To bring this up with the school?

[Cat2014]

ds has school dinners a couple of days a week. On those days it's his main hot meal because the evenings are v busy. He says that he is only allowed one vegetable, eg is carrots and broccoli are on offer and he says 'both please' he's told he can only have one or the other.. Shouldn't they be allowed unlimited veg at lunch time? I know it's not a massive deal but is it normal? He doesn't like a huge variety of veg so if he has the opportunity to have more than one kind I would want to snap it up!

multivac No need to 'bless me' in that condescending tone. I've worked in a school kitchen when I was studying, so whilst you have your opinions based on your superior knowledge of 'large scale catering' (I'm assuming catering to adults), I'll stick with mine based on experience (that if you offer the option to one child it has to be offered to them all).

I don't think you're 'pandering' to kids where veg is concerned!

multivac and I'll assume from your tone on this thread and that last comment that you're just gunning for an argument or a little drama. Unfortunately I'm just going to have to say we'll have to agree to disagree.

My DC used to dread the days they were last in to lunch and got broccoli quiche. Their school did not massively over cater to ensure they all got their first choice certainly...

Pandering was perhaps the wrong word

In any case, this entire argument has been pointless, the op wanted an endless supply of vegetables. We all know that would lead to waste.

I would be amazed if parent complained about this. If my dc came home telling me about it I'd say "Oh well, hope you enjoyed whichever you had, let's have the other you wanted tomorrow at home". It's not even an inconvenience to the child and roughly on par with having to sit on a blue chair when he wanted a brown one.

Broccoli quiche. 😷😷😷

Hurrah, I was waiting for the U-word to be raised again!

I have to say I'm shocked how few responses have picked up on the restrictiveness of only allowing one vegetable and presenting this as a normal meal. I really would have expected two vegetable servings to be the norm, and a child turning down one or the other to be the exception. When I cook at home I tend to offer 3 vegetables more often than just 2 ... the exceptions being meals that have more veg in the main dish to start with.
(size of actual servings is a separate issue and one I also suspect is badly handled).

(other doi I grew up in Australia where school meals didn't exist, and often had a packed tea as well if staying for after school activities.)

It's loopy, Python. And, happily, not the norm.

It was the norm at my daughters school. Not at Ds's school. 2 different companies.

Pythonesque I agree. I thought two portions were normal too and with the big push to make school meals healthier ( sceptic here) you would think they'd be pilling on the veg.

I bet they still serve hot pudding with custard every day though.

Furiosa Not at dds school. Only to the first half of the queue. DD gets offered more bread though instead! Thank god the company is closing down.

Furiosa yes, cake and custard is regularly on the menu!

perhaps they are only allowed to serve according to spoonful measure. but otherwise I do not see the problem with half a portion of each. surely itould even out over time.

that said, school meals are not that great veg wise, though ours have got considerably better... when ds is no longer entitled to a free meal.

"I'll stick with mine based on experience (that if you offer the option to one child it has to be offered to them all)"

So you are sticking to the notion that schools offering 100 children the choice of 'broccoli or carrots' MUST buy in 100 portions of each (otherwise, you cannot offer that option to all children) - with the inevitable waste that will result? Gotcha.

If nothing else, this thread has definitely convinced me that schools need to devote more effort to teaching fractions!

kesstrel

Except it's nothing to do with fractions. IIt's to do with being fair. If you start to offer a variety of different ways then each way has to be available for every child. I honestly don't get what's so hard to understand about that

But why can you offer "carrots or brpcolli" to some but not all. You're saying that's fair.
what about if we mixed them together,every child would get one mixed veg portion, eat what they liked and leave the rest. Thats effectively what we're doing, just not putting the bit they don't like on their plate

I honestly don't get how you think you can offer 'carrots or broccoli' to every child, without waste (or why you think it's so much harder, or you need more food, to offer 'either, or, or half-and-half').

Mixed veg is definitely the way to go!

Our school has a salad bar every day so the children can add to their plates if they want. Cucumber with roast dinner anyone?

I think a normal meal would include more than one type of vegetable, so your suggestion of a half portion of each seems to make sense to me.

However, not everything that is done at school tallies with what I would see as common sense, for various reasons I guess, so I wouldn't be reliant on school meals being nutritionally balanced, and would make up for it at home.

We tried a free school lunch at our primary, sent him in with sandwiches after.

Mixed veg is a whole other ballgame. Mixed veg ftw!

But mixed veg is just normal veg put together