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?

It's not the contents of packed lunches these days - it's the volume. All you need is a sandwich, a snack and a drink. You don't need a yoghurt, fruit, crudities, cake ON TOP of that

I disagree. Ds1 in particular needs more between 8am and 5pm than a sarnie and yoghurt.

Ah mine also has an apple for morning break and I bring a banana at pick up - maybe that's the difference. 8-5 I agree he needs more

Is malt loaf really that unusual? I remember having it in my packed lunch as a child. I loved it!

I don't think YABU at all. That's perfectly normal. You're not giving him kale and lentil stew.

I like kale and lentil stew!

DS will not eat a banana though, odd child.

A school provided packed lunch (for school trips instead of the hot option) at the infants I work at includes:

• small sandwich (roll) with either cheese or tuna
• a piece of fruit
• a small biscuit (plain, no chocolate)
• a little paper bag of either cucumber, halved tomato or carrots

No drink is provided.
Always seems so little and so unappetising! But that's what school seems to consider as being an adequate packed lunch for a 4-7 year old.

Dd is 14y and takes:

• sandwich or wrap (normally chicken, cucumber and may)

OR

• small quiche and out of salad

OR

• pack of sushi

Then a smoothie or juice, and either a packet of crisps OR a small chocolate bar

And that's it. She has fruit at home but never takes it in her packed lunch.

I used to send my DD (9) in with a pot of humous and carrot sticks and all of the healthy stuff, now I send her in with hula hoops or a bag of mini cheddars (plus other stuff of course). I know she eats a really good diet at home and has good habits, so a bit of junk isn't going to kill her. It's more important to me that she fits in with her friends and feels good about her lunch .

I send my neice off to school trips with what she thinks are 'jam sandwiches' but are in fact home made red pepper tapenade or roasted tomato with usually 2-3 of her 5 day roasted and pureed and caramalized down until it tastes like jam. I wish I was joking too. The girl just doesn't like eating her veg.

When DS was in junior school their school trip packed lunch was:
Cheese, ham or tuna roll
Crisps (walkers baked)
Apple or orange
Kit Kat
Carton of apple or orange juice

DS is at secondary now & though he is very small for age needs more than a sandwich & snack especially if it's a sport heavy day. He's usually starving by the time he comes out of school & will often buy himself a pasta pot or pizza slice at breaktime in addition to his packed lunch.

I send my neice off to school trips with what she thinks are 'jam sandwiches' but are in fact home made red pepper tapenade or roasted tomato with usually 2-3 of her 5 day roasted and pureed and caramalized down until it tastes like jam.

If you have done that much, it's probably lost all nutritional goodness.

My DD (5 1/2) has:

-Cheese or ham sandwich on one slice of granary bread
-Pot of mixed salad items (e.g. cherry toms, cucumber, carrot, pepper, mange tout)
-Pot of fruit (e.g. grapes, raspberries or blueberries)
-Carton of apple juice or strawberry milkshake
-One other treat item (e.g. a cheese string, popcorn, few mini cheddars or a bit of homemade cake).

Mostly all gets eaten.

I love a malt loaf, it is a blessing from the gods that my kids don't like it

I'd be talking to the teacher if other dc are commenting so nastily about his lunches as it's obviously bothering him to some extent as he's talking to you about it more.

I'd also maybe teach ds a couple of retorts to say to people who say nasty things to him about his lunch - he'll know what will work best on the different dc, be it 'You're such a baby to not like yogurt/not know what malt loaf is' or if they're being particularly awful go for the terrible PA approach of 'well if your mummy loved you she would give you this too' (OK that's probably a bad one but you can have fun making some up together and also discussing why they are poking fun at his lunch - it may well be that the other parents don't know or care enough about their dc's lunch to ensure that it's healthy. Or it may be that they have an incredibly fussy child who won't eat things and that's not good in the long run and so on.

I had an incredibly fussy child who went through most of junior school taking a cheese wrap with cucumber and olives in - most of the time half of it would come home. He didn't want to take anything else - there was one satsuma that I tried in the beginning to send in - came back every day, untouched. probably went into school for a good couple of weeks before becoming a bit battered and I gave up sending stuff but would always try to send more in - always came home. I did make him have at least one hot lunch a week and over time he gradually came to try and like several things so that he was having them 2 or 3 times a week in a typical week.

Ds has now moved up to Y7 and is discovering the joys of a secondary school canteen. He has a break and a lunch break, the canteen is open in both and it turns out that he was having a slice of pizza at break time and another or something different at lunch... hasn't gained any weight on it yet though, he spends all his time running around playing different sports so he needs the energy.

What I sent my child to school with:
wholemeal sandwiches
cucumber
carrot sticks
munch bunch
smoothie crisps
apple

what he ate:
wholemeal sandwich
crisps
munch bunch
other people's biscuits

he had an apple which stayed in his school bag for a term. It had a higher attendance record than him, as he was off sick for a few days when the apple was in a forgotten pack lunch bag on his peg, absorbing phonics.

Sh I was waiting for the sugar/hyperactivity myth to be trotted out.

http://health.spectator.co.uk/bad-medicine-busting-the-myths-about-sugar-and-hyperactivity/

I think the lunchbox sounds fine. I can't bring myself to get worked up about what other kids eat. Why do you want rules?

It's all so daft. My DD has school dinners. Typically double carb main like pasta and garlic bread or pizza with chips. Always pudding, often with custard. She also has school tea, at after school club, also carby (wraps, pasta, pizza) followed by fruit. Why do packed lunches have to be so perfect when school dinners are not?!

Ds has ham or cheese sandwich, 2 portions of fruit (raisins & apple, satsuma & plum) squeeze yoghurt, and then either a handful or crisps or cheddars, a flapjack, slice of maltloaf, chocolate biscuit or fingers, fruit roll thing. I think it's quite balanced, he likes and eats it all, but I know others give full bags of crisps and chocolate bars so it's unusual in that regard. But it's just what he's always eaten and whenever I've given him more chocolate or crisps he doesn't manage it all and asks for less so he can get out and play.

Ds had 2 sandwiches or wraps (chicken/ham/tuna with as much salad as he'd tolerate which wasn't much), yogurt and an innocent fruit smoothie. He'd have a banana for snack.

I would never have so many different items daily for lunch, especially as he just wanted to eat quickly and get outside. He did say some kids got fizzy juice and more than one bar of chocolate every day!

Although nutrition is an important part it is only one area of a healthy lifestyle. So if kids are receiving a healthy life style full of fresh air, exercise, play and good balanced meals at home I don't think we should get too hung up about packet lunches. After all for decades food and nutritional standards were a lot lower and previous generations were fine and they were never too hung up about these things. They survived for generations on crisps and chocolate before the days of Jamie Oliver without a massive obesity problem. I think the key is to look at children's life style has a complete package rather that just banning the demonised items from the lunch box.

Well if your packed lunches are outlandish, then I'm not sure how to call the ones my dcs had.

TBH, my answer has always been 'this is what we do. Everyone does things in a different way but that's what is working for us'.
Whatever I was putting were things the dcs enjoyed, not put there because it was 'healthy' or to show off or whatever else it could be.

The big difference was that I was happy to take the half an hour it took to prepare the packed lunches for all 4 of us when a sandwich with a fruit might have taken half that time if not less.

I'm always amazed by the quantity in lunch boxes. Dtds 5 have a small roll with ham or cheese, some fruit, frube type yoghurt (no spoon and if you freeze them they're defrosted by lunch but keep rest of food chilled!), occasionally I'll add some crisps but a few in a pot rather than a whole bag. Carton of juice as water ends up undrunk.

I am quite amused by the horrified surely not chocolate every day - a breakaway or something like that probably has far less sugar than cake or flapjack - I don't think anyone is suggesting they give them a full size mars bar. I grew up with my mum really restricting sweets / chocolate which became the forbidden fruit and I have struggled with food issues all my life. My fit active healthy weight kids get a little treat food most days and have a relaxed and sensible approach to food.

Nutrition is, IMO, one of the most important thing to teach your dcs.
Wo a health diet, there is no way you will be staying healthy, with or wo sport etc...

It took me time to realise that and I did only because I got ill. But each and every single time I have been unwell (from endometriosis to ME) the one thing that made a difference is diet.

Saying it's not that essential for me just doesn't make sense.

I just rolled my eyes out of my head

Neither of mine liked sandwiches, so generally their lunches were "something I could freeze" like cheese and onion pasty/meat pasty/sausage roll/home made stromboli or "something that was 10p in Tesco cheap fridge" like sushi/wrap/pasta salad/Dairylea Dippers.

Add in a (frozen) squeezy yogurt and a cereal bar and that was lunch done. I'm under no illusion that cereal bars are better than chocolate biscuits, but neither of them liked chocolate in their lunch box as it went squishy. At primary school they had a carton of orange or apple juice and a bottle of (tap) water, and at senior school a can of diet pop and a bottle of water.

A hummus or cheese spread wrap makes me feel a bit sick just slop in a wrap. Apart from those fillings I think the lunches you're sending sound quite normal I can't see the issue! Maybe add a bag of baked crisps or crackers or a little choc treat? If he's happy with his food though that's fine as long as he enjoys it and it's reasonable healthy I don't see the issue.