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 :)

YANBU op. The lack of variety there is bad. So uncreative. If i were you I'd be getting them back on packed lunches as soon as possible!

And just to add to the conversation, I wouldn't allow my DC to eat that stuff. It's not even real food. It's ultra-processed weird stuff made in a lab. No human, regardless of dietary preference, race, religion or class should be putting that in their bodies.

To the posters who are using the argument regarding Quorn intolerance, plenty of people have nut allergies and wheat intolerance, but you don't see menus being stripped of nuts and bread because of it

Our school is nut free!

Just had a look at the veggie options at our school (DS does packed lunches for various irritating reasons).

The menu includes vegetable and bean chilli, chickpea and vegetable couscous, butternut squash risotto, cheese and leek pasty, margherita pizza, macaroni cheese and lentil and sweet potato curry.

YANBU. That shows a real lack of imagination. Also presumably the veggie option isn't only for the vegetarian pupils? My kids eat meat but choose the veggie option at school about 50% of the time. I doubt they would if it was Quorn every day though.

To the posters who are using the argument regarding Quorn intolerance, plenty of people have nut allergies and wheat intolerance, but you don't see menus being stripped of nuts and bread because of it

Actually our school is nut free and, as we have pupils with MEDICALLY CONFIRMED coeliac disease there is a gluten free menu for those children. We also have a lactose free menu for a child with MEDICALLY CONFIRMED dairy allergy.

Our caterers only put these special menus on if we have medical confirmation of the allergy though.

I’d be really pleased! Dd gets a jacket potato with cheese every single day!

Its the lack of variety - no one wants to eat Quorn every day.

But then in dd's school (outstanding Ofsted no less...) the veggie option is some form of pasta or pizza 3-4 times a week and an over reliance on cheese as protein.
I rely on dd's meals at home to provide nutrition - not school.

Its hard for schools, they're trying to fill kids up on very little money. Which is why I can't understand how Quorn can be cheaper for them than pulses.

eating quorn everyday is like eating meat everyday. Its not the same taste over and over. Quorn is flavoured an marinated in a number of ways. The quorn gammon tastes different from the quorn sausage for example. how many have actually tried the many variations on offer?

why would a vegetarian want to replicate eating meat everyday?

... unless Quorn are giving schools a good deal as a form of advertising? Nowhere else on the menu does it name a brand. No Walls sausages or Birds Eye Chicken Nuggets.

Quorn isn't the same as most other meat-replacement products, which are usually soy based. It's a patent protected product made using a fungus originally found in soil. They were made to legally change their labelling a while ago as they claimed it was mushroom based, but the fungus in question isn't a mushroom.

Even quorn every day is a significant improvement over Cheese and Tuna being the 'vegetarian' option on alternative days like it was when I was at school. Interestingly the days it was cheese (literally a handful of grated cheese) it used to go to the first people in the queue which probably says a lot about the quality of the other options.
That being said the primary focus of school meals has to be providing a dish that the vast majority will eat that provides sufficient calories to be the sole source of food for some children at a cost that is covered by the limited money schools get for food.

LilQueenie Surely eating Quorn every day would be the same as eating, say, the same sausages every day? Sure, you can cook them in different ways (spicy sausage casserole, sausage and mash, toad in the hole, etc.) but nutritionally it would be the same sausages.

(I picked sausage as Quorn is highly processed in the same way that sausages or ham are.)

Our school has Quorn once or twice a week as the veggie option.

What Quorn lacks in nutrition and variety, it makes up for with it's marketing budget. You go to the veggie fridge section in a supermarket and it can be easily 50%-90% Quorn products. The situation is improving in supermarkets as other veggie products get shelf space but I think that Quorn is now also being heavily-marketed to school caterers as an important veggie option.

It's useful because it can be a quick meal to prepare but I'd be pissed off if it were offered daily to my veggie dc.

YANBU. DS2's school is exactly the same and I always think how boring for vegetarian children.

Quorn is fine. Quorn every day is a really lame, unimaginative way to provide a vegetarian option.

I’ve just checked my children’s school menu this week and 4 out of 5 veggie options are quorn the 5th being cheese pizza. The week before 2 where quorn, cheese pizza, veggie nuggets and some other cheese meal. Next week 4 out of 5 are again quorn the 5th being veggie nuggets.

They all pair up with the meat option.

@BlackInk
No, it'd be more like having Pork everyday with that being Sausage and mash on Monday, pork bolognese on Tuesday, Roast Pork and roast potatoes on Wednesday, Pork curry and rice on Thursday and Pork and apple burgers with chips on Friday.

I always thought quorn wasn't good for little boys to have too often? Veggie option for my two is packed lunch from home, then you get exactly what you want.

May as well just be serving Quorn Twizzlers, makes a change from turkey.

Son's primary has quorn on the menu at most twice a week, it's not hard to offer something else, they have:
Pasta bar with homemade sauces,
Cheese pinwheel,
Sweet potato and chickpea curry with wholemeal rice,
Cheese, potato and leek bake,
Macaroni cheese,
Shepherdess hotpot (could be quorn, could be lentils),
Homemade pizza,
Vegetable lasagne,
Cheese and bean wrap,
Option of jacket potato every day,
Option of sandwich lunch every day.

This is only for this term, they have other options in other terms, so it is not difficult to do other things than just substitute the meat for quorn.

Is there someone at school you could ask to look into the meals? Don't know if it will be the head teacher or someone else, try asking and I'm sure you will be pointed in the right direction.

user139328237
I don't really agree. All Quorn products are pretty much the same nutritionally and in terms of how they are produced, just with different flavourings, preservatives and firming agents, etc. All pork is not the same - sausages and ham are not the same nutritionally as a pork in its natural state?

I’m going to presume schools do it so they don’t then get complaints of children being singled out for being veggie and eating different/weird food in the children’s eyes. This way it’s the same so to speak.

I’m going to presume schools do it so they don’t then get complaints of children being singled out for being veggie and eating different/weird food in the children’s eyes.

I doubt it. It’s more likely just easier/cheaper. I’ve been lucky in that all the schools I’ve worked in have had proper veggie options, not just matching to the meat ones.

I always thought quorn wasn't good for little boys to have too often?

I think you may be confusing Quorn with soya.

you don't see menus being stripped of nuts and bread because of it

in schools and nurseries, yes. But in the adult world?

Sorry missed a bit on my comment! I was making the point that nuts are excluded from schools/nurseries but not from cafes/restaurants.

I can see why the school have chosen this option but YANBU OP. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to make a dhal a day a week and a bean chilli/vegetable soup or whatever.

My DS doesn't like potatoes so his nursery just give him pasta everyday. Thankfully he is part time but my heart sinks everytime I go and and I'm told he ate all his pasta for lunch. Are those really the only available options