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?

Around that age one of my children did become quite sensitive to being different, he was a bit shy back then. We went with simple sandwich, some sort of bar / mini biscuits, fruit. He also wanted to eat quickly so he could run off and play. If your child is enjoying the lunchbox attention then carry on.

I think the majority of the lunches posted on here are far too low in protein and fats and too high in sugar for every day eating. There is a lot if misinformation about what constitutes 'healthy'. No wonder children are starving and need to snack after school if they are eating a sandwich/crisps or cheddars plus fruit and yogurt or a chocolate biscuit. High sugar, little protein, little in the way of healthy, filling fats.

DD has a selection from hummus/tzatziki/other dip with veg, cheese cubes, salami, cold cooked sausage, cold chicken, full-fat greek yogurt, fruit, home-made low sugar muffin, frittata, salad (with high-fat dressing) boiled egg, and the occasional wrap with lots of filling compared to amount of bread. Bit different to what her friends have but it's how we eat at home and I'm not providing a high-sugar packed lunch just so she can 'fit in'

Dons hard-hat and remains firmly on high-horse

Ds is 12 and in secondary school. He doesn't notice what others are eating but then he eats in learning support.

He has :

Large hot dog roll with lettuce, cucumber and meat
Chunk of cucumber
2 carrots
Chocolate something (mini pkt malteasers/ 3 mini brownies/mini choc)

I often wonder if it's enough but he seems ok with it. Sometimes will take crisps or an apple.

I think most secondary kids buy stuff at school break/lunch or from shop or way in. He doesn't. I'd be more than happy to fund it but he doesn't do queues or crowds!

Oh, and often a square of dark chocolate, the 80-90%stuff.

My Ds is much older- but he enjoys being the token posh/hippy boy in his group I make all our own bread and he likes me to make increasingly bizarre shaped rolls for the amusement of his friends. They call me "Bake Off Mum"......

I do love a good packed banquet thread.

Sorry, I meant packed lunch thread

My kids ate high protein and healthy the rest of the time. School packed lunch is not the battle to fight. They need to fit in, learn to chat/share etc and by secondary it all evens out anyway.

My guys have
cheese /ham /tuna wholemeal baps

Carrot sticks /celery or cucumber hummus pot
Satsuma / Apple
Popcorn / or crisp( rarely)
Yogurt ( tube one as they don't split) or jelly pot

And if they haven't had the crisp I sometimes put a pack of mini oreas or a soreen cake bar thingy
Water or rice milk

Nice to see kids are consistent down the years and still take the piss out of anyone daring to have something slightly different to themselves. Not.
It's good that your ds isn't so bothered by them saying anything, good on him. He sounds sensible and a good lad.
I used to love jam sandwiches, which I occasionally had, but they'd be called poo sandwiches by other kids.
Anyway!
Packed lunches in this house ae usually something like -

• sandwiches, I vary the bread. Some days it may be white, som edays granary roll, sometimes a wrap.
  Fillings - ham, cheese, tuna, salmon

• piece of fruit. Always a piece of fruit. (eg banana, apple, sliced kiwi, satsumas

• babybel type cheese or cheese stick (Aldi ones are great) (less messy to transport than yoghurts which always seem to explode in the lunchbox

• a biscuit or a bag of crisps/muffin/flapjack/cereal bar

No chocolate, not allowed chocolate. Lunchbox Police says NO.

Dd is only allowed one carb in her packed lunch. So I give her:

1. cooked chicken pieces or pepperami sausage or ham slices
2. a packet of crisps instead of a sandwich
3. veg sticks or lettuce
4. fruit - usually mango
5. cheese eg a babybel
6. drink of half orange juice, half sparkling water

She's 8 and has a massive appetite, hence the need be careful.

It's a constant struggle to keep the sugar down. She already has a hearty breakfast mostly 250g natural yoghurt, a square dark chocolate and a small homemade cake. On days where she's really hungry I also make her a smoothie and pop a raw egg inside.

She does complain her friends have chocolate and crisps and a sandwich (treble carbs) so I give her a higher carb lunch with a small chocolate bar for school trips so she feels like she fits in.

She also likes to help out stacking chairs some days at the end of dinner and gets a school pudding once or twice a week.

What you're giving isn't that unusual. Dd has a medical condition so I'm not concerned about salt content in crisps as the cardiologist told me to increase her salt intake. I think there is a lot of hype about salt intake because of convenience foods. If you were giving bread, crisps, readymade meals everyday etc, this would be too much salt.

I sent DD the other day with left over take away. She's 18 and has a microwave to heat stuff up.

I don't get the angst it's 5 meals out of 21 minimum

my son loved Malt loaf from the age of 3, he also loved dried apricots and other oddments. I think its because we lived at my mums until his 3rd birthday and they were healthy vegetarian types, he did get friends questioning why he would prefer a dried apricot to a chocolate but its what you are used to. He is 27 now and eats everything, good and bad...lol

I was in the exact position of your DS at primary school. The lunch all the cool kids had was: white bread and ham/ luncheon meat/ processed cheese slice sandwiches, Capri-Sun, Walkers crisps, Penguin, apple. Any variation from that and you were weird. Mine was different every day but could involve things like a salad in a pot, a chicken leg, cold sausage, homemade cake, squash in a flask, etc. I remember children telling me mine was weird, and like your DS I wasn't bothered, and I don't remember ever being so.

I have just sent DS (11) off to an all day sports tournament with:

*2 baguettes with nice French salted butter and cooked ham
*One pack of choc digestives (to share with the team)

• 2 apples
• water

• money for chips or a hot choc.

Feel very un-MN-PC

Oh well, at least the ham is "naice"

Nothigh. I agree. Even the cake I make for dd is reduced sugar, gluten free (as I can't eat it), high egg and butter content. The mixture is very runny but cooks just fine.

I put in what i know they'll eat so a cheese or salami muffin, yoghurt, fruit and a small treat. It might not be packed lunch of the year but there's no faffing around and I know they'll come home with an empty lunchbox!
I recently found out that despite having a lunch account DS (15) occasionally takes lunch in with him... I got a phone call from his HOY asking if everything was OK - it turned out that DS had picked up a bacon sandwich on his way to school (using his bloody bus fare), gone off the idea when he actually got it, stuck it in his bag and got it out at lunchtime.
Cue a discussion with the thankfully lovely teacher about whether to be proud of him deciding not to waste food or be slightly disgusted at a squashed cold congealed bacon sandwich being eaten 3 hours after he had bought it

It isn't always that other kids are being rude or mean, my son didn't like any conversational questions about his food. Seeing as 2 of his best friends were of Indian descent, one half Russian, the other Polish it wasn't a situation where any slightly different food was looked down on. My son was also anxious about getting any thing wrong, lunch wasn't worth getting him stressed about.

He's now at secondary and loves standing out, in the way he dresses and acts. He has taken a knife, fork and napkin to school and for a cheap laugh whips them out to eat his sandwich and apple with.

I can't believe how many items
People put in, like 10 Things. I don't have that many things for
Lunch at 40

Where do you get time to cook homemade muffins? Why do so many people give their children cake daily but recoil in horror at chocolate?

It's a different world

Mine get tuna pasta salad because I'm sick of them bitching about sarnie fillings, then a piece of fruit, a few tortilla chips or popcorn from a large pack, greek yog with a little lemon curd in it and a fairy cake in a silicone mould (from a cake mix!!!)

Youngest gets an extra piece of fruit for snack and eldest gets some carrot sticks and a hard boiled egg if he has a sports fixture.

Used to try and do healthy, nutritious and interesting pack ups but they either felt embarrassed or bored so gave up and try and improve breakfast instead.

We have pretty strict lunchbox rules. No sweets or cake, and definitely no flavoured drinks, water only. It is not a big deal as its been this way for years.
V normal to see kids with bento style boxes contains hummus, cucumber, blueberries, carrot, cheese, tuna etc and zero packet food. They are allowed to order wraps or sushi but that's it. (Though sushi is really just sugary rice so not to be encouraged in my view)

Matching 9 year olds do probably need more food than 40 year olds though, especially than sedentary 40 year olds. 13/14 year olds definitely do.

Sounds like a standard lunch box to me - if he's happy enough, no reason to change it.

My children's primary school has quite the draconian lunchbox policy.
No nuts, seeds (understandable), also no crisps, chocolate, biscuits, cake or muffins, cereal bars, squash/juice boxes are allowed.

I sent DS (5) in with yoghurt covered rice cakes and he came back and told me they weren't 'allowed'. He was quite upset as they actually took them away from him and he thought he had done something wrong. I was not impressed.

I'm not actually keen on their insistence that the children have a diet that would suit a slightly overweight 30 yr old woman, but it's one meal.

I load them up with haribo, crisps and sausage rolls as soon as they step through the door - it's all fine...

You've got to look at an entire day, and over a week to determine 'healthiness' of diet, you don't need to nutritionize the shit out of them in their packed lunch.

pmsl at vagina

cheese spread and cucumber or humus wrap
chunks of cheese, cocktail sausage and half a bag of mini cheddars (he's 3)
little tub of blueberries
barney bear or whatever treat is on offer

yawn.