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 haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if I'm repeating something that someone else has written. I was a director of a private pre-school up until 2 years ago and this is completely over the top and unreasonable.

Do you know if Ofsted mentioned a lack of healthy eating in their last inspection (you can read it online), because if they had then it would go some way to explaining why the setting has gone completely off the deep end! All settings live in fear of Ofsted, so you best option (IMO) is to contact them about this - and get other parents to do the same. If enough parents complain it can trigger an inspection. Parents' opinions are very important to Ofsted and they usually ask if any parents have any feedback.

Speaking as a parent, my DS1 and DS2 (now 10 and 8) would have both struggled massively eating anything that wasn't on that list at that age - DS1 lived off peanut butter sandwiches (at home, not allowed due to allergies at pre-school) and sausage rolls and even now will only eat Humzinger bars and no fruit whatsoever (just fruit juice, but no bits!). DS3 eats more fruit than the rest of us together! Just goes to show that it's down to individual taste rather than what you eat as a family.

I hope this gets resolved!

Think about sending in ingrediance and asking staff to russel up a roast or curry.

I know it isn't likely to happen but the best thing would be if all the parents (or a significant number) voted with their feet and removed their children.

The woman is a nutter. Unless there have been repeated outbreaks of food poisoning I don't get why frozen stuff should be banned just because they appear out of date? Do people regularly pack their children's lunch boxes with out of date stuff?! I bet they don't.

I seriously have no words, This is utterly bonkers

Ooh yes, I second looking at the Ofsted - they are pretty hot at the moment on healthy eating and it appears in lots of reports.

But for a pre-school it means that you need to talk to the children about healthy eating and as I previously mentioned telling them that certain foods are best in moderation is enough. We are not the food police and should never be. If Ofsted actually told me I had to send a list out telling parents what they couldn't put in THEIR children's lunch boxes I would be sorely tempted to tell them to get their head out of their arse......

Well anyone who does the admin in a nursery and calls themself the Business Manager was always going to have megalomaniac tendencies but that is a serious dose of the bat-shit crazies.

Please post your Dh's email.

I am having difficulty believing the extent of that list. If the guidlines were 4 pages long, surely they gave you some examples of what WAS allowed?

Homemade hummous (hmm, which is least evil - dried or tinned chickpeas!)?
Pitta (processed=evil? defrosted = evil)) and crudites - are they really going to insist a child ONLY eats the crudites?

Either the manager has serious food issues herself or she is completely mad.

And whoever asked what they will do with the fine money, I reckon it's for huge Friday cakes or a curry at the end of term for the staff.

My oldest has survived to the grand old age of 15 on my packed lunches, so I guess ham, cheese, tuna, and even a daily chocolate biscuit have not done her too much harm alongside 2 portions of fruit/veg, and a juice carton.
Goodness knows how much frozen & defrosted stuff mine have eaten over the years. Report me now!

Wowsers, my kids would starve with that list. My son especially is extremely fussy and for lunch will ONLY eat either peanut butter, jam or chocolate spread sandwich, crisps, raisins and one of those rice crispie cereal bar things. Oh and a frube that I buy in bulk and freeze enough to last 2-3 months!

Complain to ofsted and look elsewhere!

tuna comes from a tin so that's not allowed, as does most sweet corn

Neither of those are fruits. It only says no tinned fruit.

In the meeting I would have asked them to provide a breakdown of exactly WHY each item on the list is prohibited.
I would also have asked who made up the rules and what their qualifications were (i.e are they a qualified nutritionist / doctor etc and can they provide evidence of their qualifications).

If those answers were not to my satisfaction then I'd basically tell them to eff off and mind their own business.
Take child out of the club.

Lots of good sense being written on this thread. I agree that the business manager sounds like she is projecting her own food issues onto the children.

I also think that for a business manager she knows fuck all about business and has chosen the quickest route to empty the nursery of customers and close it down with a bad reputation.

I would most certainly go to Ofsted. She has made it nigh on impossible for parents to adhere to so many regulations, I doubt she is a qualified dietitian, and she is creating a system of fines that is borderline fraud and extortion.

What is she planning to replace the confiscated food with? or will she make young children go hungry in order to punish their parents?

I wouldn't just inform Ofsted, I would call for her to be sacked. What she is imposing is unreasonable, irresponsible and potentially harmful to children.

Please include the following phrases in your email. It won't help but it will amuse me.

Not only do you insult us by demanding the extortionate sum of £4.50 to serve our children our own lunch you now wish dictate and restrict the contents to an unreasonable extent. You madam have over stepped your remit!

Yeah she totally has food issues and zero bona fide qualifications in nutrition or dietary guidance.

I'd say she's a nutter but nuts are on the banned list...

tuna comes from a tin so that's not allowed, as does most sweet corn.Neither of those are fruits. It only says no tinned fruit

^ both processed though, which is against the roolz

Sweetcorn's technically a fruit is it not?

I was just wondering if this was a Steiner school, but I've googled a bit and the menus from 2 Steiner shools I found don't appear to completely rule out cheese (unless the organic pizzas the serve are cheese free). They tend to be very big on organic vegetarian food, though.

You madam have over stepped your remit!

Oh yes, please call her MADAM!

Most carbohydrates are processed in some way. Potatoes would have to be cooked, flour has to be made into bread or pasta (it makes you ill if you eat it raw not to mention it tastes disgusting), most grains have to be dried or canned to enable them to be transported and stored long enough for people to eat them... Those that don't are usually things like fruit and then they're not good because of the sugar...

But forgetting the utter food nazi nonsense produced by someone without a grasp of either business or nutrition, her fine is illegal because it's not proportionate to the loss and fines cannot be punitive unless they are issued by the State in some way.

This does sound a bit overbearing but then you realise just how unaware (stupid) people can be. I'm sitting on a train watching someone feed her baby (6m old max) McDonald's fries and ketchup... Perhaps Food Police is the way forward?!

That's basically my sons diet. He would have to stay at home

Yeah let's legislate for the thickos

We could, I dunno, educate people or we could just ban stuff because some people are ignorant.

Am shocked you are being charged for "lunch club". My DD ran for the entire day (8:50-3) and all funded children (so the majority were passed their 3rd b'day) were allowed to stay as part of their std 15 hours per week. Mine used to go in at 11:30 (we're not early risers) specifically so they could have lunch & get used to eating away from parents before they went to our fairly large primary. No extra charges & we jus had to avoid the common allegens (& no super sized snacks).

The list is insane, largely unenforceable (unless the staff want tearful, hungry children in the afternoons- how do the teaching staff feel about this?) & I too would be looking for another pre-school or contacting Ofsted.

So a nice unhealthy jan sandwich then?