Done to death, I know! Dinner Lady AIBU

[GingerWrath]

Apologies in advance.

5 yo DD takes packed lunches to school everyday. I try to vary the contents so she doesn't get bored.

DD is a fairly normal height and weight, if anything she is a bit on the skinny side. Once a month or so I pack her half a small pizza, knowing that pizza sometimes features on the school dinner menu.

The other day her pack up consisted of:

Half a ham and cheese pizza cut into 3 slices
A small bag of slightly salted popcorn
Mixed berries (eaten at play time)
Cucumber sticks
Yoghurt
2 squares of chocolate

As soon as I picked her up at home time she was telling me she was hungry. Her pizza and popcorn were still in her lunch bag and I assumed that she was in a hurry to go out to play and rushed her lunch. No.

Later in the evening she informed me that the dinner lady told her that popcorn and pizza weren't allowed in packed lunches and she couldn't eat them. So basically DD had cucumber, yoghurt and 2 bits of chocolate for her lunch.

Here is the AIBU bit.

a. AIBU to be annoyed that DD was made to go hungry?
b. AIBU to think that popcorn isn't that bad for you?
c. AIBU to think that DD should have been allowed to eat her pack up and that I should be contacted if there is a problem with the contents?

Giving pizza is sloppy! What a load of crap.

You can see for yourself what goes into a homemade sandwich whereas you can't control the quality of the ingredients that go into a shop bought pizza.

White bread actually IS ok for children. This is what i mean about people applying the guidelines for adults diets to children. Young children especially do not tolerate the fibre in wholemeal bread well. And white bread has more calcium in it.

Are you a dinner lady, hiddenhome? If not you may have missed your vocation.

But hh the point is that the school would not have kicked off over a whote bread jam sandwich. Therefore their rules are nonsensical and inconsistent and everyone should just tell them to fuck off. Why do parents put up with this shit?

hidden it's once a month! It's hardly poisoning my child and it is viewed as a treat by her!

And the chocolate is two squares of decent quality dark chocolate not a mars bar or whatever!

pizza nutrition here

Homemade would be better.

Mine took in leftover risotto the other day....oh the shame! (but that was allowed!)

Must be a well posh school, mousy

lets all eat pizza for tea tonight !! just mentioned the rebellion as remember at school a girl who was made to be healthy and ate a whole family bar of choc every night on train home !!

I've just chosen this pizza at random on the Waitrose website and I'd love hiddenhome to tell us what is so terrible about it from a nutritional point of view for a child as part of a balanced diet:

Waitrose pizza

You would only see for yourself what went into the sandwich if you make the bread yourself, churned your own butter and cheese. Do you do these things? If not you are talking rubbish.

I'm a midday supervisor, I'm so glad our school hasn't decided to police lunchboxes I think I would refuse to do it. There is pizza on dinner menu (looks really yummy) and always cake or biscuit for desert. To take away a childs main part of a packed lunch is awful, in fact if a child drops their sandwich we have to offer them a cooked lunch. I would give my girls cold pizza in their packed lunch if they liked it, only like it hot.

Would definately check with the school first and then politely point out that if pizza is allowed as a hot meal at the school then y can't they have it cold in a lunch box once a month. Your packed lunch sounds like a nice balance of food and the only thing I woulda thought might have got stopped is the chocolate but seems very strange that was allowed but not the pizza. Yanbu at all if the staff have a problem with the lunch then they can speak to you in person or put a note in the bag. It is very unfair IMO to allow a child go hungry just to prove a point.

I think the perceived discrepency with the school dinners having pizza "at least once a week, chocolate cake every other week" etc as stated on this thread is that they can keep track of what they are giving and vary it up and not just the same unhealthy thing all the time. Whereas it's hard to keep track of however many kids to make sure that pizza is once a week, or once every 2 days, or every day for every meal.

I am trying to suggest ways of making a healthier alternative to pizza. If that's what you want to do then that's up to you, but I don't think it's healthy. Why not just give it at home for a treat?

hh you are Jamie Oliver aren't you ...

So you think its healthy to have at home as a treat but not to have at school has a treat?

HH that's why it's so stupid. The pizza is as nutritious at home as it is at school so why does it matter if the child takes it for a school lunch? The school have no way of knowing what the child eats out of school and therefore no way of knowing how good or bad the child's overall diet it

Ergo: they should BUTT OUT and concentrate on spelling or something

And I'm saying, hiddenhome, that depending on the shop bought pizza it can be as healthy as something you can make at home. Home made does not always = healthier!

Pizza is not inherently unhealthy. It is like saying sandwiches are always unhealthy because you can buy a BLT filled with mayo or pasta is always unhealthy because you can have a creamy carbonara.

Ah the dinner lady police . As other posters have said, I would find out the facts first and then tell the school your dd will be allowed to eat all her lunch.

This is a real bugbear of mine as my eldest dd is a fussy eater - I want her to be full at school so she can concentrate and I will police her food intake at home.

pizza a treat? surely pizza is a meal nothing wrong with it unless it is a very fatty and salty one.

And mine have pizza every week. So there.