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.

I cant believe a pre-school can just bring in 'fines' for stuff arbitrarily like that. Apart from the fact that it's all just so bloody silly, surely this is something which should be presented in a way for parents to agree (or not agree) to in writing - signing up to new terms and conditions changing, etc. A proper consultation.

Bugger being fined £2 per item. I'd be stomping up the school raging too OP.

Extraordinary insanity from the business manager. She sounds totally off the planet.

Please print this thread off and send it to her. I'm so cross with how misinformed she is, and how rudely and inappropriately she treated the parents at the meeting.

I think you and the other parents need to meet with her again, and again, until she retracts her ridiculous rules.
Good luck.

Sounds to me like the business manger has came across a great way to generate extra cash as with such a restrictive list plenty of parents are bound to be fined on a daily basis. I think it may just back fire as I for one would be looking to move my child as soon as possible.
My kids would starve if I had to follow that list, hell I would starve!

Put cardboard in your child's lunchbox.
It doesn't break any of the rules.

Dress your daughter in a t shirt that says
'Please do not feed or occur a £2 fine'

And no I don't think the government should set guidelines or standards as their change for life website is dreadful and full of bollocks too.

I don't see Gin and Tonic on the list or wine. Guess it's going to be a liquid lunch for your pre schooler ??

I would email the business manager to ask for a) her qualifications as a nutritionist or dietician, b) a full explanation of the reasons behind banning each and every one of the items on the list, and c) a list of suggested lunches - perhaps a month's worth of different, child-friendly lunches, all with full nutritional breakdown.

And state that, until you get all this information, you will not be complying with her batshit crazy rules!

Get as many other parents to ask the same questions too.

And send the list to the local and national papers.

I really want to know where this is. It sounds just like where my DC's preschool was heading after we left. It is in Surrey and on the grounds of the big school which it isn't connected to. Do the preschool and ig school share a name by any chance?

That sounds awful, my dd would not be doing the lunch hour club at that pre school. My pre school are fab, anything is allowed except nuts and apples.

ouryve...at least you are allowed houmous. We have two kids allergic to it so we can't have that either

yy to SDTG's suggestions!

Hilarious! Where on earth does she get her information?

On a slightly different note, our school is running 'eco Wednesdays' when you're supposed to put school lunches into plastic boxes and avoid disposable plastic bags and foil. I felt like writing a note about how my mother regularly washed, dried and reused bread bags and silver foil in the 1970s, so they are completely recyclable if you want them to be.

Sometimes these initiatives get completely out of hand.

How are they going to determine whether the sandwich meat in a kid's roll has added water - will they fish it out and give it a good squeeze, if it passes the test it can get shoved back in the roll?

Eejits.

I would vote with my feet and remove my child. Find another nursery. One without bat shit crazy managers.

Unless you've killed the pig and smoked it yourself I reckon all sandwich meat has some added water, even naice Waitrose ham.

I agree with SDTG, ask the manager whether she has consulted a dietician, as an awful lot of foods are banned and the options very sparse.

I would certainly remove my child from this pre school, the manager sounds awful very unpleasant. I would wonder how the children are treated.

At what point does food not count as 'processed'?

surely even ham roasted on the bone and sliced up for the sandwich is processed in some way?

That manager is mad! Nothing wrong with dried fruit or previously frozen products or cream cheese ffs!!!
DS has a sarnie with whatever we fancy putting in - from cheese to meat slices to tuna mayo. The only thing we are not allowed is nut products. He has soem cut-up veggies, usually mini tomatoes and cucumber, a fruit and a 'dessert' ranging from dried fruit to a Club biscuit, sunbites. You are not allowed a 'proper' choc bar though. That is fair enough.

I run a preschool and we do a lunch club and our rules are as follows:

No peanut butter - allergies
No fizzy drinks
Try to be a bit healthy! (This is because the school we feed into is very hot on healthy eating)

and that's it. I know how difficult it is to get some children to eat anything so as long as they like it it will do.

We have one who has smoked salmon on posh rolls and other who, for a year, ate only jam sandwiches on white bread!! (Bread is another issue as some parents don't want us feeding their kids white bread toast!!)

The worst thing you can do is to start telling children certain food is 'bad', if you want to get a healthy message across is to tell them to only have certain foods in moderation my DD2 didn't have ham sandwiches, yoghurt, chocolate bar and a bag of crisps for her primary school life

Total insanity. I would find another preschool tbh.

"You are not allowed a 'proper' choc bar though. That is fair enough."

What's the difference between a club and a kinder bar though, really?

Or do you mean a "full size/adult" bar?

So to be clear a McDonalds happy meal fits that criteria. So you can send that in cold right?

Absolute fecking lunacy. Just EVERYONE ignore it and wait till they fine you all and then tell them to feck off. If everyone says no, they will have to revise it!

Our school packed lunch policy 'nothing that makes them crazy or messy', works.

I am aghast at this! Madness!

What the hell are yo usupposed to send.

No bread presumably as that is processed. No pasta (processed).

Lunacy. Send to the Daily Mail ASAP.