Aibu to think the school lunch DD had today was a joke?

[ICameOnTheJitney]

Seriously....noodles and a beef burger with no bun...the other veg on offer was potatoes and cauli....followed bu "A cookie as big as my face" according to DD aged 5. Is that crap or am I fussy? She usually has a packed lunch....

[Yakky]

In fact I'm tempted to serve it up at teatime tomorrow just to see the looks on the faces of my DCs.
Noodles, yes, with a chicken and veg stir fry
Burger, yes with lots of salad
cauliflower, yes with a lovely homemade cheese sauce.
together, no.

[frogspoon]

no, I just think you are a bit fussy

Your child was offered, and ate, a balanced meal containing a protein, a carb and a vegetable, which sounds far healthier than many of the dcs of posters on here

e.g. mash and pasta with tomato sauce.
mashed potato and tuna mayo
3 chicken nuggets

Sounds like your dd is actually luckier than many of the dcs of other poster.

[ICameOnTheJitney]

Frog you're more or less alone in your thoughts though aren't you? So...enjoy them!

[steppemum]

we choose ours in advance, choice of 3 meals - main, vegetarian and jacket potato option
They get served what they have ordered

On paper they look reasonable/quite nice

In practice they aren't great, and ds is year 6 and says he is always hungry after school dinner and he doesn't even eat a very large packed lunch

[fatlazymummy]

When I was at school there was no choice. It was meat ,potatoes and veg (fish and chips on Friday, proper roast on Wednesday), sponge and custard for puddings. Everyone got a dinner - there was even seconds. Of course not everyone liked everything but no one went hungry either.
It's not Jamie Oliver that's needed, it's some good old fashioned common sense.

[frogspoon]

i don't mind being alone

I am entitled to my opinion, as you are entitled to yours.

[FionaJT]

My dd is Yr 4, has had school dinners since reception. They have a choice of 3 options each day (meat/fish, veggie, and salad/baked spud type option), the child chooses on the spot and has to take a protein, a carb and a veg. They can, however, mix'n'match and she has come up with some very odd combos in her time, but as long as she has a carb, a protein and some veg and eats it all up then I am happy that she has had a balanced meal.
It sounds like your dd could have had burger, potatoes and cauli, which depending on the quality of the burger is a perfectly good meal to offer kids (even if it isn't to your taste), and probably nutritionally better than the average packed lunch.

[EmmaGellerGreen]

My ds's choices are perplexing stomach churning but given that he's 5 and he eats enough I don't really mind. Roast chicken, pasta, coleslaw or beef and noodles with pasta and sweet corn and spag bol with rice and coleslaw being favourites. But they're balanced-ish and he is learning about making choices.

[frogspoon]

fatlazy,

what about the vegetarians? didn't they go hungry? or jews who eat kosher or muslims who eat halal?

[Goldmandra]

I regularly had to serve pre-school children the school dinners I knew the older children were also getting. A regular meal was;

Pizza (presumably the protein option)

Chips (carbs)

Tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce (vegetables? )

Options on other days were a little better.

I stopped buying school lunches for my DD after a short time and sent her packed lunches instead.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

frog so it's a case of its technically balanced so that overrules the fact that it's shite?


You could say that about value dog food. But u wouldnt feed it to ur dog would u.

[Greensleeves]

oh ffs frogspoon you are being deliberately obtuse

burger with noodles and cauliflower is ganking

and it will have been a shit, gelatinous cheap gristle-burger with pale, flaccid claggy noodles and frozen cauliflower that has been mullered to mush

no adult would sit down to that without complaining, why should we expect children to suck it up?

Lunch time is very important to children, it is part of the learning day, it shouldn't be like feeding pigs with no care and attention

[MoominMammasHandbag]

When I was a kid we had the traditional shepherds pie and veg type school meals; and bloody good they were too. There was no choice and I really don't remember anyone being fussy, certainly there was nothing I didn't eat.
My own kids now, though not too bad, are certainly fussier than me and DH. If we could go back to the school dinners I had as a child, then I don't nescessarily think it would be a bad thing.

[RhondaJean]

I actually don't see a problem either, carbs protein and veg, I'd rather it was wholemeal noodles but even white noodles are usually "better" carbs than some type of processed potato offering.

There are far more worrying meals on this thread than that! I'd prefer they had non-processed meat too but a burger once in a blue moon is okay.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

These threads worry me as to what people are actually happy (given the choice) to feed their kids.

[RhondaJean]

Hang on - we have no idea of the quality of the food, and that wasn't the ops complaint.

[EmmaGellerGreen]

Frogspoon - I may be old-ish but I really can't remember there being an vegetarians at primary school (1980s). We all got the same (fairly vile) lunches and packed lunches weren't allowed.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

If you wouldn't eat it your kids shouldn't eat it.

[frogspoon]

i think the quality of the food and what it was served with are two different things.

If the burger was a gelatinous gristle burger, it wouldn't matter what it was served with, noodles, wedges, potatoes, chips or in a bun.

The burger would still be poor quality.

It's a separate issue and one I agree is a problem that needs addressing, but the burger wouldn't become healthier by serving it with (frozen) wedges instead of noodles

[zoobaby]

Ooh, yes. Isn't it fantastic that the ol' Cleggmeister wants to roll this out to more children?

[greenfolder]

At dds school there is only one option-today she had mac cheese with veg and apple crumble and custard. Roast every wednesday and something and chips on friday. Menu for the term published each term. No excuse for poor food.

[frogspoon]

Emma, I'm guessing you didn't grow up in a big multicultural city like London?

I went to school in London with a large number of Hindus (many of whom are vegetarian), Jews (many of whom keep some level of kosher) and Muslims (many of whom keep some level of halal)

On the day when e.g. a roast dinner is served, many of these groups would not be able to eat the meat, and would need an alternative source of protein.

[ICameOnTheJitney]

My older DD has complained about the fact that the cheese sauce served in school "doesn't taste real" which is a good indication it's processed. I don't think the meat in school can be bad...they always harp on about how it's supplied by a very local farm....

[Yakky]

Totally agree with "fatlazymummy". The school dinners we had then can only be described as bland, but they did the job. They filled us up and we had veg at every meal becuase at my school it was compulsory to choose at least one of the trhee veg choices on offer. So usually it was either carrots, peas, cabbage. You had to put it on your plate. Whether you ate it or not was a different matter, but it had to be dished up.
It was basic homecooked fare. The hairy Bakers would have been salivating, but I think some of these arty farty chef nowadayss might have been horrified at the lack of finesse.

[frogspoon]

green, what do vegetarians at your dds school eat on wednesday?