Children’s party food with no fruit?

[Yessiryessir3bagsfull]

AIBU not to include fruit in party food for 1-4 year olds? There will be sandwiches, crisps, cocktail sausages, chicken bites. Carrot and cucumber sticks, popcorn, party rings and chocolate fingers. Will fruit be missed - it’s so expensive for 20-25 kids.
thanks 🙂

Don't be daft. Sounds a lovely party tea, and you do have healthy veggies after all.

It will get wasted. No one will eat it. Honestly, you don't have to worry whether or not kid's party food is healthy as most will ignore the healthiest bits and they get overexcited and don't eat that much anyway.

Fruit is a fairly rare party food.

My DS can't eat most fruits and theres only once or twice even been fruit at parties... its normally buffet of crisps, sandwiches, biscuits, bread sticks, veg sticks, cheese, cupcakes etc... or cooked food like pizza, nuggets, fish fingers, sausages etc... with chips.

Sounds perfectly fine to me. Like a couple of other posters though I'm concerned about popcorn- pretty sure it's not recommended under 5 years. My DD (2.5) has had the odd bit but I wouldn't be making that decision for other parents nor would I want the guilt if it went wrong

I'd do fruit (melon and grapes always goes down well and not too expensive) and lose the cucumber and carrot sticks.

Lose popcorn because that's a choking hazard (and you already have crisps).

Lose either chicken or sausages and do a pizza instead.

But ultimately do whatever you want, it's your party! Anyone who wants anything else can have it at home.

Good grief.

It isn't essential, but like PPs, a watermelon would be a popular and good value addition if you wanted a healthier sweet option too.
I also agree with the PP suggesting plain pizza over sandwiches too. Less work, leftovers are more readily swallowed up by parents, and I suspect there will be little price difference if you buy frozen.

I think what you have is fine but if I were to add anything it would be cherry tomatoes (chopped) for a bit of colour.

As PPs have said - popcorn is best avoided for the younger children and grapes are also a choking hazard for younger children (but you’re not doing fruit anyway). Otherwise, this sounds great.

Last kids party I went to, the cold pizza slices were a huge hit and disappeared quickly. Lots of sandwiches were left though.

It's a party - no pretence of providing a well-balanced meal.
The little guests can get their UPF-free food & fruit at home.

On a scale, I probably veer more towards the crusty hippy homemade upf free side of things, but I honestly would not care what the food was for a party. It’s a couple of hours, who cares what they eat.

Grapes with cheese cubes

Pineapple chunks with cheese cubes used to be standard for parties. These days you probably wouldn't serve them on cocktail sticks, as used to be done.

People only do it as a token gesture, kids don't want fruit at a party they want jammy dodgers and wotsits.

Stunt fruit.

I usually find that fruit at a kids party is more a sop to the parents really.

Another one that’s suggesting watermelon lol. I do it at every kids buffet, they all love it. It goes first each time. So do strawberries, those are more expensive though!

I just catered for 30+ 5 and 6 year olds. I put out some plain fruit which was not particularly popular but I also made fruit skewers with a chopped pineapple, green grapes, strawberries and kiwi. HUGELY popular, all the bright colours made them look very appealing and they were one of the first things to go. I think it makes the parents feel better if they see their little darlings eating something decent in between all the UPF’s too. And as people say….plenty of sandwiches left over!

The last party I catered was for 5 year olds and they gobbled up the fruit kebabs I made!

My dcs favourite thing at party's is frui!. But I think maybe just one watermelon cut up or a punnet if grapes would be good?

Does anyone really think about healthy food when planning a children’s party? IMO it’s all about fun food - party rings and tonnes of crisps were always the most popular.

Personally as a mum to 2 primary school aged kids (one in Reception) I would swap the carrot and cucumber sticks for watermelon. In my experience of parties they never get eaten and get thrown away at the end whereas melon gets wolfed down.

Such a killjoy. You're also removing the main protein based foods.

Through the party going life of my 2 (now adult) kids, I have never ever seen fruit!

My experience is to not bother now....I didn't last party after wasting the fruit the last two years. .... noticed I'm not the only ones... normally my dd aged 8 loves fruit but in a party situation it's a total no. Totally understand no fruit at parties now and wish I'd known before....

I totally agree with this.

Although if you did want some savoury ones as well then salmon paste pinwheels usually go down very well also.

If you look online then there are lots of ideas for fancy smoked salmon pinwheels but, quite frankly, all you need for young children is some salmon paste and it works really well.

Get an uncut loaf of bread and then slice it lengthways (ie horizontally rather than vertically). Then have a look at these recipes but instead of cream cheese and smoked salmon just use a bit of margarine and salmon paste (55p from any good supermarket).

Here are a couple of examples of how to do it with smoked salmon (just replace that with salmon paste)

https://blog.giallozafferano.com/sweetandsalty/smoked-salmon-pinwheels/

or

https://whatsforsupper-juno.blogspot.com/2011/06/old-fashioned-pinwheel-sandwiches-with.html