Nursery Meals - appalling?

[TheBlushBaby]

I have been looking at nurseries and the meals provided. I plan to raise my son plant-based with white meats occasionally, and with no processed foods. I like to cook everything from scratch and can happily make extras. I make all sauces, seed loaf, and everything else I can.

Of course this works under our roof as it's how we eat, but this isn't the way for everyone.

I was very shocked reading the meal plan for the nursery. Can I send my son with packed lunch? Does their menu seem very carb heavy to anyone else? It's all cheese, breads, pastas, potatoes! Am I overthinking this?

Not read through. But I was kind of in the same boat with DS 1 year ago when he started nursery. We have no processed food at home. Luckily nursery is accomadating and offer him porridge everymorning instead of cereal (which is total junk). They also give him fresh fruit or veg instead of the packaged snacks other children get. We've allowed him to have toast on occasion. He's also not good on cows milk so they order in soy milk and yogurt for him.
A good nursery will accodmate. It's one good way to find out which the good nurserys are before starting really. The ones that work with families needs are the goodies xx

Viperama, why are you so determined to make your child different to everyone else? Do you think it makes you a better mum and you can feel superior to the parents that allow their children to eat the same foods as their friends?
Performance Parenting at its best.

My DS has a very "traditional" menu at his school with puddings every day. There are no overweight kids! There is also no option for a packed lunch as everyone has to have school lunches (although they do cater for dietary requirements). I have no issues with it whatsoever. It's a healthy balanced diet. There is no reason for kids not to have carbs or red meat.

Op - are you for real? Here you are asking about what looks like a perfectly normal nursery menu, yet on another thread you are asking how long after birth you can have cosmetic procedures?! You even suggest you will have to stop breastfeeding early in order to have Botox treatments!! So you will consider comprising the childs early nutrition for some Botox, but then arent happy at what a nursery might feed them. Do get real, preferably before your life changes beyond recognition when you give birth.

Maybe I am completely out of touch with modern mothers, mine are now late teens, they went to nursery but I didnt examine the menu in detail. They were fed a healthy diet at home, including all different food types. At 17 & 19, they now like most foods. But as others have said, you can't control what they eat when they are older.

My DS19 cooks for himself at uni, healthy food, but tops up with Maccies on his return from clubbing!! And we hardly ever went to Maccies at home! DD eats anything and everything, but even I sometimes am shocked at some of the junk food she buys for college lunches or on her day off. But she also eats healthy home cooked stuff. Everything in moderation!

'Pumpkin, potatoes, seed breads, variety of legumes and beans, as well as squash and sweet potatoes are all great high-carbohydrate foods without sacrificing nutrition.'

They need to stay in business, and part of that is serving foods which appeal to the widest audience possible so there is less waste. These foods are not going to appeal to the widest possible audience possible or be cost-effective due to their seasonality (at the least). Send yours in with a packed lunch.

I'm shocked that there is a vegan opinion for children ... and that people choose a vegan diet for growing children!

Food scientists are fine with it though, so imagine your shock isn't too concerning for parents.

What's the matter with it? Looks like a really nice menu to me.

Firstly BlushBaby well done on taking the nutrional needs of your child seriously, it's not easy preparing everything from scratch and not using processed crap.

Secondly I cannot believe the amount of people here who seriously think that giving a sugary dessert to a child daily is ok? Menu sucks if you ask me. As for just going elsewhere if you don't like the food - Why shouldn't that nursery be used with a packed lunch sent? I don't understand the negativity towards the OP.

It's not about wanting your child to be different, it's about wanting them to be healthy, not overweight and miserable!

The nursery has to A - make money so will need to provide a menu that is cost effective and B - provide a menu that the most amount of children will eat, small children don't all eat olives and blue cheese and quinoa and bean sprouts and spinach etc. There's no point in a nursery providing a super healthy (for adults) menu that only a couple of kids will eat, the rest of the kids going hungry and 90% of the parents funing because thier children are starving at the end of the day.
Also they are inspected and thier menus will be assessed so I would look at thier last ofstead report and see what was mentioned.

Cathf your message to me has quite the tone. But to answer your question, no I'm not determined to make my child different, I'm simply ensuring that he has the healthiest diet possible. What other people do with their children is their business. Fact is food that can live on a shelf for months is full of preservatives and freshly made food is far healthier, and tasty.

cath I don't think anyone is trying to make their child different by feeding them a certain way. If other parents are so insecure about what they're doing that they get offended or upset by what another family does - it's a bit ridiculous and should be reflected on.

I hardly think mothers are feeding their children vegetables going "haha! This is totally gonna piss of all the other mums", they're far more focused on feeding their child what they think is best.

User ending in 257 completely summed it up!

I think mums are more interested in having healthy kids than showboating to other mums.

Food scientists are fine with it though, so imagine your shock isn't too concerning for parents

Pretty sure "food scientists" isn't the name of any group that has publicly supported a vegan diet for small children. Few would. Would you like to be more specific or withdraw the comment?

But Viper, you ARE singling him out, whether you mean to or not. It's OK when they are little, but as he gets older, all he will want is to be the same as his friends, despite what you may think now.
You are being That Parent, and your doing your son no favours socially, even if you are nutritionally.
Seriously, I don't know how the human race has survived so long when you look at the diets - and accepted and now discredited wisdom - of generations before us.

Plant-based food 🙄 You had me at that.

The menu is standard and normal. I also cook from scratch daily and we don't eat processed food. Or pudding daily. Or indeed meat daily. But I don't expect school to feed my child nuts and berries. It's expensive - or more so than he menu in the op, and not every child will eat it.

Having looked at OP's other threads, she's clearly messing with this thread.

But you're getting upset and offended at what the nursery does op? Is that because you're insecure about the choices you've made that you haven't even implemented yet

User, given that the Op has not yet had her baby, let alone weaned it, I doubt she has any concept of whether preparing food from scratch is easy or not!

As for your final comment it's about wanting them to be healthy, not overweight and miserable. That is truly insulting to all parents who feed their kids a diet comprising all food groups and do not turn out overweight and miserable kids.

As I said in my earlier post, my DC went to nursery, they ate what they were given there and at primary school, ate healthy home cooked meals at home. God knows what they ate at secondary, but by teenage years controlling food is impossible. Neither of them have been overweight at any time in their 17/19 years alive, they are both very slim, and they certainly are not miserable. Never have been! Oh and both love cooking from scratch.

Really? 😂😂 appalling?! I think it's a balanced, healthy diet. Some kids are raised on chicken nuggets and beans ffs.

Looks fine to me. The problem with a packed lunch is that, unless you are super creative, your child will never have the same variety of foods. The best way of getting a non fussy child in the future is exposing them to a wide variety when they are little. And an easy way of doing this timewise is to get them to eat nursery then school lunches.

Bit cheese heavy. Fish mornay would give me the boaks. And nearly every vegetarian option seems to be Quorn subbed in. Which is a lot of Quorn. Very processed, gives some people a sore tummy and even if you don't mind that, Quorn every day would grind my gears a bit. Your kid will basically eat cheese and/or Quorn every day, with fish or chicken once a week. So I would say, yup, packed lunch.

Have you actually had this baby yet?

YABU this is fine, you are being OTT and YABVU if you think he is going to stick to this mental diet

ThankyouBlushBaby, you put that very well. Not sure how doing our best for our children transcribes into being a show off. I'm feeding my child how I eat (and how I was raised I might add), as close to natural as possible. I'm sure he'll eat what he wants when he's older and with his peers, but he'll likely default back to how he was raised when he's an adult. Most people do, we become our parents! 😂

maras2 - based on Ops other threads, no she hasnt had the baby!

I think it looks ok. My child's school has Mon - chicken roast dinner, Tues - chicken casserole and Fri - chicken curry. They must be batch cooking chicken!