To think that not all school dinners are nutritionally balanced?

[Schooldinner1]

I often see posts with people saying how schools are held to strict guidelines etc but I’m not sure that’s the case if the school is an academy!

some examples (primary school):
-pizza, chips and beans
-half a jacket potato with no butter, a pot of tuna/beans and cauliflower

They have to be chosen in advance so you know what your child is going to get. The options are limited e.g. on pizza day, it’s cheese pizza or chicken pizza with chips and beans. No other option.

I am not criticizing the school as if it’s part of a child’s wider and balanced diet it’s hardly a big deal, I’m merely musing over the fact people often say that schools must follow such strict guidelines but this has not been my experience!

If your child is in an academy and lunches are not cooked by the local authority caterers, what are their lunches like? (Friends with children in schools with local authority caterers seem to get a lot more choice and balance!)

I bet behaviour is better too. School food should be a resource, something that aids education.

I think it's utterly ridiculous the shit they serve up for school dinners yet they over analyse the food in children's lunch boxes!

Pizza, chips and beans does not sound balanced to me - why would you have chips with pizza? The pizza already has the carbs for the meal, so should have some salad or vegetables with it

I live abroad, they do not serve things like that for school dinners here. Just looked at this week's menu - today is chicken soup, rye bread and salad, tomorrow is pork sauce and root veggies, the next day is lasagne with grated carrots. There's always salad too and crispbread too. No puddings. The teachers sit and eat with their class (in primary school, not in upper school) and makes sure everyone eats properly with good manners and portion sizes aren't decided for them - they can choose how much or how little to take as they serve themselves, not the dinner ladies (but waste is strongly discouraged, so they soon learn not to take too much but can go back for seconds if they're still hungry)

My daughter is in high school she has autism and recently wanted to try school dinners I was chuffed to bits with this. 3 weeks in she gave them up because ' the only really healthy option is fruit that looks rotten' she loves baked potatoes but say theirs are way too salted and oily. Day to day options are paninis,quesidillas , bacon sausage , baked potatoes, cakes , fizzy drinks , one main meal which looks like it should probably be balanced. There is no option of side salads with a baked potato / panini ect

Don't get me started on this 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

The primary school my kids went to prided itself on the healthy lunches it served. When I read the menu I laughed so much I got an asthma attack! Luckily, I read it online while at home so I didn't offend any of the seriously deluded people employed in the school kitchen.

We made lunch boxes for the kids and only once or twice a year were they allowed the school lunch as we considered it to be fast food in the worst way. Fast food that is very processed doesn't become healthy just because you put a tiny amount of vegetables on the side!

When they went to secondary school they sometimes bought some of the "food" that the school offered if they were going through a growth spurt and were extra hungry or if they felt like a snack. But they absolutely insisted that we kept on making them lunch boxes as they felt that the feeling of having a full stomach just lasts longer when you have eaten open rye bread sandwiches than when you have eaten pretty much everything else. (One with paté and pickels, one with ham or salami and some fruit or vegetables on the side for our daughter, and the same times X for our son. We are Scandinavians and our attitude to the lunchbox was the one place where we didn't make much of an effort to fit in)

I don't see the problem, pizza once a week isn't going to cause any harm. Our kids have pizza night every week!

I recently read the ingredients list of a well known catering company that provides foods for many schools and pretty much every meal is ultra processed with emulsifiers, flavourings, stabilisers, maltodextrin etc. even simple mac and cheese or chicken curry has tonnes of ingredients.

I used to work in school dinners and trust me when i say that menus sound far nicer than what is actually served up! They use the cheapest suppliers they can, fatty meat etc!

There’s always a balance to be struck between making meals healthy and nutritious yet also ensuring that the food isn’t rejected by a significant proportion of children because it isn’t what they’re used to eating at home - which is a huge problem where FSM children are concerned, if they don’t eat the lunch which could be their main meal of the day. And it’s children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are most likely to be the least familiar with diverse foods. In short, better to eat fish fingers, beans and chips for lunch than nothing at all, and schools simply don’t have the budget to cater for more than one or two meal options per day.

It's an absolute disgrace. How dare they feed shit to our kids.

I'm gonna start making some huge noise about this.

Our primary school is part of an academy and I agree OP, the quality of food on offer is very poor overall. Lots of pizza, pastries, processsed meats and of course chips every day. It doesn't seem like they are following any sensible nutritional guidelines to me.

Also, variety has been a big issue as DD doesn't like potato in general, which rules out many options, so she used to often not eat much and come home ravenous. Since the pandemic, even less choice has been on offer and they have cut the size of portions down also (3 chicken nuggets for a 10 year old!). She struggled to fill herself up for half the week, so we had to switch to packed lunches to ensure she had a more balanced and filling lunch at school.

I guess the Jamie Oliver affect has worn off over time!