Kids lunchboxes and sugar

[HalloHello]

I've just had a phone call from nursery to say these kiddilicious fruit drops link aren't suitable as they have 10g of sugar in! Same as a freddo. I am absolutely horrified. Fair enough I should have checked the label but just assumed as they're made by a baby food brand that they wouldn't be the child's entire allowance of sugar in 1 snack!? Am I being unreasonable??

What do you put in your kid's lunch box?
My nearly 4 year old gets a sandwich of some sort, a couple of bits of ham, a baby Bel or cheese string, carrot/cucumber/pepper or tomatoes, some kind of fresh fruit, a yoghurt pouch and usually one of these dried fruit snacks but won't be buying them again 🙈

Whole meal wrap with ham, small pot of grapes, strawberries or an apple, fruit yoghurt pouch and a jammie dodger. Sometimes a baby bel, mini pepperami or small pack of fridge raiders. Water to drink

I put little raisin boxes in our kids lunch boxes, 8.3g sugar. School feed them carbs, carbs, carbs so bollocks to what they say.

All those dried fruit type snacks are basically sweeties with good advertising!

My 4 year old gets something like a chicken or hummus wrap/sandwich, a portion of fruit, portion of veg, babybel or sometimes a couple of cocktail sausages and then a “treat” item like malt loaf, frube or some popcorn. I occasionally give her a penguin bar or YoYo.

I guess the baked fruit type snacks are not as healthy as marketed. Fresh fruit is a better sweet treat as it has fibre and various nutrients in it. But if you check out the school menu it's hardly nutritious. Mini pizza, pasta bake, fish fingers.

Sandwich or wrap or pasta, piece of fruit and container of fruit juice.
Another piece of fruit as a snack.

Mine are 8&10 so this would probably be too much for a preschooler... today they had

Sandwich or wrap (cheese, chicken, ham etc with cucumber or lettuce)
Pot of raspberries
Jelly
Slice of homemade banana bread.

All those dried fruit type snacks are basically sweeties with good advertising!

Agree!

My 3 year old has:

• leftover pasta from the night before or a cheese/ham/chicken wrap or sandwich
• fruit of some kind (usually apple/grapes/blueberries/banana)
• veggies of some kind (usually carrot/yellow pepper/cucumber)
• yoghurt
• babybel or squares of cheese
• something else random such as a malt loaf / an egg / crackers / slices of chicken

Yeah I forgot about malt loaf, sometimes I give a slice of that instead of a jammy dodger.

Fruit is high in sugar so it's hardly surprising that when you make something almost exclusively of fruit that it too is high in sugar.

Incidentally a banana or an apple contain about 12-15g of sugar, and about 1.5g of fiber. The drops have 1.2g fibre. They aren't the devil's work, and are healthier than a freddo or sweets (just as a banana is better than a freddo despite having more sugar)

Essentially I wouldnt have them everyday, but they won't cause harm a couple times a week. In terms of the lunch I think a good rule is a sandwich item, a protein item (cheese, egg, chicken) a peice of fruit, a portion of veg and one treat item. Popcorn is a good treat that's low sugar, or cheese crackers, yoghurt with berries, those drops would be fine as a treat item once or twice a week maybe just vary the treat item. Some sugar is fine, no malt loaf/penguin bar/fruit juice/homemade item is going to contain less sugar.

There can also be 10g in the yoghurt pouches too. It’s crazy the amount of sugar that’s inside children’s prepackaged foods these days!

We tend to have something like:
Marmite sandwich / pitta / roll etc
Small chunks of cheese / plain yoghurt etc
Pot of salad / cucumber / carrot etc
Popcorn / plain crisps
Choc coins left from Christmas as a treat

Egg mayo sandwich or cheese and ham roll, veg sticks, a piece of fruit (usually apple, satsuma or banana, maybe grapes, strawberries or pineapple as a treat), petit filous/yogurt pouch or cheese string/babybel.
Only fruit is the yoghurt and what's in the fruit, and as my DC have got older I've switched out the sugary kids yogurt for greek or plain, and added in an extra snack like fridge raiders, pepperami, crisps or popcorn as they aren't so limited salt wise.

But it isn't a Freddo is it? You'll get more nutrition from dried fruit than you will a chocolate bar.

I try to avoid all the kiddy marketed stuff. It is overpriced and overpackaged. Also gimmicky food like tubes of yoghurt and cheese strings.
Cheese and houmous wrap
Yoghurt
Apple
Crackers

Problem is when you just look at the sugar then healthier ones do have the same sugar content as less health conscious brands. However, if your yogurt is sweetened with strawberry purée and apple juice that's going to be a lot more nutritious than it being sweetened with flavourings and sugar. The limit for sugars is not meant to include sugar from fruit, it's meant to be added sugar. And strawberry purée is not added sugar, it's fruit. But if you read the labels they won't reflect that difference.
It's just as well fresh fruit doesn't come with a nutritional breakdown stick to it, or nurseries and schools would have to start banning apples, grapes, pineapple, banana, etc.

My nearly 4 year old gets a sandwich of some sort, a couple of bits of ham, a baby Bel or cheese string, carrot/cucumber/pepper or tomatoes, some kind of fresh fruit, a yoghurt pouch and usually one of these dried fruit snacks

How long is their lunch break? Mine would've brought half of that back home in favour of going out to play for longer! 🙄

A wrap or sandwich, three pieces of fruit and a biscuit or vegan fruit bar.
Sometimes veg sticks.

Yes the branding is misleading. But basically I suppose fried fruit is healthier than sweets, but the healthiest is to have the whole fruit (also better for teeth). Cereal bars are the same thing, often branded as healthy but pretty much a biscuit.

8 year old has

Sandwich (brown bread, often hummus, tuna or ham, and salad), 2 pieces of fruit (one for break), vegetables sticks, yogurt and sometimes a cereal bar. But the yogurt and cereal bar I have to look around to find decent ones that aren't all sugar.

We do not allow popcorn in our children's lunch boxes.

foundationyears.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Early-Years-Choking-Hazards-Table_FINAL_21-Sept-2021.pdf

I was really disappointed when looking at sugar content in yoghurts marketed at kids. Most are awful! So now I just give him plain yoghurt with bits of fruit (berries) mixed in. My 4 year old usually has a ham sandwich, a boiled egg, a small bag of Pom bears, cucumber and carrot sticks and a small pot of yoghurt with fruit.

My 9 year old takes sandwiches x2, usually cheese salad. Sometimes we switch it up with tuna mayo, egg mayo, chicken... he loves salads so occasionally he takes a big salad with added protein instead.

Also, carrot sticks, a pot of strawberries/grapes/blueberries, a banana or satsuma - depending what we have in. And a frube yogurt. Not happy about that one as I'd prefer plain yogurt but I'm already a mean mum because everybody else takes chocolate, biscuits and crisps daily He IS allowed a Penguin or similar 2x a week. He also takes water every day except on a Friday when it's a Fruitshoot/Capri Sun.

DD at that age would have had leftover something, whatever was dinner the night before. Then a yogurt sweetened with fruit purée and some fruit or vegetables.

No chocolate, biscuits, fruit leather, fruit juice, squash, dried fruit or anything else with questionable nutritional value and loads of sugar.

At 11 she has a measured approach to sugar, loves cooking and prepares her own breakfast and lunch, and drinks water, fruit teas and the occasional Ribena. Not the insane food-crazed monster MN would have you believe is the result of not supplying puddings and biscuits with every meal

Always the same for my kids (weirdos)
Cream cheese sandwich
Pombears
Apple & strawberries
Cucumber and carrot
Babybel
Yogurt
Smoothie
Dairylea dunker
Everything normally comes back licked but barely eaten. Such a joy.

She does usually eat everything in her lunch box, she has a huge appetite at Nursery (not at home!!)

The yoghurt pouch I get is from Asda and has 4g of sugar which I don't like but it's easy and calcium, and better than some. She has Greek yoghurt at home.

I get what you're saying that it's healthier than a freddo, I just worry about her teeth! And hate getting a row from nursery haha. The teacher said said to swap it for a savoury snack so will maybe put some pretzels or mini cheddars in instead.

I suppose it's that shocking because you can see 10g of sugar on a packet but a banana is a banana IYSWIM

@AnAverageMum

That sounds like a lot of food. Maybe they are not eating it because they are overwhelmed by so Many tasty options? Sometimes they don't get a lot of time to eat or are too busy chatting to their friends. But why not try alternating the snacks, eg. Baby bel one day, yogurt the next, dunker the next, and keep the other core elements the same? You might find they actually eat more. And if not there will still be less waste.

I say that as a reformed over caterer myself!

Crisps and crackers are full of starches that stick to their teeth. Better to have a Freddo than a packet of wotsits for your teeth (yes really!) as the wotsits cling much more to your teeth. FYI so does dried fruit and raisins