To be pissed 3YO had beans on toast for lunch

[Zachary143]

Annoyed that I pay £2.50 for lunch for LO.

I initially wanted LO to have packed lunch when starting nursery full time however was told that this was not an option and that children had to have nursery lunch however I was reassured that it would all be fresh, wholesome and home cooked.

In the past LO has been given thing like packet noodles and sweetcorn. Pudding is usually angel delight or fruit. Also when it's a child birthday the cake is given as pudding so their not really having pudding that was part of the paid for meal.

The cheap lunches are pissing me off, I can provide him with better quality packed lunches and it'll cost me less.

@MrsTophamHat

Beans on toast, fine.

£2.50 is a rip off.

I don't understand the logic behind no packed lunches.

Allergies They don't have time to be sorting out individually packed lunches for babies/toddlers They don't want to be safety checking lunches

Loads of reasons.

My daughter is 11 now( year 6 ) primary .
She used to attend after school club about twice a week before lock down and it was £5 from 3,20pm to 5pm, that included a light snack and water or milk .She regularly got beans on toast or beans and a crumpet or spaghetti hoops or just sometimes toast and a piece of fruit
I didn’t think £5 was too excessive for child care and hot food and I still don’t as a child minder would cost me a lot more .

No. Not these days. YANBU at all. Everything you've listed is processed crap on growing bones and especially teeth.

I paid £50 a day, no idea what the meals cost, only that it was fresh, nutritious food each day. I wouldn’t be happy with instant noodles.

When I worked in a private nursery 20 years ago now the budget the cook had was 25p per child all day considering what parents were paying and how little staff are paid.

However the cook was amazing and lunch was always a hot cooked healthy meal and pudding or fruit and tea was a snack tea ( think crumpets/sandwiches) fruit or yoghurt offered as snacks. No beans on toast or packet noodles/angel delight though.

I thought nurseries were signed up to healthy eating groups/pledges these days? Beans on toast isn’t bad but I doubt packet noodles would be classed as healthy choices!

It’s about £2.50 for a sandwich in Tesco. It’s cheaper than beans and toasts in a cafe. You’re not just paying for beans and toast, you’re paying for the cooking/heating, serving, plates and cups and cutlery, clearing away, etc. The nursery isn’t going to see a huge profit on beans on toast at £2,50,. You’re not going to get fillet steak for that price.

If they are saying it is all fresh and wholesome then they definitely shouldn't be serving angel delight and packet noodles (presumably you mean super noodles rather than just dried noodles like Sharwoods etc?)

I think beans on toast is OK and as long as they are adding yoghurt/ fruit etc. and wholemeal bread. It's not that bad for £2.50 - as someone else pointed out you are paying for heating, serving etc.

I'd be more concerned about the angel delight as dessert - that stuff is absolute rubbish!

@Wiredforsound
don't know what sandwich you are buying in tesco they start at £1.10 and you can get 1 in homebargins for 89p

I don't think anyone would expect fillets steak but they could do a lot better , cover there cost make and make a profit for 2.50

£2.50 could also cover the cost of a lunch time cook.
Are you sure he isn't offered other food and just not eating it?
Are you sure it's packet noodles? Surely they would have to open dozens of packets to feed a whole nursery. Would you be against noodles if they were fresh noodles?

I also think the Angel Delight and noodles are more concerning.

At DD's nursery they had a big, home cooked meal at lunch time + mid morning and mid afternoon snacks of oat cakes, houmous, veggie sticks and fruit then a smaller tea. Beans on toast was every Friday and I never questioned it.

Depends what the other meals are like. That nursery got her trying lentil lasagne, stir fry, polenta and all sorts of new things so beans on toast once a week was fine.

It's not acceptable.
They need a lunch with protein, veg and carbs. A cottage pie would fill that criteria. Many children are in nursery all day, every day and need good nutrition.

YANBU at all. Beans on toast for the light tea meal yes but not the main lunch. Instant noodles is shocking! At my DD’s nursery you have to pay extra for a hot lunch cooked off site and delivered daily it’s an extra £3. If we don’t want that then they can have a packed lunch and they just say no nuts. During school holidays we have to do a packed lunch anyway. I was shocked at the deserts they get given as standard, full of sugar! You have to request for it to be fruit rather than an iced bun or something else.

Beans on toast is not healthy, canned beans are loaded with salt and the idea of bread being healthy has been outdated by 20 years.

You’re paying £2.50- what do you expect?

@Allwokedup

You’re paying £2.50- what do you expect?

Catering for a group, someone with cooking skills and knowledge of nutrition could do better than beans on toast and Angel Delight.

My ds is 6 now but went to a nursery in a children’s centre that did the 30 free hours and got a freshly cooked vegetarian meal at lunch i always thought the food looked lovely so it obviously can be done..

@Wiredforsound

It’s about £2.50 for a sandwich in Tesco. It’s cheaper than beans and toasts in a cafe. You’re not just paying for beans and toast, you’re paying for the cooking/heating, serving, plates and cups and cutlery, clearing away, etc. The nursery isn’t going to see a huge profit on beans on toast at £2,50,. You’re not going to get fillet steak for that price.

This.

I know it’s not school, but the ingredients cost of a school meal usually average about 80p the rest of the money parents are asked to pay or what is covered by FSM is for labour and other overheads.

THIS ^

As holiday says - it isn't just the costs of ingredients, it's the labour involved in preparation. This is also probably the reasoning behind no packed lunches. Checking everyone's food to ensure it's appropriate (re: allergies) and clearing up the detritus of everybody's meals is very labour intensive. No packed luges all means no squabbling over especially nice treats - very young children can't always appreciate that they can't have the same as someone else.

I imagine that, particularly at the moment, they don't want any waste so are giving the children food they know they will eat, rather than the roast dinner type meal that someone upthread mentioned.

Beans o toast, in itself, isn't an unhealthy meal. You didn't mention what they got for pudding that day*. Was it yoghurt, fruit ? I doubt your child will develop rickets.

Personally I bliddy ^love Angel Delight, but am old enough to have earned the right tabus my body.

• holiday , not holiday - sorry, I was naming a poster and bold-failed

@CaraherEIL

What are their cooking facilities actually like all of the meals mentioned sound like hob and toaster style stuff rather than oven? Do they have proper facilities because if they only have kitchen facilities to heat up or mix up processed packet, tinned or dried food then the nutritional content is always going to be poor.

I wondered this, too.

If they don't have a proper kitchen and cook staff, then any food, "fresh, hone-cooked" or not is going to be cook-freeze type heated up, as that is all that they could provide.

My friend was a cook at a nursery for a little while and had less than a pound a head a day to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner (with deserts and the snacks). It’s all very tight margins because as a whole nurseries are financially stretched and expected to provide a lot for very little.

My LO gets very good freshly cooked meals most of the time, but now and again will get something simpler like beans on toast. I don’t mind at all as it balances out. As for the birthday cake, that’s the parents who bring it in who are at fault there not the nursery. What are they going to do? The parents will ask did everyone enjoy the cake, the nursery can’t really say no we threw it away as someone will complain we didn’t provide dessert ourselves.

If you are receiving free 30 hours and are only paying for the lunches this is a small contribution toward the nursery. FWIW my nursery have clearly told me from the beginning that the free 30 hours we receive when my LO is three will cover just under two days a week due to the cost per hour they’re receiving vs the cost per hour they charge, so I will get around 18/19 hours instead of 30. If you’re getting a full 30 hours then the nursery are likely struggling to make it all work financially.

Yes it's a rip off. £2.50 a head can actually stretch quite far with money left over.

I was offered a nursery cook job and tbh some meals would cost more than the small budget as I would've had to provide morning fruit lunch pud afternoon snacks and breakfast.
Nothing wrong with beans on toast at all.
Noodles sound dreadful.
Perhaps the cook was off and they had to improvise that day.

@Wiredforsound

It’s about £2.50 for a sandwich in Tesco. It’s cheaper than beans and toasts in a cafe. You’re not just paying for beans and toast, you’re paying for the cooking/heating, serving, plates and cups and cutlery, clearing away, etc. The nursery isn’t going to see a huge profit on beans on toast at £2,50,. You’re not going to get fillet steak for that price.

Exactly. People always se the cost of the actual food, not the associated costs of delivering that meal.

I don't think baked beans on toast is bad, and I don't think £2.50 is bad: everyone working out on the back of an envelope how much a slice of bread + slice of bread + tin of beans is having a laugh - it's called cost of sales, ffs.
I'd be less happy about instant whip and noodles.