To wonder why school meals include a pudding every day

[LAgeDeRaisin]

My DC aren't at school yet, but I had a look at our local primary school website today to read a bit about it. On the lunch section there is informarion about packed lunches including requests not sending in crisps/ sweets and cakes. Suggestions for lunches were included. All seemed pretty normal.

I've also had a look at the school dinner menu and there is a pudding every single day- sponge and custard, rice pudding, iced biscuits, brownies, etc.

In our house we will make a home made pudding at the weekend as a treat or if we have guests/it's an occasion, but meals through the week don't come with pudding.

AIBU to think that schools shouldn't be giving children pudding every day (especially if packed lunch boxes forbid it)? Could they not give some of their suggested sweet treats instead like malt loaf, fruit, yoghurt, etc?

What's the point in having a policy about not eating rubbish if you're handing out daily brownies?

Fully prepared to be called a bore.

@sunflowersandbuttercups

Most school "puddings" are tiny and they have to fall within health eating guidelines too. They're not puddings in any kind of nice sense of the word!

I feel quite sorry for today's children. I'm in my 50s and friends and I still bang on reminisce about school puddings. They were lush.

@eddiemairswife

'Herring boxes without topses sandals were for Clementine.'

I'll address all my post to you to "The Cabin in the Canyon"

Although it shouldn’t be round but in one of those huge rectangular pans.

*Cavern, not cabin.

Barstewarding autocorrect.

@SchadenfreudePersonified

I was thinking about the Herring boxes too

Oh my darling..

Df used to play this to me on the piano

It's a bit like the difference between UK foodbanks and Spanish food banks. A spanish food bank would offer a box of fresh veggies, some frozen fish, and a rabbit. Some sort of fresh meat, anyway. The UK version? Tins and packets. It's unlikely one would find anything fresh in those. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/food-banks-spain-hunger-coronavirus-poverty-covid-19-a9536341.html

As far as I am aware UK food banks couldn't entertain any fresh stuff because of its perishability - but you are right that many people can't cook and don't want to learn. I also know of a local food bank which was given dozens of fresh bloomers but didn't hand them out because the people in the area would only accept sliced bread (preferably white). This was pre-pandemic. Don't know what they're like now.

I feel quite sorry for today's children. I'm in my 50s and friends and I still bang on reminisce about school puddings. They were lush

They were often the only edible part of the meal when I was at school. After a gristle -filled pie and reconstituted mashed potatoes tasing of soap, and nice spotted dick with custard was redemptive.

We did give them daft names though. I remember "dead baby" pudding (jam roll poly) and "Old Man's Ear" (God alone knows what that was - delicious, though - I think it had meringue in it).

I totally get what everyone is saying that school puddings aren't the same because of the hidden veg/low sugar but that's not my issue. My problem would be 1) the feeling for little ones that their school-dinner-having friends were allowed a treat and they aren't (because they don't know school puds are rubbish/low sugar) and 2) if my kids are having school dinners I don't want the habit of a pud after every meal.

I also attest to the low sugar thing - every time DD brings a "biscuit" home from nursery that they've made we share it and we can barely stomach it! She loves it though!!

DD is only 2 but she is in nursery 4 days a week and the one thing I hate is the puds after every meal. Some days it's fruit slices but it's often biscuits/cupcakes/jam tart etc. I know at their age the cals/nutrition is ok but for me it's the habit of regular puds that I dislike. Nursery is otherwise awesome so it's something I privately wince at rather than say anything, particularly as it seems pretty widespread.

My children's school offer soup every day plus main meal then say watermelon and carrot sticks or cucumber and hummus ,and a small muffin then on a Friday it's cake but no custard or rice puddings etc, meals are healthy and varied although very small portions I always pack my children fruit to snack on in morning and afternoon as lunch doesn't fill them but p1-3 get free lunches so who am I to moan

@SchadenfreudePersonified

In our state school we just sharpen twigs and sticks to eat with, and then send the children off to drink from the nearest puddle.

None of those fancy "proper knives and forks and water" here.

Quite right. It's just spoiling them. They'll be expecting shoes next.

They'll be expecting shoes next. Have you read Angela's Ashes, perchance? The kids had no shoes. Someone made them shoes from old car tyres. When someone orgnaised funding for shoes for the schoolkids, the kids with tyre "shoes" were refused shoes because they already had serviceable "shoes".

I know you were jesting. I wish that citation was.

@Disneymum1993

My children's school offer soup every day plus main meal then say watermelon and carrot sticks or cucumber and hummus ,and a small muffin then on a Friday it's cake but no custard or rice puddings etc, meals are healthy and varied although very small portions I always pack my children fruit to snack on in morning and afternoon as lunch doesn't fill them but p1-3 get free lunches so who am I to moan

They offer watermelon/carrot sticks/cucumber/humus every day?? Why? That's not varied at all.

Snacking shouldn't be necessary. There is somethign *very wrong with UK school lunches.

For people saying ‘It is the only proper meal they get’ - ‘proper meal’ foes nor require sugary junk.
Amazed me when I was on hospital having the DC that hospital food had sugary junk ‘pudding’ -why????
Ok is cheap calories, but you’d think schools and hospitals should not be bulking out woth crap and normalising sugar.

@SchadenfreudePersonified

*It's a bit like the difference between UK foodbanks and Spanish food banks. A spanish food bank would offer a box of fresh veggies, some frozen fish, and a rabbit. Some sort of fresh meat, anyway. The UK version? Tins and packets. It's unlikely one would find anything fresh in those. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/food-banks-spain-hunger-coronavirus-poverty-covid-19-a9536341.html*

As far as I am aware UK food banks couldn't entertain any fresh stuff because of its perishability - but you are right that many people can't cook and don't want to learn. I also know of a local food bank which was given dozens of fresh bloomers but didn't hand them out because the people in the area would only accept sliced bread (preferably white). This was pre-pandemic. Don't know what they're like now.

"As far as I am aware UK food banks couldn't entertain any fresh stuff because of its perishability"

Yet that's precisely what Spanish and French food banks offer. Again, a a huge difference in food culture.

YANBU at all OP, I think it's really bad to teach kids that every savoury meal needs to be followed by something sweet. I think they should give them bigger portions for the main meal, or fruit and yoghurt, but no one needs a full pudding after a lunch.

@JeanneFrench

In France and Spain we eat something sweet (and or cheese) after lunch and dinner, we learn this from childhood, at home and at school. It's part of the meal and helps digestion. It's bizarre that the UK has the greater problem with obesity yet has a great fear of eating dessert.

Exactly.

When I was at school in the UK (early 70s) pudding was a completely normal part of school dinners - sponge and custard, cornflake treacle tart, gypsy tart, etc. There was ONE fat child in a school of 600 girls. It wasn't normal for children to be overweight in those days, yet it is normal nowadays in the Age of Pudding-Fear.

We've done something really weird to national eating habits/attitudes to food in the UK in the last decade or so, and it's not working well for us.

why not do a cheap starter instead like soup?

That's the kind of thing you'd only do for one day with KS1, and then you'd know why no one else does it!

I used to work at a school where the head teacher switched from puddings to fruit and yoghurt. The outrage was such that she switched back within six months. It's not a battle schools can win.

No, OP, melon is not more nutritious than carrot cake for a child.
Carrot cake has carrot, egg, butter, flour... all good sources of nutrients and filling too. Plus the kids like it.

Isn't one of the reasons food banks don't provide fresh food is many people don't have the cooking facilities, so giving someone rabbit or equivalent wouldn't be very helpful.

@ineedaholidaynow

Isn't one of the reasons food banks don't provide fresh food is many people don't have the cooking facilities, so giving someone rabbit or equivalent wouldn't be very helpful.

No reason why people couldn't use veggies. Fresh produce will last. Blame the UK Tory govt for the acccomodation issues. They're had over a decade to sort that out, and have made it worse.

When ds switched to the independent sector the lunches were much more balanced with far greater variety, served on proper plates with proper knives and forks and water! But they were I seem to recall £3.85 per day.
I can't work out if this is a pisstake 🤣
How the Hell do you think state school kids eat their meals?! And they get water too, it's not reserved for the elite 😂

@GreyhoundG1rl with all due respect at my dc's state primary school lunches were served on disposable polystyrene and plastic knives and forks were used. The children were not allowed water at the table in case they knocked it over and the staff had to wipe it up. Entirely true. Entirely disgraceful. 1999-2003. London.

dementedpixie

They don't have to have the pudding. My dcs used to choose a biscuit or piece of home baking rather than a larger pudding

This really made me laugh too!!😂
No thanks to your low sugar spotted dick, I’m just going to eat some high sugar flap jack or brownie from home!!!!

I do agree it seems silly to say no to puddings in packed lunches and yes to pudding in school but I think they say that to encourage people to keep it well balanced/reasonable.

Growing children need calories.

I grew up in the 70s and it was puddings and sweets all over the shop. People were a lot slimmer as daily life was more active.

'When ds switched to the independent sector the lunches were much more balanced with far greater variety, served on proper plates with proper knives and forks and water! But they were I seem to recall £3.85 per day.'

I went to a private school and we had a hot pudding and custard every day!

My kids get puds and they are slim.

The demonisation of certain foods pisses me off. Food should be a pleasure. Nothing wrong with yummy puds as part of a balanced diet and when active.

(I don't have a sweet tooth so no skin in the game)

@GreyhoundG1rl

When ds switched to the independent sector the lunches were much more balanced with far greater variety, served on proper plates with proper knives and forks and water! But they were I seem to recall £3.85 per day. I can't work out if this is a pisstake 🤣 How the Hell do you think state school kids eat their meals?! And they get water too, it's not reserved for the elite 😂

Actually in many schools they don't get proper plates. It's all erred on a plastic divided tray. And water is often no longer served in cups and a big jug either - children are expected to use their water bottles.

Though a number of private and independent schools have gone down the same route too now.

I do agree a proper plate was much nicer than the trays.

In our school we have the plastic trays. It makes me think of prison food.

Proper cutlery though and reusable plastic cups for milk or water. Not sure how much has gone with covid though. They were doing plastic cutlery/ cartons of milk for a bit.