Are the packed lunches I provide really as outlandish as ds claims?

[notagainnellie]

I send some kind of wrap/sandwich with cheese spread, ham, tuna or hummus; a salad pot; sometimes a packet of Chedds or a cheddar stick; a piece of fruit or tub of fruit in Greek/natural yoghurt and a piece of malt loaf or, rarely, homemade muffin etc.

Occasionally I put treats like mini cheddars or - shock - something with chocolate on, but this would be a monthly, rather than weekly event. According to ds, no one has anything like it and he gets comments sometimes such as malt loaf being 'poo' or 'err' at his yoghurt pot. Everyone else has crisps, juice, something like a kitkat or mini roll, yoghurts in tubes and jam sandwiches are popular. Obviously kids will say that, but there is no policy on lunches at the school so it could well be true - I don't think he is making up the comments tbf.

I have looked into some of the items he has listed and am shocked by the salt and sugar content of them. I can't find any 'fun' type yoghurt that isn't full of crap and I can't bring myself to buy them for daily use. He's not that fussed and says he likes being 'different' , but I feel like he's going to get more and more bothered - he's 9 now and mentioning it more this year than ever before.

I'm not that strict about food, but I just don't think a lot of this stuff is suitable for daily use. AIBU to keep his lunches as they are?

At 9 I did

Simple sandwich
Kit Kat
Yoghurt
Piece if fruit
Bottle,of,water

Stealth boast 😋

I think he's probably mostly right but if you are both happy then carry on

I get Munch Bunch yogs in Tesco which have 1/3 less sugar than normal petit filous etc. They are still sweet but I think a good compromise.

I think your packed lunch sounds perfectly fine. You'd be surprised at some children's lunches I can tell you! (I work in an infant school)

I love these type of threads. The disingenuity is palpable.

Sounds fine to me. If you stuck a penguin in there instead of malt loaf, it would be pretty run of the mill. There can't be that much difference in sugar between them?

I send my DD to school with -

A sandwich
A kit Kat
A twix
A mars bar
A pot of sugar for sprinkling
A fruit shoot
A packet of cheetos

Some chocolate buttons
And I'll treat her to some fruit every once a month or so.

A penguin would be better than malt loaf for their teeth.

Shame on you Midsummer - where's the Gregg's sausage roll?

• Ham/Tuna/Cheese/Salami or chicken Sandwich (with spinach leaves

ostentatiously poking out of the sides!!)

• Crisps
• Frube
• Fruit (grapes, strawberries, apple, pear or tangerine)
• Occasionally (if we haven't eaten them before they make it for packed

lunches) a Blue ribband, kit kat etc .. otherwise and extra frube or piece of fruit.

Your packed lunch doesn't sound that unusual. I run a school kitchen so I see what sandwich dc have in their lunch boxes and quite a few have malt loaf mini bars, my Ds does as well.

My Dc have a houmous or cheese wrap, tube yoghurt (yes they're full of sugar but they freeze really well so keep their wraps cool and they defrost quickly), a piece of fruit and either crisps or cake/malt loaf. They don't have the most perfect lunch boxes but they're not terrible.

I gave dd(10) a jam wrap once as we ran out of cheese and she came home saying everyone laughed at her wrap and said it looked like a vagina. Kids will always take the piss out of each other when it's not the norm.

I was the child with a well-intentioned mum giving me sandwiches made of rock solid homemade wholemeal bread when all my friends had white-sliced, no sweet stuff, no crisps, no one was ever unkind but if they had been that would have been even worse. I can still remember the resentment I felt 40 years later and I still prefer white bread.

We try and steer a middle ground. Sandwich and a hunk of cucumber, pack of chedds or babybel, piece of fruit and either crisps or a yogurt or cake bar or similar. Take your DS shopping and compromise a bit.

Having been in many many schools, the standard lunch is 2 slices white bread with ham/cheese/something in, packet of crisps, penguin type biscuit, fruit shoot type drink. In all schools there will be huge variation on that, but he is almost certainly right that that is the "median" lunch.

Oh ... and a bottle of water! I too work in a (fairly middle class) primary school and am yet to see and olive or stuffed pepperdew in a lunchbox!

Neither of my kids would eat malt loaf but both love yoghurt. Dd likes hummus, DS, Philadelphia & breadsticks.

I usually send

Wrap/pitta bread/roll (cheese for DS, chicken/tuna/feta for dd)
Crisps (DS, dd doesn't like them)
Salad tub (cucumber, carrot sticks, grapes)
Yoghurt
Mini kit Kat/cake bar/mini muffin/flapjack

Sometimes instead of a sandwich I'll send pasta & breadsticks with maybe a dip.

Malt loaf does look a bit like poo. Not healthy poo either

love the jam wrap/ vagina comment. Gotta love kids' humour.

I'm not trying to boast and neither am I being disingenuous - I'm asking a genuine question. I have some Time outs in the cupboard (single finger) and they have 3g more sugar than a slice of malt loaf apparently. Maybe that could be an area of change a couple of times a week to appease him.

I wish our school had a lunch box policy in a way.

"Said it looked like a vagina" best laugh I've had all day

Ds 11 takes: ham roll/wrap/sandwich, pot of custard, apple/banana, pot of grapes/strawberries, a bar of some kind such as break away, kit kat, tesco own brand musili bar.

Dd 15 takes the same except never ham.

Ritchy I'm with you on the malt loaf. It's an occasional after school treat if tea will be a bit later less chance to do damage to teeth that way.

I can still remember what my mother told me about packed lunches in my first year at school - that if I changed school I'd probably find everyone else had lunches like mine. As it happened a couple of years later I did and she was right.

(in my case it was sandwich and 2 pieces of fruit that was so different to what everyone else had, more specifically the fruit ...)

not that outlandish here, but our school has a strict lunch policy which is ridiculous as they feed the kids pizza chips and ice cream

I do a sandwich / wrap, bottle of water, yoghurt, slice of melon, packet of crisps and a piece of whatever fruit we have lying around, sliced apple of a banana or whatever. Mine do eat chocolate etc at home though, I don't feel the need to limit anything foodwise really.

DD (age 9) has:

Marmite sandwich on whole meal
Pot of carrot sticks or cucumber
Yoghurt in a tube
Fruit flakes
Pack of crisps

So a mix of healthy and unhealthy!

Ds 9 has... 'best of both' sandwich (compromise after constant moaning all his friends have white) cucumber slices, chunks of cheddar, strawberries and kiwi. Penguin type bar.
Varies, but that's generally it.
I seem to remember some piss taking after malt loaf went in.