to show you these pictures of Danish children's packed lunches?

[wallyfeatures]

I've followed a few of the lunchbox threads and thought it might be of interest to mumsnet to see what is allowed and typically given to young children here in Denmark in schools and kindergardens. I am a member of a closed facebook group where Danish mothers share ideas on packed lunches. The photos below are a typical sample of what is given to children from 3+ years up. The food shown would be enough for lunch and a mid afternoon snack. Happy to answer questions about what is shown.

responses

1. how small?
2. Yes, especially grapes, cut them into quarters, coclatilpølser, I cut into small pieces
3. Not really
4. No, not here .. but do not give anything with I know they can not handle
5. No never but now my children of course also 7.10 and 13 years.

But it's certainly not something I was afraid of when they were small

1. Do not dare to give the grapes anymore ...
2. My daughter is 5 and I cut them still :) It's a tall order, and she can not even open his mouth completely with a whole in
3. I cut grapes in half and he has not sausages, but meat balls cut small instead.

French school dinners always feature in blogs/articles, I don't how true to reality they are or not but they always look nice to me!

jenpetronus are they anything like this really?

See! Mostly lovely and safety conscious!

Is it as far removed from reality as the Facebook posts in U.K.?

Some more responses

1. Mine are 5 and 7.5 so it is not as relevant as they could easily eat it

10. I halve or quarter always for the small (10 months). The big one nearly 3 gets them whole ... but I also buy the smallest I can find. I think they are the best. The 3 year old bites them fine. 11. Cut the too small cherry tomatoes. All that is small and round to be cut. 12. Thinking that you know your children best ... do they often get something stuck in his throat and so on. If you are nervous that they might choke on grapes or sausages I would probably just cut them or find alternatives 13. Otherwise, remove the "skin" from the grapes 14. Stated from someone who has tried it 😢 all errors can be swallowed. Ours never had problems with anything. But on Christmas Eve, it was a soft potato that was about to go very wrong. He just was not concentrating. So here we are thinking more about difficult the food he gets is and in what situations. He was 11 months when it happened 15. I still cut grapes into quarters. She is almost two. And it ist hat I first started recently. But why sausages? Can they be dangerous? 16. Yes, my son is four and does not get grapes unless they are cut in half. He's NOT allowed peanuts or other nuts which are about the size and with salt. My mother was a birthday for many years ago where a 6 year old boy was suffocated and died because of a peanut. So we are all a little mark of the ...?

Interesting thread, OP. I love seeing the differences. It's why I like watching the odd Skandi programme, to see what their houses are like, and how they order coffee.

Did anyone see the bit on the news last night about the Japanese kindergarten? The packed lunches were beautiful. And they could play on the roof. Which had a slide down to the ground.

sorry, my translation skills are slow.

17. yes
18. Yes I cut grapes, cherry tomatoes, etc. for my son who turns 1 year next week. I'm fucking afraid he will choke on something 😮 my big girl 5 years old does not eat it unless it is cut.
19. Yes!!! Before the youngest is age 3 years and still actually - have read too many scary stories

Just curious for all yous posting about crisps/cereal bars/biscuits? Are your dc allowed them in school because mine aren't, except for Friday 'treat days'.

I think the French have the best idea.

In fact the more I think, stopping packed lunches would solve an awful lot of problems. No angst over the lunch box police, less risk of coming into contact with allegens as the food would be controlled. (I work on a nut free site. We don't sell them, use any nut product in cooking, or allow anyone to bring them into the premises).

School dinners should be free for kids upto high school and after that heavily subsidised.

There was a segment on Radio 4 last year about school lunchboxes, quite a good listen: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vkj24

I love a good multi-cultural lunchbox exchange . Thanks for sharing this.

I'm looking forward to hearing the replies to the choking question (which was my first thought too).

Can we ask them other questions? "Hello from England. What have you smeared on your rye bread today? Thank you."

Contents are ok but it'd take most of the lunch hour to eat it.
As pp said it's on a par with a ham salad sandwich and some fruit.

live in Germany and hear about either children's lunch boxes in the uk being policed and them not being allowed a chocolate button/small savory muffin, or people complaining that their children only want cheese strings and Capri suns. Which is it?

This may shock you, but not all the kids in the UK go to the same school, and policies on lunches vary by school!

packed lunches are not allowed. Not at any age, they're just not

Same here in Finland. No going home to eat either so you either eat the school lunch or you go hungry. DD eats meals at daycare that she wouldn't touch with a 10 foot barge pole at home.

Interesting stuff :)

My kids both eat school dinners, which are surprisingly nice and balanced. They eat stuff at school I have great difficulty persuading them to eat at home....

When they were at nursery they had the fairly standard lunch of ham sandwich, veg sticks, yogurt, pot of fruit. Sometimes I used to mix it up with a pasta salad or breadsticks and hummus. No chocolate, sweets, crisps, fuzzy drinks.....

Anyone from the USA on the thread? What's 'average' over there? I've watched too many episodes of Barney so assume you all just eat Mac and Cheese

I swear Denmark has had some good PR recently.
Aren't they in the top 5 nation's ranked for processed pork consumption? *
And they also rank in the top 6 for potato consumption, but win at having the most forms of potato on the plate at any one time? *

• these facts are from the new post- post- truth world. I have sourced them myself, but I have done lots of primary research.

This is more interesting than the thread title suggests

Apologies for the delay - DS2 home for lunch
seafood yes, that's the kind of thing
psammead I have one in primary and one in secondary - youngest's school is too small to have it's own kitchens (60 pupils) so they come in a van from the next village late morning, DS2's are cooked on site. School day is 8.30-4.30
I have mixed feelings, I see a lot of positives, but being veggie myself I see it's limits too. My two are not particularly fussy but if there are things the kids really don't like it's just too bad - they come home starving! Though I do love that they all have a proper cloth napkin from the age of 3

Manu I know you're only over here looking for food fight ideas

seafoodeatit

now THAT looks like what my dcs get now. It's amazing.
'proper' main course, extra veg/salad bar (which also inc eggs, tuna, cheese)
'proper' pudding. plus extra bread / salad.

I may have to get a job at the School (or at least volunteer)

I'm in the States. The school ds will go to doesn't really have anyone taking packed lunches as the school cook is a shit hot chef and most of the food is organically grown (by the kids in the horticulture program) and meat raised locally.

But friends who's kids go to other schools around here would have a sandwich with a nut butter (usually gluten free bread) or a wrap with chicken and veg in or pesto pasta salad, two pieces of fruit (one usually blueberries), some cucumber or carrot sticks and humous, some olives, a yogurt or some cheese. A small bag of organic vegetable crisps. A couple of towns in I'm sure this is NOT the standard lunch box.

I think a lot of schools don't allow lunch boxes or discourage them.

fleuricle forget working there, how do I enroll as a student! I would love that for lunch.

I think this thread is very interesting. I would imagine my children have what is considered an "average" British lunchbox. Sandwich/wrap/pitta with ham/cheese/tuna, carrots/cucumber, fruit and yoghurt.

We visited a German pre school last year when we were there and looked at the menu. Cooked lunch every day and a proper pudding. As far as I know packed lunches were not allowed at kindergarten.

Oh that wasn't a stealth boast about ds going to a posh school btw it's just a tiny school as we live on an island.