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.

Your child can have school dinners too if they want to be the same. Kids have to learn they cannot always have the same as others at some stage in their life it’s how the cookie crumbles.

@Thehop

YANBU at all. Drives me mad that my kids can’t have home baking in packed lunches whilst those on school lunch get sponge and custard

Why? Either let them have school dinners or accept your home baking has to be consumed at home. Getting mad because your child can't have cake in his lunchbox is a bit strange, really.

@LAgeDeRaisin I see your point, and each school should consider it’s own population (eg our area has very few on free school meals) but I also think we shouldn’t teach children that food a,b,c is bad/wrong. I agree your idea of once a week more indulgent pudding is not unreasonable, as long as adequate calories are provided in age appropriate amounts. The vast majority of kids need healthy balance and not a diet. I am also totally against exclusion diets for anyone, but esp children. I agree on the balance issue helping them know that nothing is wrong - or the puddings will become highly attractive as soon as parents are out of the way!

Next week my daughter will get the following puddings at school dinners:

Monday - Strawberry mousse
Tuesday - Yogurt
Wednesday - carrot cake muffin
Thursday - apple and oat cookie
Friday - yogurt

I am quite happy with that.

Although I fondly remember sponge with pink custard from my own school dinners.

You are right to some extent but the money allocated to the cook is ridiculously low per child. To many children this is the only meal of the day. There are options offered so instead of pudding they can choose fruit, fruit yoghurt or cheese and biscuits. It depends on area too. I used to take spare apples in so our school cook could make a fruit crumble or apple pie. My children had meals sent from a nearby small school where the cook used to provide healthier meals. It was partly because she regularly got given free fruit, surplus veg from the villagers.

@hiredandsqueak

This is my daughter's school lunch menu for next week. There is only pudding once a week.

There is yoghurt every other day - to me that is a pudding.

Yes I would agree @DietrichandDiMaggio, what I meant was that only once a week is there the option of what would be recognised as school pudding so sponge/crumble etc.

When my dd were at Primary there was always the choice of desert or a piece of fruit ie apple, orange, pear or a yogurt.

Also as other posters have said the portions are small.

My dc had school dinner once a week because they liked the roast and it fell on a day they had long after school club.

By the time they were year 4 the portion size left them hungry as they were given the same size portion as the reception kids which I think is madness because a 8-11 year old will usually eat more than a 4-5 year old.

I don't think pudding should be stopped for Free School Meals but I think you should be allowed to put some in your child's lunch box. For all they know they will only get a peice of fruit and a stale roll for dinner.

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.

Children in state schools use proper knives and forks and are given water to drink with their meals.

I have spent a few days here and there in private schools local to me and their dinners have been things like jacket spuds with cheese and beans; chips, beans and sausages or even fish fingers, boiled potatoes and veg so no healthier than those served in state schools.

@2andahalfpints

My health visitor told me to give 'pudding' even if it was just yogurt as a way to get extra calories in, we do have some kind of dessert after our main meal and we are all a normal healthy size. I send packed lunch with a dessert item too. That way I can make sure there is a healthy balance through the day. It would piss me right off if school told me what to put in a lunch box! I get that some parents will just fill it with crap but unless there was concern about the child's health, I don't see why it's anyone's business what you decide to feed your child

I had a student last year who had very unhealthy lunches with all kinds of wrapped up luch foods, most sweet and sugary. More than she could ever eat, I always wondered why they packed so much.

But she was a lovely well cared for girl, he parents clearly adored her and spent time with her and talked to her more than a lot of the kids.

There are government initiatives around healthy eating, I'm sure they ad been exposed to them. The school should have zero business telling them what they ought to put in the lunches they packed.

@hiredandsqueak

Yes I would agree *@DietrichandDiMaggio*, what I meant was that only once a week is there the option of what would be recognised as school pudding so sponge/crumble etc.

But surely those arguing against the idea of having something sweet, i.e. pudding, after the main course, wouldn't be differentiating between a yoghurt, a biscuit or a piece of flapjack, because they are all theoretically teaching children that it's normal to end a meal with something sweeter.

YABU, they don't get proper puddings these days like we had at school. It's all low sugar, beetroot brownies, courgette cake and (the worst in my opinion) low sugar custard :(

It is bizarre that some schools don’t allow a sweet treat in a packed lunch but will allow with the provided cooked lunch. I am not sure how strict DC’s school are ok packed lunch as they’ve never had it. Dd gets free lunches being an infant and we pay Ds to eat at school.

The puddings are pretty small and made completely from scratch at the school. We are lucky the cooked lunches are very good here.

They are not like school puddings of my youth.
Big old squares of choc pud served hot out of the baking tin with hot choc custard. God, it was the best part of my shoddy education!

Yep I think it’s odd, and creates bad habits.

I take the point the puddings are fairly healthy, and also that small children will run off the calories - but it still creates the habit of pudding/cakes every day, which will stay with them through to adulthood.

So I think it would be better to add the calories in the form of a starter or extra main 4 days out of 5.

The abiding memory of my school dinners--- large metal jugs full of custard with a thick skin on top, the dinner lady would push the skin in the mixture and stir, so the custard was full of bits of slimy skin. I never had school custard.

It's disgusting that school meals include sugar laden puddings.
Sugar is addictive and children crave it after school because of these puddings.
They then crave it as adults causing binge eating disorders and diabetes.
Don't get me wrong, I struggle too and my children have chocolate biscuits in their lunch boxes otherwise they will be the odd one out.
It needs to stop.

Mixed feelings, children need calories, and I guess a pudding is an easy way of doing it. A pudding every day does not sent a good message.

I also agree it is completely hypocritical to police lunch boxes, and then dish out a pudding everyday.

@Cozytoesandtoast00

It's disgusting that school meals include sugar laden puddings. Sugar is addictive and children crave it after school because of these puddings. They then crave it as adults causing binge eating disorders and diabetes. Don't get me wrong, I struggle too and my children have chocolate biscuits in their lunch boxes otherwise they will be the odd one out. It needs to stop.

Its been explained time and time again that the school puddings are not sugar laden. They are not allowed to be.

It's disgusting that school meals include sugar laden puddings.
Sugar is addictive and children crave it after school because of these puddings.
They then crave it as adults causing binge eating disorders and diabetes.
Don't get me wrong, I struggle too and my children have chocolate biscuits in their lunch boxes otherwise they will be the odd one out.
It needs to stop.

I am very confident that the school yogurt or carrot muffin will have far less sugar in them than a chocolate biscuit.

@modgepodge

At my school, the portions are tiny (cake literally about an inch and a half cube) and often sneakily low sugar and full of hidden veg. Eg the brownies have beetroot in and there’s another one with corgette in it. There is always fresh fruit available and often yogurt too.

Same at my kids school, some of the puddings have veg in like the carrot cake and beetroot like you say in the choc pudding and they also can help themselves to fruit and natural yoghurt if they prefer

Another dinnerlady here.
Our school offers either a sponge type pudding OR a yogurt OR crackers and cheese.
I would estimate that a good 50% go for the cheese and crackers option.
Again as pp's have already said the sugar content is very low.

I had to laugh when pp's suggested serving soup as a starter. I can imagine the carnage as 30+ Reception aged children wobble back to their seats carrying their bowls.
I'd be following them around the whole time with a mop and ice packs!

@LAgeDeRaisin

It's also about the idea of teaching children that every meal comes with pudding. I'd eat them daily if I didn't care about putting on a load of weight or settong a good example about healthy eating.

I love pudding, but we just limit it to weekends because I think it should be a treat and not a daily occurrence. I don't think that's too unusual.

Sad to hear PPs say their children now expect puddings after starting school.

Instruct your own children not to eat the puddings on offer.

FFS.

The reason they give a full meal with a pudding is that for some children they only get a proper meal while at school.

Child of a single parent here, school dinners were a godsend, the only proper meal I had in the day.