To think cheese is a healthy snack?

[insuranceidiot]

Maybe I am. I gave my LB cheese chunks in a little pot and a small bottle of water for his Break today on his first day in Primary school. He loves this and has it at home. He came home with a note saying in future to send a healthy nutritious snack in future.

Can I ask what u would send as a Healthy snack to school please?

Milk is food, so a snack.

School often started at 8 and ended at 1pm

Wow...

DS has school at 9 and lunch at 12pm

Milk is food, so a snack

Only in infants. Until the milk snatcher came along......

I had school milk up until the first year of senior school (which was when the milksnatcher took it away). Didn't like it much though because it was never cold in summer, and to this day I can't abide warmish creamy milk to drink!

Some grapes or apple with a few cubes of cheese to follow is perfect healthy balanced snack. I don't like the idea that growing kids need to watch their diet from such a young age.
The cheese neutralizes the acid in the fruit and is better for the teeth.

Some grapes or apple with a few cubes of cheese to follow is perfect healthy balanced snack

Topped off with a baguette and a decent red

That is completely ridiculous. Clearly the school are not very well versed in nutrition and maybe it is something you should take up with the principal. I am a primary school teacher and would be delighted to.see a child eating a little bit of cheese for their snack as it is a calcium rich food and high in protein which I believe helps keep children fuller. Fruit is less filling and full of sugars , albeit natural ones , but still. I would not as a parent be happy to be chastised about this and would be letting them know. If you genuinely put something daft in your child's lunchbox well you deserve the reprimand but cheese ????Crisps , chocolate and sweets are a no no for obvious reasons, as are fizzy drinks and fruit juices. I would definitely make contact with the school, armed with the correct facts and nutritional value of said cheese and ask that you not receive a reprimand for providing a perfectly nutritious food for a growing child. As someone else pointed out fruit and veg on their own are not filling enough. If my own children ate cheese I would be thrilled. I wouldn't worry about your relationship with rhe school either. You are perfectly entitled to question this and there are ways of making your point without being rude or stroppy. Just be constructive and factual about it.

Absolutely unreasonable to stop you sending a decent portion of cheese, it is perfectly healthy for everybody unless they have a properly diagnosed allergy/intolerance or severe problems with cholesterol. If they want to specify fruit that is fine - some schools do - but you're not a mind reader.

My childrens' school never had snack breaks, just lunch and milk.
Our primary school head once told off a mother for sending a child with a left over salad as her packed lunch, he felt that it was not sufficiently nutricious but this child loved salad and was perfectly healthy and well fed. Many other parents responded by sending our children in with nice filling salads for the next few days! Nothing more was heard from the head.

I'm so glad we don't have lunchbox police. The rules we have are sensible: No fizzy drinks, no fullsize chocolate bars eg mars bars etc and we have a no peanuts thing as well (due to kid with severe allergy)

When the school lunches often include such things as a brownie for dessert and at least one day a week is pizza and chips I don't think they've grounds to moan. It's everything in moderation.

When will schools realise how bad for children only eating fruit for break time isn't healthy.....its just another acid hit on their teeth!

Makes me cross.
We've now got two at secondary and that annoys me at the opposite end of the scale......fizzy drinks, cakes and pizza slices at break!

Verbena37 good point, so often school lunches are utter crap, turkey twizzler looking whatnots, chips pizza etc finished off with a seet dessert - schools need to practice what they preach. Some children worry whether they're fat at 7 years old (the heinous puppy fat) adults and their food issues have a lot to answer for, restricting nutrients as if requirements for growing children and adults are one and the same

Cheese is healthier than fruit, really?

How do you get to that conclusion?

Fat doesn't make you fat. Sugar makes you fat.

Fat doesn't make you fat. Sugar makes you fat

If I ate a lot of fatty foods and didn't exercise, I bet I'd get fat.

Just as if I ate a lot of sugar. Or carbohydrates.

But fat isn't the 'enemy' it once was thought to be. We still have to watch how much fat we consume.

I eat all fat meals and I am not fat.

I eat all fat meals and I am not fat

Is that because the fat you eat fills you up and you don't consume too many calories?

If you eat fat and don't exercise and eat too much fatty foods for the calories you use, then there's an issue.

Calories have to go somewhere.

Oh - and have you checked your cholesterol levels and types of cholesterol as well?

The type of fats you consume have a massive effect on those levels and particular types of cholesterol - so not being fat does not necessarily mean you are healthy.

Euphemism I have read the thread all 289 posts on 3 pages

Cheese is healthier than fruit, really

Cheese has its good points and negatives.
Fruit - especially grapes- have their good points and their negatives.

Ego - oh um yes. Fully aware of what I eat. As is my GP.

So is cheese healthier than fruit?

Fully aware of what I eat. As is my GP

Great. Any food can make you fat if you don't exercise / eat too much.

You are right though that fat is not the concern that it used to be and sugar is the real enemy. Fatty foods are more filling so perhaps people just eat less calories when on a fattier diet.

Carbs aren't 'evil' though (and I distinguish carbs from processed sugar). Knowing the insulin response of various foods is useful to know how the body responds - but that could be a bit obsessive...

But that's a whole other thread.

Ego. Saw upthread the comment about fat and salt in cheese. The fat thing as many have pointed out is a red herring. There is nothing wrong with salt. Our bodies need salt otherwise we would slowly desiccate. It was a highly valued commodity in antiquity, hence the salt roads. Modern beliefs of "good nutrition" are slowly being debunked thankfully but not before several generations of people have had their health ruined by following the guidelines set by the food pyramid and the governments current eat well/food swaps campaign.

So is cheese healthier than fruit

I think you need to define 'healthier'. They both have plusses and minuses.

Cheese can give you calcium, protein but does have animal fat and salt.
Grapes (as an example) provides vitamins but is a high sugar food that is easily released in the mouth.
Apples are different as the sugar is released more slowly and has fibre as well.

Both provide the body with what it needs. Both contain things that can affect the body negatively.