Would giving all children free school meals actually safe the public purse money long term?

[Kendodd]

Really good quality, highly nutritional, tailored to children's needs and vegetarian. I know this would cost a lot, but if it improves the nations health long term, would it actually cost less?

No thanks. Wouldn't feed that to my kids

Ok your kids could eat from the salad bar then, with some fresh bread.

Well it would not matter how healthy the meals are, if kids wants chips, that is what they will eat!

If I am out at lunchtime, the chicken shops are full of school kids.

I admit myself when younger it was a sad day if chips or roasties were not on the menu!!

That does look like a good menu but it’s nothing like the menus offered in England.
I agree to much more healthy food with more veggies, fibre etc. However I’m not convinced it will make the unhealthy healthy. Nutritional education starts in the home.

My DD was fed vegetarian meals at nursery so they could do communal eating.

I only later found out that my CM was deliberately giving my DD and the other mindees meat on some days as the CM herself is vegetarian.

Now at school my DD, who like other kids in London get fsm, have a daily vegetarian or vegan option and a meat option.

Wow
Feeling hungry now
Wish I’d had this type of food when I was at school

It only works in primary, and do what my kids private primary did, which was very strict, one meal, everybody has the same, and you don't leave until you've eaten up!! There was a separate table for allergies and intolerances, but still a cooked meal. No packed lunches allowed.

Well, or at nursery. Our one-year olds happily ate their spinach soup with egg yesterday. They watch other kids eat, it’s a nice environment just chatting, and so they eat too. It’s just normal, and what they are used to. Teachers eat the same food, with them.

Yes ours went private and this is the norm.
It also means less wastage.
There was also only one fish day and no meat days.
Mine are veggie so on the fish day there was an alternative for them.

I'm actually vegetarian now, and I love nothing more than a good meal made with vegetables and not ultra-processed meat substitutes. Would I have eaten that as a kid? Would I heckers like.

I think a lot of children just don't like food. It takes a while for your palette to grow and about 90% of the foods I adore now I didn't have the palette for when I was a kid.

I also had some difficult allergies (not just the 'main' allergies) and it would have been difficult for a school to cater for me.

It's difficult catering for my own allergies, let alone a complex Venn diagram of other people and their allergies and religious requirements... And that's before you add in general fussiness...

I see the advantage in serving up veggie food as most people can eat it (so need to think about halal etc) but do most children eat it? I think not. There's a reason why so many parents feed their kids chicken nuggets and chips. Kids like beige food. Their tastes change when they're bigger, but you're never going to win the battle when they're tiny.

Mass catering is so challenging to get right. It's even worse when it's for children.

I agree but in the long run as kids grow up they follow the patterns of their parents eating habits.
I didn’t I went veggie
But most do.

It’s not strict here. Children are taught to only take as much as they think they will eat. They take at least one piece of each vegetable (so about 10) and are encouraged to taste. Not forced. Eventually they do. It’s important to make lunch time a positive experience.

Not necessarily. They eat this food until they are 18/19 and very often parents ask for recipes.

I think it’s be a waste of time and money. If kids are eating well at home it will make no odds, and the kids who eat trash at home are still going to get fat, unhealthy, rotten teeth, etc. I don’t think you can fix it with a good lunch 5 days a week.

I would need some meat in there too

It's hard to say, with so many other variables and how difficult it is to get funding.

Another thing I think could be an issue, at least for the secondaries I've seen, is the size of dining hall. More recently built ones particularly seem to be so small, maybe big enough for one year group to all sit, schools having to have split lunches and queues still massive even when a significant portion are skipping to avoid waiting around. Schools being built with where and how to eat being very much an afterthought is very much not helping the issue of better lunches.

The salad bar looks amazing, but in many of the secondaries around me, I'm not sure where they'd put it, there is so little space for it.

@KnittedCardi I suppose the joy of a private school is they can pick and choose their pupils. So none of those pesky kids with arfid and/or autism.....

There is always a veggie option as well as a meat option most days. As you can see on the menu I posted.

Unfortunately despite the income, some children will still come to school having eaten nothing and the meal they have at school is the only thing they will have all day.

Non selective actually, but you are right, less likely to be high needs as they couldn't cater for that.

@Deathraystare this inspired me to go see what my old school has to offer next week. I have to say that back then dessert on 2 days in a week was unheard of and I'm pretty sure mango chicken would have been too modern 😅 and then bread, milk and water with that food.

My dd was an incredibly picky eater with a will of iron. There is no way this would have worked for her in primary or secondary. Maybe now in year 11, when she recently turned veggie but she doesn’t eat lunch at school.

I found myself asking for recipes when my kids left school so I agree with this.
However
Do you remember the Jamie Oliver campaigne with mums over here stuffing chips through the railings to their kids because they didn’t want the healthy meals at school
If They grow up eating unhealthy food at home they carry that with them.
The change needs to start with healthy food production right down to people being prepared to actually cook healthy meals at home aswell as getting them at school.

Just tackling school food is not going to be enough

It would be interesting to see how much we saved on admin as there would be no need to check on people’s eligibility. It may not be as expensive as you think

Yes I do remember watching it from here, and we could not believe it was true. Still can’t. What utterly stupid parents. I agree cultures are different, and I don’t know where you’d begin tbh. Jamie Oliver couldn’t do it, but was his attitude a bit too harsh or snobby for some or what..? It’s a pity, because it works very well and it does have a huge impact on their days what they eat.