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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To not understand how it's cheaper to send dc to school with a cold happy meal than a packed lunch?

516 replies

bobstersmum · 16/11/2019 17:31

In the news this week, an article about children in deprived areas being sent to school with a cold happy meal. Then parents in another article defending the reasons for it, saying that sometimes it's all they can afford. I just can't understand it? A happy meal is 2.99 I think? But a cheap loaf of bread is 50p, a cheap pack of sandwich meat or cheese is less than a pound, bag of bananas a pound multipack of crisps a pound, that's lunches for the week for around the same cost?

OP posts:
adaline · 18/11/2019 19:24

@PeterRouseTheFleshofMankind - the children who aren't being fed due to their parents' being too poor are not the ones being fed leftover McDonald's.

They are separate aspects of the same article.

Passthecherrycoke · 18/11/2019 19:29

Who is laughing? I’m not

Trewser · 18/11/2019 20:06

Cookery lessons can't hurt. I remember learning tomato soup, macaroni cheese, yes, scones, all good easy things to make. But parents have to provide the stuff, so...

Chattybum · 18/11/2019 20:54

I'm also interested in where these McDonald's are hiding in tiny rural villages? The ones that only have a pub, one over priced shop and a global franchise.

stayathomer · 19/11/2019 06:02

It is just because it is a Happy Meal that that there's so much shock and horror.
Um, yes ...GrinConfusedHmm

stayathomer · 19/11/2019 06:18

And I agree with education for anyone who needs it. My ds has friends who say their ds/dd don't like healthy options and they come in with cans of fizzy drinks, crisps and chocolate. Even if your child won't eat fruit there are levels and I understand that but some people need to be taught that popcorn is better than crisps, juice is better than a fizzy drink, as some people don't know that. The rural shop aside, you can get packets of crackers, 12 packs of popcorn, rice cakes etc for dirt cheap in most supermarkets. We have been the working poor before, and lucky in that. I have never been homeless but I have stood in Aldi with small change I've searched for, counting as I go, trying to make a few days of food. Have gotten the healthiest cheap cereals I could find, a bag of apples, some pasta, cheese, pet is filous, milk and bread and we've made it last a few days between 6 of us. The people defending chicken nuggets who say they don't see the problem, you need to teach your kids that the healthier option, and not necessarily the healthiest option, is ALWAYS better and thst chicken nuggets, while grand for a party or weekend meal, are chicken doused in crap!!!

bloodywhitecat · 19/11/2019 10:22

Completely missing the point but where can you get block butter for 90p? I live rurally and even in my nearest Aldi the cheapest butter is £1.49. It would take me over an hour to walk there and I would be risking life and limb as there are no paths and the roads are NSL with no lighting and are narrow enough to mean that when lorries pass each other one has to stop and pull as far left as possible to allow the other past.

Isn't it possible for people to be poor but earning just enough to mean they don't qualify for FSM? I have a friend with a young child, she works and can just about scrape by but on the numerous occasions her ex (her child's father) decides he can't afford child maintenance she is left on the bones of her arse.

hallygore · 19/11/2019 16:26

I can think of a few council estates round here where there's a McDonald's and a corner shop where prices are significantly higher than a supermarket. There's a sainsburys local near us and they don't do any of the cheaper value items. They don't even have own brand crisps. I went in there one morning in an emergency to get stuff for lunches and it cost me a fortune compared to a bigger supermarket.

Ugzbugz · 20/11/2019 11:46

But if you can afford a happy meal why not just let them have school dinners which are the same price?????

MrsKoala · 20/11/2019 12:37

But if you can afford a happy meal why not just let them have school dinners which are the same price?????

Because they wont eat school lunches! I'm getting frustrated because it has been said numerous times and people keep asking. It's not really that hard to understand is it? There are some children who have a very restricted diet/are fussy.

Northernsoulgirl45 · 20/11/2019 14:10

How many times.
Half a sandwich poverty and so sad..
Cold McDonalds separate issue. Just about using up something uneaten from night before.

x2boys · 20/11/2019 14:15

That's not what he article says though Mrs Koala ,it says that parents sometimes have give their kids whatever's in the fridge now maybe the children do have very restricted diets I have a severely autistic child so has a restricted diet ,who would happily live on plain rice and pot noodles ,however the article doesn't say families have children with restricted diets

cheeseypuff · 20/11/2019 14:16

Surely if you really couldn't afford to give your kids a proper packed lunch then you'd be eligible for free school meals anyway?

x2boys · 20/11/2019 14:20

It goes of income cheesey not wether somebody can afford it and I do understand that , sometimes the "working poor " can have less disposable income than people solely reliant on benefits

PhilomenaButterfly · 20/11/2019 14:23

We're on WTC and don't qualify for free school meals. DH can afford to give me £80 a week, out of which have to come the packed lunches. If DS2 didn't receive DLA, we wouldn't have enough money to live. DD has school meals, she's in secondary school, and usually has a sandwich at break and another at lunch. That's about £4.

MrsFoxPlus4Again · 20/11/2019 15:52

Weird that so many people on here can’t comprehend that some people just don’t live near cheap super markets. I don’t, we have a small corner shop it would be £1.65 for bread, £1 for the cheapest ham, £2/3 for butter, it’s not a shop that stocks cheap alternatives. The only shops near my SIL are a small homebargins with no fridge isle or fresh bread etc. And a McDonald’s. Yes you could definitely find an alternative lunch in homebargins but not everyone lives near cheap shops & it’s not hard to believe every single McDonald’s isn’t next to a huge supermarket. Oh and the only place that delivers food shopping is ASDA it’s hard to get a cheap slot & all orders need to be over £40 ☺️

Sometimes life just isn’t as plain and simple as people make out on MN.

MrsKoala · 20/11/2019 15:59

But there's the answer then x2boys. 'why do people give their children cold McDonalds for lunch?' Because it's what they have in the fridge.

In ds2s (5) class I know of 6 who wont eat the free school meals (there could be more that I don't know). That's at least 20% of the class. Their lunch boxes contain processed meat and cheese products, salty processed potato snack type things and sugary stuff. I can't imagine they are any more nutritionally balanced than a happy meal. I doubt the teachers would describe any of the children as having a restricted diet. But they probably comment on the food not being healthy.

x2boys · 20/11/2019 16:04

Maybe not MrsFox but the area the article is linked to is Blackburn and Darwen neither of which is particularly rural I live quite close and there will be cheap.supermarkets in the town centres and we don't know they don't live in the town centre they may they may not .

everybodypuuuullllll · 20/11/2019 17:37

Surely if you really couldn't afford to give your kids a proper packed lunch then you'd be eligible for free school meals anyway?

If all your money is going on debt payments you might well not qualify for FSM but be so skint that packed lunch is difficult to fund.

woodhill · 20/11/2019 17:56

Surely if the dc are that hungry then they'll eat whatever is offered unless they have dietary requirements

MrsKoala · 20/11/2019 19:48

Maybe they will, maybe they wont. But surely the parents are the best ones to decide this and to decide if it's better to send a nutritionally poor lunch rather than their child being hungry/tired/grumpy/emotional/less able to learn/poorly behaved etc. Also you don't know if the children are having breakfast. If they are not (like mine) then it's a long day with no food.

Personally my dc only eat dry bread at a push when having fsm so I decided even a bad lunch was better than that. I suppose the other parents know what their children are eating and have to make a judgement call.

mathanxiety · 20/11/2019 20:07

I agree with you, MrsKoala. I am all for parents being the best judge of their own child's diet.

DD4 ate a genoa salami sandwich every school day for about six years, with dried fruit and a little bag of popcorn. Pure stodge, lots of sugar, and salt and fat, along with whole grain bread which she complained about endlessly because she preferred white bread.

She wouldn't eat breakfast either.

This particular DD was something of a freshairian. She turned up her nose at most dinners I cooked, and actually went hungry instead of eating many times because she couldn't see anything she liked in the fridge or cupboards. Salami was the only lunch meat she would eat, but at home she refused the whole grain bread. The list of what she would eat contained about ten items - cheese pizza, chips, salami, dried mango and apricots with sugar added, pop tarts and all other sugary junk (classified as one item), salty junk including crisps and popcorn, roast chicken and chicken in other forms too but not in any kind of sauce or stew, and mac and cheese. And ramen noodles. No green veg or fresh fruit of any kind.

I baked items like pumpkin and choc chip muffins, banana-chocolate bread and brownies all with added powdered veggies just so that she would at least get some nutrition.

She studied biology and passed Health class with flying colours. None of the nutrition information made a dent in her stubbornness, and nothing I said made a difference.

She grew to 5'6" and how she managed that I do not know. Lovely skin and hair, strong, healthy nails, two fillings.

Thegreymethod · 21/11/2019 09:18

I think everyone is missing the point the happy meal was just an example of what was sent into school I don't think hundreds of kids all over the country are sending their children to school with cold happy meals so all the arguing over how much it is compared to a cheap sandwich a fruit is a waste of time really

Vulpine · 21/11/2019 09:25

If you don't live near a cheap supermarket cant you get food delivered?

Trewser · 21/11/2019 09:30

Delivery is quite expensive and has to be over 40. Some of the Tesco slots here are 7! Cheaper to get a bus and take a pull along trolley.

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