Why can't school lunches be simple

[Bluewall]

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 ?!

So are you saying most people dont sit and have an evening meal as a family ?

Not on MN. Oodles of threads from people shocked that they are expected to feed their child a dinner in the evening because they sent them to school dinners at 12:00 and then the rest who feed children a crisp sandwich at 4:00pm and mummy and daddy have proper dinner at 10pm

I am aware that some people don't sit down to evening meals but I also know that it is not a small minority who do. It is a very common thing to have a hot evening meal. Also eating a hot dinner on a tray is still eating a main evening meal.

As for my picky eater no amount of being hungry would persuade him and he will always be fed when he gets home so all it results in is him being hungry in the school day when he should be learning. (And this is why he goes a packed lunch most days) When he was at nursery they did a similar thing where they removed things like toast etc and I wasn't allowed to provide a packed lunch so it resulted in him not eating anything some days between 8am and 5.30pm (I had many meetings with them about this)

On the puddings front my not so fussy child loves his fruit and most veg but he also loves cake and sweets so it would be better for the options of cake not to be there for him as he would always pick these if given the choice.

You realise they're catering to hundreds of children on a tiny budget. Our school offers two hot options or a jacket potato with tuna or cheese, which are really only for the super picky children or certain dietary requirements. Maybe you need to look at encouraging your children to eat a wider range of foods, or send a packed lunch. The cooks don't just stroll in before lunch and serve food that magically appeared. Most are there for 7am, ours usually earlier and they work nonstop until about 1.30 rushing around taking care of other people's children and cleaning up after them. Maybe if you want your child to make a sandwich you could make it yourself.

Yes finishing with pudding is not great, but neither is the suggested yoghurt. French school meals get this right.
And a jacket potato with cheese is not a healthy meal.

Just to add our school does make sandwiches ahead of time for children who don't like certain options but qualify for free school meals too.

Also after P4 we pay for the school meals (used to for all years) and while subsidized it is still something we pay for !

Sorry OP, I agree with other posters. Anyone who wants their kids to have sandwiches / yoghurt etc for lunch can send them with a packed lunch. Anyone who wants their kids to have a hot meal can choose school dinners. Offering both options would just mean more wasted food.

My ds old primary and my dsd infant school have 2 choices..
Yellow.. Veg option..

Blue.. Meat option
no alternatives.
1 choice of each.
Never had any issues with my ds but he often preferred packed lunch as he could sit with most of his mates.

I have a hot meal for lunch as I don't like cold food that much, so I don't see it as a huge deal. But I bet they choose these meals as they are the most popular with the kids. A school I worked at used to do really healthy hot meals but the kids wouldn't eat them and they ended up throwing away loads of stuff away. Also there were some kids who didn't have a hot meal in the evening as their parents didn't want to cook after work, or as someone else said, didn't get an evening meal at all. They go with the option that will please the highest amount of people basically.

If you want them to have sandwiches, yoghurt and crisps then you'd send them with a packed lunch surely?

Sunlight 82 .Your School meals sound delicious ,and Chef is to be congratulated on his shopping choices .However this is not possible for most Schools ,as they are under their Local Authorities who presumably have to use the Contracts they are with .

YABU. Sometimes a school lunch is the only decent meal some children get. But kids being kids, some of them would choose the snack option which wouldn’t be as nutritious. The idea behind school lunches is to provide a substantial, nutritionally balanced meal. For those that can afford to be choosy, they can send their kids in with a packed lunch.

I generally couldn’t be arsed to make lunches for mine so I leant on them to have the school meal, and always provided a full dinner in the evenings too. They just burnt it all off, and I was smug that they were getting 2 lots of vegetables.

@LongWalkShortPlank

Not sure what you mean. The chefs are doing a job for which they are paid the same as a chef in a cafe, restaurant or work canteen I'm not sure what your point is.

I was once forced to eat blancmange with some really tough skin on it. Never had it before, it was a completely alien foodstuff that made me gag. I was made to stay in the dinner hall alone while teacher stood over me - I couldn't leave till I ate it all. I don't think I did eat it all but can't remember how I escaped it. I've never been a fussy eater so that was a one off.

The point is working in a school you almost always work extra hours. Our cook comes in before expected because she has stuff to start preparing, orders to place etc. This stuff can't be done during the space of the normal time. You're also asked to help at say school parties if they're serving food like hotdogs etc but you don't get paid for that. It ISN'T a restaurant, it's a small team of overworked people and they don't have the funds or the time to cater to a child because their parent thinks they should eat sandwiches or jacket potatoes, both of which are crap. Do you even know the nutritional info of the food you want your kid to eat?

I managed to go from yR to y13, then over a decade in teaching fuelled on school dinners and not be institutionalised into having a desert after every meal, and consistently maintain a healthy weight. That's plus a dinner in the evening. Having a decent meal in the day time means that I didn't need to snack or top up a packed lunch with crisps/ chocolate etc. I need hot food to warm me up, especially in the winter and don't get the same effect from cold food (even toasting a ham and cheese sandwich will make a difference to how my body feels)

School dinners are designed to be a third of what children need each day. Children grow and run around. They need a good dose of carbs to fuel that. Their nutritional needs are not the same as sedentary adults trying to lose weight. Schools set guidelines on the foods allowed in packed lunches to stop parents sending in a lunch of a giant share bag of crisps and bottle of energy drink. They can be a bit sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut, but rules have to be blatent, not trying to detail what type/ portions of cake are permissible/ unacceptable.

School dinners are socially important for trying different foods and sitting with their peers.

The lighter option is easily provided for with a packed lunch. Removing a hot option to make way for something that is easily provided from home, takes a significant level of choice away from many children.

My ds qualifies for free school meals, but most days there isn't enough food put out & generally by the time half the queue is served there isn't enough food left for the rest to get what they want. Twice last week there weren't enough potatoes left, ds one day got served spaghetti & fish fingers because that was all there was left. Thankfully I can afford to give him a packed lunch or money for him to pick up a lunch at the shop on the way to school, but what about all the kids whose parents can't afford to & the school meal is the only hot meal they get in school? It is time school meals were cooked in school instead of being shipped in from outside contractors. Jacket potatoes are cheap, big pots of veggie soup wouldn't cost much, why not bring back the school cooks like there used to be

One of mine is in infants where there’s the universal free meal option of the meat dish or the veggie option or taking in packed lunch. No one quibbles about it - it’s a decent set of options, packed lunch restrictions are minimal (if it was a ridiculous lunch someone would have words but it’s not generally regulated like some schools are) and the school meals provided are actually really decent - and yes, I say that as someone who has eaten them (I’m a school governor and we have days we go into school and join in with everything - down to the lunches and playtimes). I quite enjoyed eating my pulled pork wrap, potato wedges and salad on a table with 3 spidermen (was a dress up day as well)!

The juniors have the same options, but also a meal deal one which is usually something like a jacket potato. Again, minimal lunchbox rules - DD is on packed lunch at the moment but I suspect it’s mainly the novelty factor of having the choice to go onto them, and wanting the matching Smiggle lunchbox to her backpack inspiring this decision.

Because Nat it costs more money. Economies of scale means that catering companies can source ingredients more cheaply. They work with what they given. Everything is a cost cutting exercise these days.

My experience has been that many children are used to eating foods such as burgers and pizza, that are essentially finger foods. I’ve been in school dining halls when there is a roast dinner option and so many children aren’t used to cutting up meat, potatoes and vegetables.

@Bluewall I think you're worrying unnecessarily, the nutrition in those hot meals will be way better than a sandwich and yoghurt etc.

You only have to take a look at Weightwatchers and Slimming World to get an idea of how much more nutritionally balanced full meals can be when compared to bread, crisps, kids yoghurts and other packed lunch items.

At my kids' school there is one meal every day and a soup option. The kids eat what there is unless they bring sandwiches. There are some days my kids love the lunch and they get seconds, and other days where they like it less. However, younger ones are asked encouraged to try even a little of the things they say they don't like, and older ones have to have a small serving of everything and their plates have to be mostly clean when they finish. My eldest and youngest can be a bit fussy at home, but at school they're much better as they don't get to play until they're done, and all their friends are eating the same food (very few bring packed lunch), so there's the peer group effect too.

DH and I don't usually eat a big dinner at lunchtime, but I think it's important for children to eat well at lunchtime so that they have the energy for learning in the afternoon. We still make a family dinner in the evening, but just give the kids smaller portions depending on how hungry they say they are.

I must admit I think we fuss more than we should in the UK - my kids have been to school in 6 different countries, some they took packed lunches, some provided dinners, and only the UK offered a choice of lunch. In the other 2 countries there was just 'lunch' and you ate (or didn't eat) whatever it was.

Admittedly, the variety was wide enough that most kids found something on the plate they would eat, and there was always bread if not (which is what my fussy one would often end up only eating - but peer pressure was actually quite helpful with encouraging him to at least try)

On the other hand, they also didn't accommodate different diets (eg vegetarian), so it's good that in the UK we're a bit more inclusive I suppose - I just think that there's a lot to be said for putting something down in front of the kids and just expecting them to eat it - I think that one, good quality offering is better than multiple, slightly rubbish, options.

@Bluewall I think you're coming from a lovely sounding, but quite privileged position, if everyone you know has a hot evening meal.

I was lucky to get breakfast or dinner at home when I was at school. The (admittedly often horrible) school meal was the only guaranteed food every day, let alone the only hot food. And I'm not that old, and I wasn't alone then, and it's got worse. You'd never have guessed it from us, but it was how it was.

For those kids; a hot meal is important. And ideally, a nutritionally balanced one; which cheese and potato is not. I'm sorry that your fussy eater will struggle, genuinely I think it should be viable to offer light and hot meals, but our economy can't support that and in that case, the option that has to go is the light meal that can be easily if inconveniently replaced by a packed lunch.

We don’t have sandwiches on our school menus. Jacket potatoes feature heavily. There is pizza, curry, pasta bake, fish or fish fingers, burger, roasts, sausages, fruit, alpro yoghurts/puds, jelly, ice cream, cake and custard and fruit, they change daily. I find kids hate Mac and cheese the most

The accommodation for different diets is where I think I’d make changes, buttery. I’d stick with the 4 course structure of the French school dinners but offer a choice of meat or vegetarian for the main. I’d leave the option for a packed lunch too.

Two hot choices would cover most tastes. They’re very fussy if there’s nothing there they’ll eat.

It’s the main meal for so many kids that sandwiches just won’t do.