Why can't school lunches be simple

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My kids school changes the lunch menu after the summer and they now only offer 2 hot meal options for lunch many of which my children (one fussy one not ) do not like. There used to always be an option of either sandwiches or baked potatoes with a small choice of fillings but this has been taken away.

I would very really every have a main meal lunch followed by a pudding for lunch so I don't understand why they don't have simple options like sandwiches, baked potatoes, soup and bread for lunch and maybe one option for a hot lunch.

There is always so much chat about healthy lunches for kids etc but surely these would be healthy choices and then instead of pudding give them choices of yoghurt, crisps, fruit, cheese to go with them ?

I know that school dinners are the only hot meal some children get so an option should be kept but I'm guessing most children go home and have a main meal for their dinner so don't need a roast turkey dinner with pudding for lunch ?!

In the country where my DM comes from it’s normal to have a large hot lunch and then just a spread of bread, cheese, meats etc for your evening meal

Even in this country, in the 60s it was common to eat main meal at lunchtime but we didn't call it lunch, we called it dinner. And then a lighter tea at teatime which was early evening. Then supper was a snack or toast or a banana or similar. I've a friend who often invites us to 'supper'. I'm always tempted to go in my pyjamas.

Also the thread title is "why can't school lunches be simple"? Simple would be one meal and a veggie option. Take it or leave it. That's simple and how they feed the kids at the school my nieces go to in France.

So are you saying most people dont sit and have an evening meal as a family ? I have always eaten a main meal at dinner time all of my life and sit down with my kids and we eat together. Everyone I know does this ?

And how many people do you know are so poor they have to use food banks, or are struggling with addiction or mental health problems, and just a gnat's cock away from losing their kids to the care system, or living in temporary accommodation where they don't have proper cooking facilities?

Hot meals at school are often the only hot meal children get, that's why it's so important. It's also often the first time a child has actually sat at a table to eat.

I worked with a family where their 4 year-old had to be taught how to use a knife and fork. He'd never had a meal that required cutlery until he went to school.

I think you might be overestimating the size of the so called roast dinners - it might be a hot meal but it’s very small. I would be surprised if any child would turn down another hot dinner in the evening just on the basis of having had one at school at midday. My kids are not big eaters at all but even they think the portions at primary are small.

I agree with CheeryB. The children whose families rely on their free school meals to give them a decent hot lunch tend to always eat it. Every bit. Hunger always wins, and the children who have come to school hungry will eat what is put in front of them, again barring any SEN.
Fussier eaters (and again this is generalisation so don't jump on me) tend to be the children who know that if they don't like what's offered, there's another choice. Children from very low income families very quickly learn to eat what they are given, because otherwise they will be hungry.

I'm lucky that my children are not fussy eaters at 10 and 12. But I won't pretend that's because of some amazing parenting skill I have. I know for a fact it's because when they were little, we were very very poor and if they didn't eat their dinner, there wasn't another choice. We're not in that position anymore thankfully, but their tendency to eat almost anything put in front of them has stuck.

I think a fair amount could be learnt from french school dinners otra.

Children with eating disorders aside, I think most fussy/picky eaters are less inclined to be fussy when surrounded by their peers in a school setting. Obviously the quality of the school meal plays a part here. Getting rid of the sandwich/potato option isn’t a terrible idea if children can still bring in packed lunches.

Our school doesn’t allow packed lunch (or any food brought in), and has 2 hot meal options (one veggie, one meat). somehow all kids are doing well, and the fussy ones get less and less fussy . left to his own devices, my oldest would have a ham sandwich every day, at school he eats a balanced meal :)

The role of school dinners is to offer a nutritious meal during the day, not cater to fussy eaters.

For everything your DC will eat, there'll be another who probably won't eat it.

My DC had school lunches when they were in KS1 and they always chose either a cheese sandwich, cheese panini or jacket potato unless it was pizza day then it was cheese pizza. Every single day, every single week.

I don’t think it’s particularly nutritionally balanced so I’m glad they have packed lunches now and I can control it better.

I agree with you op, and its the same at our primary - there used to always be a salad bar or jacket potato option but they changed supplier companies and that choice got taken away. There was never major waste either - the school gets kids to make their lunch choice first thing in the morning while taking the register so they only bring what is needed.

On the puddings issue I think its a red herring to say that the puddings at school lunches are nutritionally balanced. The thousands of kids getting used to ending lunch with some kind of steamed sponge stodge get conditioned to expect that every day through 14 years of school education - and then they have the rest of their life where if they fancy something similar the only things on offer are things like kit Kat's or double deckers. If school lunches generally ended with fruit then that would be training future generations to expect to end their midday meal more healthily.

Also the 60s was a snack free society. You were hungry at mealtimes because there'd been nothing since breakfast and there'd be nothing till teatime. And we weren't amongst the poorest families. Eating habits were different then and people just didn't eat between meals. It was almost the law. "No you can't have that, you won't eat your dinner"!
You could hear it up and down the street when the kids turned out of school.

Won't eat your tea, actually. Dinner was at noon.

I like that the school give proper, full, hot meals. My DS (7) is extremely sporty and slim, and I like that he has something substantial and healthy at lunch time, especially as sometimes he trains late after school and doesn't have time for a hot meal in the evening (just porridge or sandwiches occasionally)

That said, I HATE the puddings on offer. It's not really a problem for DS1 (7) as he's quite a healthy kid and not too keen on sweet stuff, so usually doesn't eat pudding, but DS2 (5) loves his cake and chocolate, so will tuck on to all available puddings, which are always really unhealthy (cake, ice cream, cream puddings...)

In this day and age, surely surely, schools can do away with these unhealthy puddings. Why not just offer fruit or yoghurt or cheese and biscuits or something if they insist on a second course offering?

The thousands of kids getting used to ending lunch with some kind of steamed sponge stodge get conditioned to expect that every day through 14 years of school education

I strongly agree that school pudding is not a red herring. I don't care how little sugar they contain, it's teaching children that a meal should finish with a pudding and I don't think that's a good habit to inculcate.

Ive heard of some schools going all veggie !

myself we didn’t allow DD packed lunches for the first 5 years at school. She just ate less and less and less.

Sore as has been said ipthread, school meals are very heavily regulated. I can guarantee that the cake on offer at school will be far healthier than anything you bake at home.

The puddings were popular in days gone by because they filled people up. YABU OP. The school meals need to be designed for those who need them (for which read those who might not be getting much food at home). As such I think its a good thing that the only option is two main meals.

Having worked in state schools for many years and becoming more and more disillusioned with how constant budget cuts are affecting both teachers and pupils we decided to send our children to private school, mainly because of class sizes and facilities. However, seeing the school lunches there has been an eye opener for me after years of seeing some of the rubbish served in the school I work at.

All of the staff get a free school meal and every one of them chooses to have it because the food is absolutely gorgeous. They employ a chef who previously worked in hotels and who cooks everything from scratch. Bowls of the 2 main meal items, carb choices and Vegetables are put on each table and the children help themselves with teacher support for the younger ones. There is a separate salad bar which the children can go up to to get a side salad which also includes jacket potatoes and toppings. Children can have seconds if they wish and there are bread baskets on each table of freshly baked bread. For pudding fruit and yoghurt is always available as well as hot puddings and custard 3 times a week.

After joining my children for lunch during open lunch week I got chatting to the chef about the difference in lunches. He said that they started off using the recommended school catering companies but he was shocked at the prices and the poor quality. He decided to source all his own local produce and found that he could produce restaurant quality meals for 50p extra per child (£3). Obviously he is also paid a decent wage and is in the kitchen from 5am until 2pm.

Sadly, the quality of state school dinners won’t change until they are subsidised more or parents are willing to pay a bit extra as it all comes down to money.

Interestingly, despite being able to eat large lunches with puddings (no packed lunches are allowed) I can count the number of overweight children on one hand. I put this down to the importance placed on exercise and sport at the school with each child participating in 5 hours of timetabled sport every week. Many also do after school clubs and end up doing more like 10-12 hours a week. They fit this in by extending the school day to 4.20pm. The way that PE is being slowly pushed out of schools at the moment is criminal and something that I feel very passionately about. Lots of exercise and eating well is much better than being couch potatoes and needing to cut down on food.

So are you saying most people dont sit and have an evening meal as a family ? I have always eaten a main meal at dinner time all of my life and sit down with my kids and we eat together. Everyone I know does this?

I can’t believe anyone would be so lacking in awareness that they would post this.

OP, you do know that some people don’t have a dining table and chairs? And that the family either eats from a tray on their lap on the sofa or as they’re walking around the house?

Our school makes brownies and cake using a lot of beetroot and other delightful ingredients. Also their custard should be done under the trades description act.

I would rather my child had proper 'unhealthy' cake with sugar in it and made with standard ingredients as a pudding once a week at school than have these school puddings daily where (I gather) that what should be sugar and fat have been replaced with sweeteners and emulsifiers.

I'm not looking forward to navigating school dinners. However, I will say that I completely disagree with the OP that sandwiches and jackets are lighter options. Massive misconception that a cooked dinner will be overfilling. The vast majority of the time a proper cooked dinner will have more veg and a better quantity of lean protein than a sandwich or jacket potato would. I know that if I eat a sandwich for lunch I'm more likely to feel sleepy in the afternoon than I would after meat and two veg.

OP, you do know that some people don’t have a dining table and chairs? And that the family either eats from a tray on their lap on the sofa or as they’re walking around the house?

I too found this comment of the OP's staggering. Must be a very narrow circle of friends. It's not only that some families can't afford the hot meal in the evening, or the dining table itself but plenty of families aren't all home and present to eat together until well after 7pm which is too late for most young children.

I'm a working mum. My kid has a hot main meal at school, and a light meal of sandwiches or soup or something in the evening. We eat our main meal at lunchtime too. It just makes life easier for everyone.

That's why they're called school dinners or packed lunch - if you want your kid to have dinner at midday and a light tea in the evening, you go for school dinners, and if you want them to have a lighter lunch in the middle of the day and a main dinner in the evening, you go for packed lunch. It's not school lunch and packed dinners for a reason.

Rachel lover 60 .I too remember School lunches with horror .On one memorable occasion (probably about 6 or 7 maybe) being told to go back and finish my meal eating lumpy mash .Unfortuneatly was sick!.Spent the afternoon helping the dinner ladies with the milk bottles!,Strangely was never forced to "eat it all up"again!

It's not a restaurant, and I do think that hot meal options are best for all kids at lunch. There will be children who only eat one hot meal a day and that'll be the one school provides.
You have the menu ahead of time - make your picky child a packed lunch. Or don't, in my experience when children are hungry they will eat pretty much anything ( excluding SEN kids, allergies etc obvs) and if your DC doesn't eat lunch then they should be ready to eat whatever tea you make...