue.

[KittyFane]

:o @ OP worrying about washed unpealed carrots... As far as germs in a reception class go, they are the least of your worries!!!

[KittyFane]

Liking the idea of carrot battons and dips instead though..I must say!

[BatmanLovesRobin]

I'm laughing at the idea that the teacher chooses what to eat at fruit time. The fruit / veg is delivered in bags from a central depot. This week we had carrots too. We just crack open the bags and tip them on to the trays. We don't even cut the ends off - the children eat as far as the end and then compost it.

As many people have said - the majority of the vitamins are found in and around the peel. I think people are becoming more and more precious these days. YABU.

[welliesandpyjamas]

OP, it's not something to worry about. The carrots are washed and topped in the school. They are also extremely thoroughly washed at the processing plant after they come from the farms to be sorted which I saw on cbeeebies so trust me and believe me, after having grown a lot of carrots in my time, this is more than enough to get rid of an awful lot of 'dirt' i.e. soil.

So it's ok to worry about it if you unfamiliar with it, it's no crime, but rest assured that it won't harm your dd. It will also be interesting for her to think about what other fruit n veg can be eaten unpeeled. :)

[welliesandpyjamas]

Oh, and the snotty noses and runny bottoms she will get during the year will be from other kids sharing their bodily fluids, not from the carrots. Lovely place, school

[Proudnscary]

Is this something people actually worry about? Good grief.