To think two fruit snacks a day will rot primary school teeth

[fruitbat2021]

Infant school insisting that children have 2 fruit snacks a day and it must be fruit. Can also be raw veg but unfortunately my children don't like raw veg without a dip. I might send it in with a dip.

You can send them RAISINS but not a piece of cheese. How can this be healthy for their teeth? Every time I tell my dentist he visibly shudders.

Do other primaries allow non fruit snacks?

It's actually nice to see a fretful parent agonising about their DC being poisoned by two bits of fruit. It's like the first primroses in Spring, it means the pandemic is really ending and we can go back to ruminating about total non-issues!

I'm sure snacks aren't compulsory. My kids didn't get any snacks at school, neither did I. If you are worried, don't send anything, but apples aren't as acidic, bananas also aren't as bad - avoid citrus

I do get where you're coming from op, but there aren't really many universal, unmessy, allergy friendly snack options for kids to take to school. I assume raw fruit/veg is probably the best compromise between giving a healthy snack choice, and preventing Mrs Smith not having to scrub embedded hummous/cheddar out of the class rug daily, or little Johnny going into anaphylactic shock because Polly is snacking on a peanut encrusted Belvita biscuit unnoticed. Our school used to allow cereal bars so long as they had no chocolate (the pure hatred schools have for chocolate makes me laugh) but people would then forget and overlook the no nuts/allergy rules, so they got scrapped, and it's fruit/veg or nothing now. Teachers don't have the time to meticulously investigate the ingredients list of every child's nature valley bar each day, plus deal with the inevitable tears and aftermath, when Fred's Nature Valley bar passes the nut test, but Georgie's doesn't...

It's not teacher bashing because I'm sure the teachers don't make up the rules.

It's the headteacher. Or maybe it's the governors.

Ooh I might get my lovely dentist to write the school a letter. In fact they should send him into school to do a talk on healthy teeth.

We were given milk and a biscuit, and I'm not that old!

Would they eat cucumber, pepper or a little bag of lettuce?

This is the weirdest thread ever. The school have said the kids need two snacks of fruit or veg. Send in some carrot sticks and a banana. Bananas are good for teeth because because contain vitamins and minerals that teeth need.
Your kid can't just eat cheese, and the other person's kid can't just eat crackers, they're trying to ensure your kids are getting vitamins and minerals in their diet. Your kids might not eat veg sticks without dips at home but being in an environment surrounded by other kids eating fruit and veg encourages children to try it and makes it a normal part of their life.

And your dentist needs to get a life.

Whole fresh fruit is fine.

Dried fruit or any other processed fruit (such as smoothies or juices) are bad for teeth so defo avoid those.

TheYearOfSmallThings
It's actually nice to see a fretful parent agonising about their DC being poisoned by two bits of fruit. It's like the first primroses in Spring, it means the pandemic is really ending and we can go back to ruminating about total non-issues!

⬆️
😂

Is a bag of lettuce appetising?😁

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Is a bag of lettuce appetising?😁

I can eat my way through a bag of lettuce like a packet of crisps... Especially iceberg — nutritionally pretty useless, but lovely and crisp!

I appreciate I might be an outlier here though.

Ooh I might get my lovely dentist to write the school a letter. In fact they should send him into school to do a talk on healthy teeth.

I'm convinced this is a windup now.

Don’t send them to my ds school then OP, they give him biscuits, sweets and juice all the time even when I ask them not too.

Raisins are sticky. Fresh fruit is less of a problem for teeth, especially if they're eating one piece of fruit twice a day not nibbling on little bits of fruit throughout the day. And your children might eat veg sticks without a dip if all the other children are doing the same.

Ok so it's absolutely correct about limiting the number of sugar hits by keeping treats to after your main meal. However the reality is most adults and children will have a snack throughout the day (fruit for kids, chocolate bar for adults) and it's not the end of the world. As pp said avoid dried fruit, fruit juices etc. As the second snack is so close to pick up time brush teeth once you get home if you're that concerned.

I'v worked with paediatric dentists and the children with rotting teeth have almost exclusively been given fizzy drinks from a young age and been left to sort their own teeth brushing out so the technique has been poor. Parents should be brushing until at least age 8.
Yes some children are very unlucky and fruit has caused them tooth decay but really not that common and larger issues at this play.

Cucumber and carrot batons it is then. With no houmous.

Maybe I could wrap a bit of cheese string round the end of the baton.

And your dentist needs to get a life

Don’t be daft. It’s a dentist’s job to educate their patients. The dentist will be dealing daily with young children who develop cavities when the parents swear blind that their child is eating a 100% healthy diet. With not much investigation it usually transpires that parents aren’t aware that juices/smoothies/dried fruit and products with “no added sugar” are not harmful to teeth. There are so many mixed messages out there it’s no wonder that people get confused.

Maybe OP lives in Scotland, we get dentists check ups twice a year here?

I don't think two bits of fruit a day will really rot your teeth. I grew up in the 90s, I'm pretty sure our snacks were crisps and chocolate and I've never had a filling.

You're definitely being pretty unreasonable here, fruit is usually considered a good snack.

Sorry you've got mauled OP, your dentist has given you the correct info. Guidance is to have three servings of veg and two of fruit for your five a day, and that many people are just giving five pieces of fruit. Better than nothing, but it is bad for your teeth and fruit should be eaten with a meal in best case scenario. There are some fruits which are slightly less acidic and sugary - water melon, some berries etc - maybe you could send them in with those?

Those teeth are going to fall out anyway though...

@fruitbat2021 It's only the head or governors fault indirectly, in so much as they are too weak willed to stand up to the parent lobbying groups, which are often a vocal minority. That'll be why they've ended up with a fruit only snack policy, why some schools can only serve yoghurt and fruit as puddings with lunch and there are STILL people trying to reduce puddings to twice a week, why they have inane rules like ketchup can only be served once a fortnight, why parents can't bring in a treat to share after school on a birthday, why pre-schools think children should have semi-skimmed milk! It's got really insane. And all this in schools that don't even show signs of anything like the national childhood obesity epidemic which is affecting other kids.

And now frankly you're part of the problem, because you appear to believe that fruit snacks are now bad for children.

Oh gosh this is the first time I've ever done this! But

OP, you are thinking about this from your dentist's perspective, not the school's perspective. Imagine them wanting parents to send in snacks and trying to write the guidelines.

"No chocolate, no crisps, no sweets." So someone sends in cake. "And no cake." So someone sends in biscuits. "And no biscuits." So someone sends in chewing gum. "And no chewing gum." I mean, the list never ends, does it? They're not going to just write "Healthy food only, please" and spend their days arguing the toss over what's healthy and what isn't. So they just write "Fruit or veg only, please"

If you want to take this up with the school you would be perfectly entitled to do so. You could write a nice letter asking a few more foods to be including in their healthy snack policy, such as cheese, pointing out that there are many different foods included as part of a healthy balanced diet. I wouldn't bang on about your dentist, though - you'll sound like a nutter.

You could also just send in whatever you want as a snack. I mean, what are they going to do? Take it off your children and tell them to go hungry? I'm sure you could send in cooked veg to eat cold if you want to. Equally, you could just send cheese in and not care about them sending home shirty notes all the time. It's not a very nice thing to do as I'm sure it will cause a lot of hassle with other children seeing them and getting upset, but you could if you're that concerned about your children's teeth.

Raisins are very bad for Teeth as have a lot of concentrated sugar .Maybe some sliced Bananas .Apples ? Maybe try some slices of carrot .They may eat them if their friends are .Also strips of Cucumber maybe?

Lol at the dentist ‘shuddering’ 😂

OP - post your child's lunchbox contents on here if you want people to acknowledge dental recommendations about fruit. For some reason, if you are worried about something, it inspires a total pile on, so you need to be proud about how much fruit your kids are eating if you want someone to tear into you about their dental health!

The fact that there are two posters prepared to state that chickpeas aren't vegetables just so they can argue gives you an idea of how seriously to take the responses on here.