AIBU to want the goverment to introduce lunch box standards to stop the food police.

[porkchop9]

First post on mumsnet after reading posts here for a long time. I'm a mum of 3 dc, dd8 ds5 dd3 and live in the Surrey.

Dd aged 3 does 2 full days at preschool, you pay £4.50 for the lunch hour club and provide your own lunch. Monday first day back after Easter Holiday and were presented with new lunch box rules/guidelines, there are some strict rules already in place but these new rules are beyond ridiculous. My opinion in general is they're your children and you should have the right to feed them as you want.

We do not allow sweets, fruit winders/fruit school bars/dried fruit (sugar content is high), nuts, chocolate, crisps, biscuits,cakes (homemade or otherwise), no chocolate mousse/yogurts or pudding, no processed food (including such items as ham, cheese slices, cream cheese, corned beef, chicken roll, sandwich meats with added water), no fruit yogurts that have been previously frozen, NO FOOD item thats been previously frozen, no tinned or frozen fruit, no chocolate spread or peanut butter.

There are plenty more items listed infact this update takes up 4 A4 pages. One other section states Food is checked for dates, whether it is edible and follows our lunch box standards. Food that is not suitable will be returned to parent in a clear bag with an explanation of why, if repeatedly provide incorrect items they will be charged £2 per item and your child will be excluded from the setting until charges have been paid

Today there was a parents meeting with the bussiness manager who wrote this update. She was absolutley vile to one parent in particular who ended up really embarrassed and near tears and yes I and several other parents did stand up her her. The business mangers issuse was the lady shopped monthly bulk buyed and frooze items such as yogurt, cheese and ham, her dc only had fresh fruit the first week of the month then tinned/dried after that etc, she accused the mum of damaging her dc health. The lady did explain they were on a tight budget and freezing things was the only way she could feed her dc a balanced diet as weekly shopping was out of the question for her family. The last time I looked and this was some time ago tinned/frozen fruit & veg was still 1 of your 5 a day. So aibu to think that a basic set of national guidelines would stop the pack lunch police.

madreloco think I might pinch that note idea. At the end of the day no 3 year buys or prepares their own lunch and shouldn't be punished/starved for what their parent has sent in.

I could pick her up at 11:30 and drop her back off at 12:30 instead of lunch club but don't think an hour is enough time to collect, drive home, feed and return dd. I choose 2 full days so I had 3 days to activities with dd as if she does 5 mornings she's always ready for a nap after lunch and she doesn't get much 1 on 1 time.

Oh and ours banned chocolate unless it had a biscuit inside - so basically a few squares of G&B was out, but a twix was FINE.

stupid, as I said.

I would go absolutely bat shit. Who the hell do they think they are.

wow, that's a load of stuff ruled out, my lunches wouldn't pass that check. Our school doesn't seem to be bothered, i feed them what i like from your banned list

What annoys me is i have 3 underweight DD's, always have been (get it from dad not me) very tall very slim, one was borderline on the lowest scale when she got weighed at school and i had to feed her a high fat diet, one as a toddler i got told to do the same, full fat yogurts, proper butter, full fat milk.

If mine went to your school they would fade away

What you should really do is get every parent to email the business director directly each evening saying what they are going to send in and is this OK?

She'd soon get pissed off with all the emails.

Also, ask her what she is having for lunch as you need some inspiration

That ^

This woman and her list is batshit crazy! Don't try to accommodate her and loony ideas. Please try and speak to other parents and get everyone to email the HT.

I also like the idea of leaking to local press, or tabloid.

Good luck and keep us posted, OP,

Wet yogurt pot? Just stick it in a little zippy freezer bag. (Or put the sarnies in the freezer bag). You can reuse them.

LOL 00100001
Dh just texted and asked me to look up local pre schools that offer a full day. He also said will not be dictated to like this and is going to email his thoughts to business manger later tonight, should be an interesting read for her Dh is pissed.

Yes. I'd be furious if I was given these guidelines. I doubt they were drawn up by anyone with qualifications in nutritional science. I'd just ignore them and send what I think is a balanced lunch. And if they stopped my child eating the food I would make huge trouble. People should start standing up to these draconian rules.

F**king hell, I would go crazy about this

I dislike the lunchbox police in any form, but I must say that this is the worst instance of them I have ever heard of. Who the hell does this woman think she is trying to dictate to parents like that, and humiliating some of them too?

That list of banned foods is far to extensive and excludes many perfectly good foods. None of the lunchboxes I have ever made over many years for any of my three healthy daughters would ever have matched this woman's exacting standards as far as I can see. The letter signed by all interested parents to tackle it sounds like a good idea to me, as a way of firmly but professionally telling her to shove her rules up her arse.

Also, £4.50 to eat food that you have provided yourself is daylight robbery IMHO, especially when there hardly seems to be anything that you are allowed to send it.

Acctually, I think I would be looking into moving my child to another pre-school. Your husband has a good point there. I would also enjoy giving "business manager" my real reasons for the move, and seeing her face at that meeting.

Sorry if I didn't say already but thought I had, pre school is in the primary school grounds but nothing to do will actual school, school is not this crazy, thank god. Think or hope the pre school leader is in charge not the business manger otherwise can't see us parents getting very far.

At that age, I sent my DS with a packed lunch for a playschool trip that consisted of:

Bread and butter
2 cold fish fingers
banana

because it was all I could find that he would eat, that you could make into a packed lunch.

This person obviously hasn't a clue about small children, never mind nutrition. It is far too young for this sort of thing.

I would be asking for the details of the basis of this policy, ie the qualifications of the person who designed it and the research/guidelines that were used, then get knowledgeable people to pick it apart.

I think your husband is right. An email is certainly warranted, at the very least.

I don't know that national guidelines are the way to go to stop this sort of thing. I suspect that government action might create more lunchbox police rather than fewer, as schools (and pre-schools) slap their own sometimes very imaginative interpretations onto the "rules".

I can understand banning foods like nuts due to the seriousness of some of the allergies, and also fizzy drinks because of the mess they can create, but I am so glad our primary school didn't go much beyond that.

just

I cannot believe that list, it is crazy.

get a dietician to look at the list and comment in her professional capacity.

In the meantime, write a letter to nursery owners saying that you will be looking for an alternative place due to daft lunch policy

Ooooh, a fish finger sandwich can be lush. I like them myself, though they must be hot, on fresh bread and with a dollop of tartar sauce. Business manager would keel over backwards at me.

porkchop
"I could pick her up at 11:30 and drop her back off at 12:30 instead of lunch club but don't think an hour is enough time ..."

Just turn up at 11.30, walk her to where-ever lunch club isn't (just outside the room perhaps! Or more sensibly, to your car/bench) and have her eat her lunch and send her back in ;)

What do they do with the £2 fine money?

That would be DS2 stuffed them. Today he went in with a brown houmous sandwich, a couple of slices of pastrami and a frozen homemade blueberry muffin. He has ASD and a limited palate, so this is a wonderfully balanced meal for him.

I'm sure he could survive on bread and butter, so long as the bread hadn't been previously frozen

I'd love to see a school dinner menu from this place, OP.

oooh yes - post the lunch menu (if there is one!)

I'd be tempted to send in a carrot that looks like a knob or carve fuck off into a banana

arf!

Aren't these the sort of "healthy eating" (quotes do not come scarier) guidelines that some people with eating disorders use to mask their troubled relationship with food? By imposing progressively more detailed restrictions, masked with "health" (again, scary) concerns which make anyone who challenges them look uncaring, they are able to continue to have a disordered relationship with food while looking virtuous.

When adults and teenagers do it to themselves, it's grounds for concern and treatment. When it's a pre-school trying to do it to children (endless obsessions with "bad" food which you "should not" eat) it's something rather more sinister.

The business manager might need help, but that's a separate issue. She should not be allowed to promote the idea of "bad food" to children. It's like a route-one path to eating disorders.

Ooooh, a fish finger sandwich can be lush.

No sorry - fish fingers and bread had to be separate . And no sauce of any kind.