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....

I just don't understand how anyone could think serving or eating that filth is okay. I refuse to give kids anything i wouldn't eat, and i wouldn't eat that, on a visual basis alone it sounds rank let alone the taste combinations. Food isn't just about getting all your food groups in, it's about enjoying texture and flavour. We are teaching children that food is just fuel. Matter to endure just as long as it ticks the nutrition boxes. no thanks

Out of interest, are you allowed to send thermos of soup/pasta/risotto/stew in with packed lunches?

I wouldn't be appalled by the burger, cauli, noodles combination if the food was of decent quality. Balanced but bland I would say, hopefully my DCs would learn to make tastier choices in future.

Greenfolder, your kids menu doesn't sound too bad; a bit heavy on the carbs and dairy maybe but proper decent food.

I am all for offering a vegetarian alternative...but I do think that they need to look again at the menus and produce more standard/palatable offerings.

What's wrong with spag bol? Baked potato and a mild chilli? Curry and rice, roast chicken and potatoes with gravy, fish and chips...or wedges...though I don't mind chips personally now and then....chicken and rice stir fry, cottage pie, lasagne....all those things are popular! Lighten up the puddings maybe and have a lot of decent fruit on offer with some yogurt now and then and icecream on a Friday or cake...veggies can have all kinds....veggie burger in a BUN...with salad, wedges, veggie stir fry with some pulses in...same with veggie chilli....and curry...and on roast lunch days they can do some kind of bake or rissole affair to go with the roasters....soups, stews, pasta dishes...God it's not hard!

Strangely DS1 would probably love that combo! He regularly orders burger with rice and peas/beans in those mix and match type pub places. He eats it all so I don't see the problem really.

I wonder if the cookie was really as big as her face though?

I went to loads of primary schools as a kid and the dinners varied widely. Some schools had home-style dinners with shepherd's pie, roast, steak pie etc, jug of gravy on the table, puddings and custard. Others had horrific burgers and fritters and greasy croquettes etc. I remember a particular excrescence called a "surf burger" which was a sort of deep-fried grey battered fishy thing.

veggies at my children's school get roast veg tart or "vegetable roast" on roast dinner days, which sounds great on the menu but is disappointingly gross, small portions and soggy in reality. Last term there was a thing called "tomato tumble" as a main course which turned out to be... some tinned tomatoes.

I do think lunch times are psychologically and socially important to children and more effort should be made. Ditto having clean, safe toilets to use. These are the things kids remember all their lives.

I wanted to get those food flasks for my DCs but the school wouldn't allow them on the grounds of elf n safety. Not allowed to take in your own hot food but can eat their vile hot food. And lets be honest, those Pop Tarts can be bloody hot when they pop out.

MrsGary I know....but then again her face is quite small.

Greensleeves Just lol at "Tomato Tumble" what next? "Carrot Crashes" or "Sprouty Smashes"

This thread's making me itch to start a new one in AIBU........"What DO Dinner Ladies do exactly?"

I know and is it THEM who decides the menu?

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

My school dinners were like the ones fatlazy describes. We didn't have vegetarians in the 1960s and 1970s I don't think Well at least not in our school.

But we did have one boy who was a diabetic and he would often get a special meal sent (the food was delivered not cooked on the premises) if the normal one wasn't appropriate. So I guess the system could and would accommodate special dietary requirements when necessary.

Just wondering...

jitney, how do you know for certain your dd couldn't have had a "normal" combination of foods, but chose an unusual combination

e.g. perhaps the choices were
beef burger, potatoes and cauliflower
OR
stir fry quorn, noodles, cauliflower (V)

Both sound like fairly normal combinations of foods, the kind of thing you would want your children to eat, right?

But maybe your daughter decided to be a bit creative and thought she would prefer noodles with her meal.

The dinner ladies would probably rather she had noodles than no carb at all.

I know frog because her 9 year old sister also had school lunch today...she assured me of what was on offer when DD2 first told me. I doubted it...and checked. Anyway...who are you? The FBI?

it reminds me of the time I got stranded at Digbeth Coach station fr four hours and had to eat at the Diggers restaurant (well, actually Iggers as someone had nicked the D)

it took twenty minutes of patient enquiry to ascertain that all they in fact had on the menu was.... beans. A plate of beans. We went through item by item "what about the sausage, egg and beans" "now, we got now sausage" "egg and beans?" "now, now eggs" "beans with chips?" "now cheeps" "ok, I'll just have a plate of beans then"

SURELY we should be doing better than this!

so what did her 9 year old sister say the veggie option was then?

so why didn't your daughter have potatoes with her burger, if it was an option?

My kids school does decent enough dinners; fairly balanced and they make a big deal about everything being locally sourced. They have a choice of three options everyday and they pre order every morning. There is an unlimited salad bar every day which I encourage them to have a go at.
My only beef is that the puddings tend to be of the big cookie/slab of cake variety. DS came home very excited the other day and told me he had had this amazing pudding, a slice of cake carved into a circle with the centre cunningly filled with a thin spread of jam and a circle of icecream. When I was a kid this was known as the humble Arctic Roll

Have you seen the average primary school "burger" Its mix of mince beef and chopped onion. If its served up with potatoes/ noodles and some veg ( cauliflower in this case) its part of an OK moderately healthy lunch. Carbohydrate,veg & protein.

Not one I would chose and not one my son chooses now he has had it and didn't like it much( he dislikes onion and mince).

At 5 children may not remember/ be able to see high enough to ever spot, options like salad or fruit. Now in year 2 DS has learnt that if he dislikes a pudding he can have an apple instead , if he dislikes a veg he can ask for carrot sticks instead.

Green Sounds like Monty Python's Spam! "What you got then?" "Egg and bacon, egg and sausage, egg and spam, spam, spam, spam and egg....

Jitney it was ten years ago and still makes me snigger

Frog I don't KNOW what the veggie option was and probably the DDs don't because they're not veggies and like meat! And I suppose DD chose noodles because she's frigging FIVE and she likes them...I expect she thought they'd be like at home...when she has them with a normal thing like chicken or beef!

Green at "Now cheeps"

I would be concerned about the quality of the food rather than than the actual menu in this case.

Burger is just minced beef - I don't get why if its in a big flat shape its inherently wrong to serve it with noodles (aka pasta!) but if its in smaller rounder shapes (ie meatballs) then its OK.

How is pasta with meatballs OK but noodles with a burger not?

I would not be happy with DS being offered a burger with a bun and another carb like potatoes or noodles or whatever. You only need one portion of carbs particularly if she has puddings which are almost entirely carbs.

ok, calm down jitney, I was just curious, that's all!

honestly, i think you're making a massive deal about something that isn't.

3 chicken nuggets: that's unacceptable
pasta and mash with tomato sauce: that's unacceptable

a burger with noodles and cauliflower: unusual but depending on the quality of the burger, nothing too terrible.

I have to say I'm with Frog on this one. Why are noodles served with chicken/beef any different to a beef burger? Is it because you think the noodles would be too dry if not mixed with a sauce?

Frog you must accept that you're the naggy one...everyone else agrees with me that I'm not BU....you are.

Our school doesn't have a choice!!! Take it or leave it. No veggie option... Yet they feel free to bang on about what we can't take in packed lunches, while providing sugary, fatty, nutrition-free puddings!!!