School "healthy eating"

[QueenBear]

Just want ti make it clear before i post that I am very happy with the education my DS receives, he has come on in leaps and bounds so no issues with the school "academically" - however I cant hell but feel a bit confused over this one.

Current topic is "healthy eating". Children have been keeping food diaries of the fruit and veg eaten etc. Having guests come in to do exercise class this week ( as well as pe) etc - all well and good ( considering my mom calls me the "food police" 😂 )

But... he has come home with a letter saying that as part of their "healthy eating" a £3 contribution for a class trip to..... Frankie and Bennys for pizza making?!?

How on EARTH is that healthy? I assumed a class trip to a farm to fruit pick.. or a letter to ask each child to bring in a different fruit to make a fruit salad etc.. but no. Pizza. Now we do have treats once a month at home, we have made a pizza together before and have a baking session monthly where we have quality time together in the kitchen. But either i am being an idiot, or unreasonable to understand why the pizza making is a healthy school trip!!! Anyone able to make me have the aha moment and understand?

Even though it's f&b it is obviously a class tailored to children so it's entirely possible they will be doing healthy versions of pizza. It would be very easy for op to phone in and check.

I think JonesyAndTheSalad makes a good point.

For this topic my DS went to a Sushi bar and got to make vegetarian sushi. Superficially, I'd say that is healthier than F&B's pizza but I'm not entirely clued up on this stuff. My two DC are very thin and fit as we do a 4 mile round school run a day and one plays football at lunch and we often go to the park after school. It is my understanding that exercise improves glucose use in the body so I have to admit they do have the occasional home made fruit cake, probably more than their friends who live around the corner from the school, so in that sense I'm probably not great at judging what is healthy and what isn't.

I may be cynical, but that sounds like a marketing ploy to me (from F&B).

Years ago I worked alongside a team doing a project for a big tobacco firm. The tobacco firm was investing in a huge anti-smoking campaign - v visible, lots of good, healthy messages etc. But in fact despite it being ANTI smoking, the brand awareness actually generated increased sales of cigarettes....

So yes, I'd be hard pushed to see this as an altruistic move and rather another way of selling crap food to families.

Lots of information about the school visits on the website.

I'm with you op. I'm no healthy eating nut but I still would have been a bit at a trip to Franky and Benny's as part of a healthy eating topic! I do think a pizza with a crisp thin base, plenty of veg an a sprinkle of cheese can be fine nutrition wise but f and b pizzas are dripping with grease! May as well take them to MacDonalds! Though maybe they are taking then as a one off to show it's ok to eat that kind or food occasionally? The letter is worded badly though.

I remember going to Pizza Express in year 2 and making my own pizza to take home. If I remember, it was when we were doing fractions in Maths so not healthy eating- didn't exist when I was in primary school.

Jonesy - we don't know anything about the OP's school's demographic!

We make pizza all the time with my toddler. Individual toddler sizes and the freeze and then cook from frozen for dinner. Wholemeal dough and tomato sauce (homemade) then courgette, sweetcorn, mushrooms, peppers and cheddar. A batch of dough has 1tbsp sugar in it and 1tsp of salt. Spread across 8 mini pizzas.

Way healthier than the turkey dinosaurs I give her!

That's impressive.

Probably quite different from F+B's pizzas.

Come on, it's a good thing surely? The kids are getting out of the classroom, going somewhere new, learning about food preparation, getting to have fun and be creative. Then they get to enjoy something yummy at the end of it. Kids can't survive on a diet of fruit, vegetables and organic quinoa. They dietery needs are different from those of adults and they need carbs, calcium and a little fat in their diets. Pizza is such a delicious food it should be a great day out for them. Seriously, does anyone think it would be better for the kids to stay in the school and slice up fruit for a salad!?

Some of the point is that it's promoting F+B's, a fast food restaurant.

Actually, children probably probably could "survive on a diet of fruit, vegetables and organic quinoa" if you include avocados and coconuts for their fat content. I'm not suggesting they should, but add nuts and seeds and a few whole grains to that list and you probably have an ideal diet in terms of healthiness.

I think if it was part of a topic about food or maths or whatever then fair enough but a visit to a fast food restaurant as part of a topic about healthy eating??? Unless it's to show what you shouldn't eat regularly (which I doubt f and B's would be on board with!) it's a strange choice!

I organised one of these trips to Pizza Express for local home educators.

It was a great session they learnt about various foods and where they came from and had a quiz, made their pizzas saw then being cooked and got to take it away with them to eat. The kids had great fun and it is totally different experience making pizza with your peer compared to making a pizza with mum at home(which we do regularly). My 6year old son still talks about it now and it was 18 months ago.

Peers*

My son has just done this at school - making pizza and fruit salad. In part it was the science behind dough and the changes, discussing liquids, solids and gases. They also talked about pizza as being a 'not quite so healthy choice' and about how you choose and balance your food for a healthy lifestyle. They also had lots of writing and maths tasks associated with it - writing orders / reading recipes etc, weighing. There's a lot more that they get out of it then it first seems.

I do agree on the F&B point though. My son did his in school (though they had the resources to do that, and I guess not every school has access to an oven for pupil use)

F&B offer this to schools for free, that's why they're going. My son's class managed to link it to "the hungry caterpillar"!

Agree about not all schools having the facilities for this. Our local primary does, which is great - the kids get the use of the same kitchens used for making/reheating school lunches and, back before the NC changes when they had termly topics, junior kids planned and executed a cafe, planned a menu that would include a range of food groups, with meat eating and veggie options, took orders and prepared and served the food (I had a cheese and onion toastie with a fruit salad topped with yoghurt from DS1's class)

For schools without a kitchen suitable for a whole class of kids, restaurants offering a session lie this is an excellent idea.

Also agree that there are no bad foods - just bad diets. Even at the level of a single meal, a whole 1200 kcal pizza isn't great, even if it has a wee bit of veg on. Half of that pizza (or 1/3 for an 8 year old) with a pile of salad is a great meal, with plenty of protein, micronutrients and fibre, though and that's the sort of thing a session like this would be an opportunity to learn about.

I'm with you op. Frankie and Bennys for pizza is a weird trip to include as part of a healthy eating topic.
As an aside - so you know you're not alone- we used to live in Asia and our dd was taken on a trip to the 'health promotion board' to support a topic on healthy foods. They then took them to McDonald's for a happy meal at lunchtime straight after the trip...

Rogue no we don't know anything for certain about the school in question's demographic but you can bet that if it were in a very middle class area with no or few low income families, they wouldn't be going to Frankie and Benny's for their trip.

They'd be going to bloody Forest School because there'd be funding for things like that.

We have a gardening and cooking program at our school (Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden) and it is amazing how many kids when they start have absolutely no idea about where food comes from. The very concept that someone stands in the pizza shop and puts different ingredients onto a base is something many of them have never thought of before. Part of ours is sitting down at the table to eat together, and many kids have never done that.

We're lucky that we have a full industrial kitchen in our school, but not all schools are as lucky. If they have no cooking facilities, a trip like this which is relatively low cost can have it's value as just one small part of a large unit. It can also be used as a teaching tool for showing why home cooking can be healthier. Our kitchen teacher does a few lessons where he has the kids make something, then brings in the takeaway versions and does a blind taste test. His usual results are that the kids prefer the homemade ones more.

I think pizza making is good. If you want to eat healthily, rule 1 is learn to cook, and if you do, it's easy to make stuff that is healthy and tastes good.

Not so keen on taking them to a chain for this though: advertising to a captive audience of kids- no thanks.

Everything in moderation. no food is unhealthy unless eaten to excess. Being taught how too cook anything is a good thing.

Of course it's marketing from F&B! But sometimes it's a practical way schools can do this sort of thing. Surprised at the £3 cost though - we didn't pay anything for the one at Pizza Express. I got to make my own as well as a helper which was unexpected!

YANBU, and I think people are being massively disingenuous.

I make homemade pizza sometimes, and yes they're relatively healthy.

However - we're talking about a 'healthy eating' teaching and learning inquiry - and the trip is to a chain pizza joint?!

I mean, seriously - there was nowhere actually healthy they could have gone...? Farm? Farmers market? Garden? Anywhere..?