Quorn every day on school lunch menu

[BlackInk]

AIBU to be annoyed that the vegetarian option at my DC's primary school is Quorn 4 days out of 5?

My DC are aged 6 and 9, and have been vegetarian since birth. They are having school lunches at the moment for the first time ever because we're having our kitchen replaced at home.

The reason I've never tried to persuade them to have school dinners before is that the veggie option has always been almost exclusively Quorn. I'm not keen on Quorn myself and we rarely eat it at home. DC have never really liked it. But regardless of that, would it really be healthy/balanced to eat the same highly processed meat substitute every day? Isn't it the same as only serving Bird's Eye Fish Fingers every day?

The veggie options are always an exact replica of the meat offering - so Quorn hotpot, BBQ Quorn, Quorn and apple (??), Quorn Bolognese was last week.

Does anyone else think this isn't very good? I know I can give my DC packed lunches and that it's my choice they are vegetarian, but I'm not just thinking about us.

Thanks :)

Oh lord, has anyone ever tried that Quorn roast thing? Jesus. Like chewing an eraser.

Seems very lazy catering to just give processed food every day.

My nearest school is a tiny village school with 120 pupils but this week's vegetarian options are better than this

Vegetarian menu - January 14th - 18th
Monday - Root vegetable gratin
Tuesday - Pasta with vegetable sauce
Wednesday - Homemade mashed potatoes and carrot burgers
Thursday - Cottage cheese and spinach quiche
Friday - Beetroot burger with potato wedges and garlic sauce
Every day – salad bar, home made bread, butter, milk and water

They do similar where i work but not to that extreme. About 1/4 of the children have vegetarian but the cooks found the children didnt want to look different than the other children so tried to make the meals look as similar as possible. But they do have pizza, bean casseroles, lentil lasanges and stuff other than quorn more than once a week.

here's DD's menu (one week of it), as well as this there's baked spuds and a salad bar.

but children can and do thrive on a meat-free diet.

with a very balanced diet, possibly. Technically we are designed to eat meat, we are called omnivores for a reason.
It would be really unfair to impose a meat-free diet on the poorest kids because they can't afford it at home. My kids love things like sausage and mash, or fish and chips. Really mean to take that away from kids who can't afford them at home.

BareGrylls

I think that would be better on many levels actually as the meat served in schools is such a shite quality and cheap it can not come from a high welfare source and is probably not particularly nutritious.

We’re not veggie but I’d rather give DD good quality meat at home (when we do occasionally eat it) and have her eat veggie food at school.

That is an appalling menu!

At my school quorn does not appear on the menu at all!

This weeks non meat options are:

Monday - vegetable ragu with rice or pasta
Tuesday - spinach & chickpea Dahl
Wednesday - roasted vegetables in a large Yorkshire pudding
Thursday - vegetarian sausage & mash (I suppose that might be quorn based but they are handmade by our cook)
Friday - vegetable chow mein

Jacket potatoes are available every day as well as a salad bar.

Our meat is NOT halal but we don’t serve anything from a pig (meat sausages are chicken etc.).

OPs example menu does look particularly poor IMO.

troels I know , they have recently overhauled the menu which helped a bit but she is also a bit fussy and won’t eat things like jacket potatoes either so their argument is that there are things she can eat but she chooses not to.
The veggie option involves Quorn around 3 out of 5 days unfortunately

OP I agree with you. But it depends if they tried to offer a wider variety of meals first, but found that most kids would only eat stuff that looked the same as the meat eaters were eating.

bugger dd would happily eat all of that ( except the veggie sausages)

Hoppinggreen You need to kick up a fuss at the school. If they are insisting packed lunches are not allowed, they should be providing a meal your DD can eat, and a cheese sandwich doesn't cut it as a balanced meal.

I've seen quite a few references around that a lot of people have trouble eating Quorn.

RiverTam, Monday’s meal choice on your menu doesn’t appear to have an actual vegetarian option! The rest all looks okay.

Oh lord, has anyone ever tried that Quorn roast thing? Jesus. Like chewing an eraser

My kids both love it.

I've never chewed an eraser so I wouldn't know.

Bugger so it would be baked spud with cheese or beans and salad. Baked spud available every day.

I dont view quorn as food so id be furious. Go in op and talk to them.

Dds school menu has got better but a year or so ago every single day the vegetarian option had cheese as the protein. It was rubbish and lazy planning.

Since lots (most? all?) other schools are clearly offering vegetarian menus with much more variety, it's clearly quite possible. So yes, I would complain to the school, just as I would if the meat option was sausages every single day. Variety is the spice of life, and quorn is one of the least healthy vegetarian options available!

Unfortunately I really can’t kick up a fuss at school at the moment, which is a shame as I am generally a champion kicker up of fusses
School are being incredibly supportive over an ongoing situation and I speak to the Deputy Head on a weekly basis. I don’t feel I could complain about the lunches just at the moment.
As I said there is probably something DD could eat at a push but won’t. Quorn gives her breathing issues so it’s really not an option.

I'd be stuffed because it makes me really unwell.

I'm vegetarian and I eat Quorn 4-5 times a week. Does no harm and it is healthy (unless it's the breaded/battered stuff obviously).

I'd be happy if DD had those options at school - she is also being weaned vegetarian but will be free to choose when older. Our chosen nursery have told us Quorn will be offered.

Bugger so it would be baked spud with cheese or beans and salad. Baked spud available every day.

Fair enough.

Have to admit, I often have our school dinners and they are delicious. Last term there was an amazing cheese and leek pie on the menu but it’s not on this term 😔

Not a vegetarian myself but I often choose the veggie option if it looks tastier than the meat option.

is it healthy? I thought it was pretty nutritionally devoid (so not unhealthy, I suppose).

DD's nursery only did veggie food and again, no Quorn.

and not great for babies/toddlers because lack of fat.

is it healthy? I thought it was pretty nutritionally devoid (so not unhealthy, I suppose)

I think that is the case.

The problem with which is that using Quorn means NOT using pulses/beans/vegetables, which are certainly much healthier.

I don't think it's that bad. It's not like you're feeding them Quorn for breakfast and dinner as well, it's a maximum of 5 meals out of 21 in a week.

The school will have limitations (do they cook on site or is it prepared elsewhere?), they probably have fewer issues with vegetarian and non vegetarian pupils eating what largely looks like similar meals and let's not forget that a significant proportion of people are living in poverty. This may be the only decent meal that those pupils get in a day. If they're eating cereal for breakfast and jam sandwiches for tea, then absolutely the school should be providing them with a decent, balanced (protein based) meal.