aibu to think school shouldnt serve unhealthy pudding every day!

[anothervisittothepark]

Just been looking at menu. My ds starts school lunches next week.
Every day has a sweet pudding. Like cupcake. Or choc sponge and custard. Theyalways have fruit and yogurt too. But i can guarantee ds will take cake every time given the option! You would think they would have a couple of days with only healthy puddings?
My ds doesnt have a very good stop button. And while he is not overweight i do have to often say no to him and insist he has fruit etc. I cant see it a very good thing giving them cake every day!

we are avoiding because there is far too much processed meat, red meat and cheese/quorn based vegetarian meals. as well as pudding that ds will not be able to resist and breaking a habit for a child with ASD will be a nightmare.

What lattelover said about upping activity and stressing less over puddings.

And making sure they brush their teeth properly.

If I did let dd have school dinners she wouldn't eat her dinner in the evening. It's not worth it, just because its free.

But if it was offered he would eat it. All of it. He loves fruit. It just doesn't agree with him.

But I think, at the end of the day, if you don't like it, don't buy it, no ones forcing you.

I think pudding should be banned from school dinners - at least from primary school dinners. Especially with all the 'healthy eating'/anti-obesity push we get.

It is cheap processed carb filler upper with very low nutritional value.

Apart from being unhealthy it also creates a habit/expectation of pudding with every meal, which we don't have at home and I think is a very poor habit to teach our DC.

Shall we start one of those online petitions?

reduced sugar usually means artificial sweeteners and i don't think there is a place in a healthy diet for those - I certainly think the govt would be treading on a very thin line replacing sugar with aspartame in school dinners.

Hurr1cane my daughter can't eat fruit either, or drink fruit juice and I'm in the middle of a battle with the school as they only offer fruit as a midmorning snack (with no exceptions as it wouldn't be fair) so she has to just go without a snack at all.

"I certainly think the govt would be treading on a very thin line replacing sugar with aspartame in school dinners"

Agree. I'd rather my child had small quantities of 'proper' sugar than artificial crap. Research studies have shown that artificial sweeteners act as an appetite stimulant. That's not helping the obesity crisis, is it?

That said, there is cake on offer every day at our (state) school and I would much rather it wasn't - cake is not an "everyday" food. Yesterday it was sponge with custard, today it was lemon drizzle cake, Monday is coffee cake... But at the same time, the portion sizes on offer for the "mains" are so small they don't satisfy, leaving kids wanting more. Cake is cheap and fills them up. Meat and veg are comparatively expensive.

But at the same time, the portion sizes on offer for the "mains" are so small they don't satisfy, leaving kids wanting more. Cake is cheap and fills them up. Meat and veg are comparatively expensive.

^ agree entirely. Don't you think a "Lose the Pudding" campaign would force this as an issue though and get the govt to put their money where their mouth is re school dinners.

The govt have made healthy school dinners a political issue - I think it is a good time to push for proper reform of them.

They weight our kids, they preach to us about healthy food etc, they give free school dinners to KS1 to win political points and then they "let them eat cake" every day - and lots of it.

If it's yuk the kids won't eat it, simples

Just read the blurb they give with the menus. Says all meals are balanced and nutrional value worked out etc. But they probably base that on assuming the kids are eating veg with there nuggets. And eating fruit sometimes for pudding. Not assuming the child has taken the most inhealthy option at every point they can. Agree puddings should just be banned. And low sugar yog or fruit provided.

Or maybe cake only provided on fridays

If I only ate cake / pudding on fridays life would be pretty miserable .

I disagree that cake should be provided on a regular given day, especially the end of the week, as that then makes it a "treat"/"reward" which is again an unhealthy attitude to food.

The govt have made healthy school dinners a political issue - I think it is a good time to push for proper reform of them.

I'd be right behind this. I'd also like the Change 4 Life campaign to have the Nestle and Danone logos on so the funding source is clear, or better still, ditch them entirely and get proper dieticians on board who don't have agendas of pushing "sugar free" rubbish.

I always have a pudding Why not? :)

I agree completly Bigfoot.

I'm sick of people slating school dinners. My childs school meals are excellent. There is a sandwich option every day as well as a veggie and non veggie main. Lots of veg salad to choose from. A small pudding , fruit ,yoghurt or cheese and biscuits.
Rather they ate that than a tub of fat laden humous and a Daisy and Hugo's Mummy makes organic muesli bar for her boden clad babes.
School meals are very well researched and nutritionally balanced unlike all the fictitious health food claims that are bandied about.

You obviously haven't seen the school meals at my sons school then! Great that your school is good but doesn't mean all are. Some are far from good

Yes and no

I suppose I only know about the school meals where I live. Isn't there some sort of national standard? I'm perhaps a tad naïve.
There is the option of chips once a week and the new menu is a little more " British" ie not much dhal, aloo gobi, spicy veggies etc that my child enjoys but I suppose they have to cater for a wider spectrum. Still no complains.

Well I looked at the options for our local authority last night, in one week the veggie meal was - cheese and onion pasty, cheese and onion lattice and pizza. Each served with some form of potato and one veg (with a pudding of course) now to me that's not a balanced menu. One of them in a week fine but 3 out of 5 meals like that?

There's no such thing as "unhealthy" puddings. There is such a thing as an unhealthy life-style but most junior-school kids do a lot of running about so need the energy. There are altogether too many miseryguts fretters about. If your kids are fat, start fretting and stop feeding your kids nuggets and chips. Until then, bloody lighten up.

So wait until there is a problem and then try to tackle it? What a daft suggestion and one which explains why we have such a problem with childhood obesity!

I was bought up having puddings every day, apple pies/steamed puddings/rice pudding etc plus a piece of cake, all homemade and none of us were fat or unhealthy.

I haven't got into a cake/pudding habit as an adult, I do think our portion sizes were much more controlled, mealtimes were adhered to and snacks were minimal and we didn't have unfettered access to anything which included the fruit bowl.

I have only started to put on weight in the last few years when my activity levels dropped and I carried on eating loads of exotic fruit all year round. It's a lot easier to pig out on loads of sweet grapes/melon/mango than it is to have masses of oranges and apples and I think that does contribute to obesity.