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 🙂

Good for you. I was at my local Aldi yesterday and there were certainly no watermelons for sale. I was at my local Tesco on Saturday and also had to pop into Morrisons as Tesco didn't have everything I needed (I was desperately in need of fennel) and neither of those stores had watermelons either.

If it's for 1 and 2 year olds as well, in my view there should be a suitable sweet option for them - they shouldn't really be having the chocolate fingers or the party rings.

The melon is a great idea as can cut up small and will feed anyone who wants some.

Watermelon isn't exactly difficult to find in general though. Maybe just sold out in your area. I bought one in Morrisons on Saturday, saw them in both the Coop and Lidl over the last few days and out nearest independent petrol station usually has them.

That's exactly what I was thinking, I don't know how young children would react to pineapple though.

Will there be a cake?

Fruit always seems to be popular here… 🤷‍♀️ Plus, if they are 1-4 YO, the parents will probably be serving the younger ones so they won’t get a choice 😂

I would ditch the UPF chicken bites and popcorn (choking hazard) in favour of some fruit.

I've been to lots of tea parties without a trace of fruit or salad so it's pretty normal ime.

Personally I've always done some fruit though and it's always been eaten. Big slices of melon or watermelon usually.

And I am very partial to a cheese and pineapple hedgehog so I've made a few of those in my time 😂

I was thinking more of the mess, tbh.

Why shouldn’t they be having them? My 20 month old doesn’t have any issues with them. He’d eat all the chocolate fingers if he could! 😂

Don't tell my 2 year old that: she loves a party ring! Can't eat chocolate fingers or I'm sure she would love them too.

Gotta love women on women….shaming each other for what they serve at parties ffs.

The kids will eat the crisps, sausages and biscuits and swerve the rest.

And for those kids that never eat upf - they’ll be off their faces on sugar the first chance they get.

I would advise the op to bin the party games, and do some yak fur weaving and Tibetan chanting. Or get Brian Cox to do some dark matter physics with them (He confuses me 3 sentences in, maybe the littles will absorb it better).

Perfectly fine! They don't go to parties for the nourishment. You could swap the popcorn for a punnet of halved grapes

Yes but to go home with

I'd ditch the popcorn (choking hazard and goes stale quickly) and one of the biscuit treats and have watermelon instead

All children need is a big bowl of mini sausages, a big bowl of crisps and a big bowl of chocolate fingers. Anything else is just window dressing to make you feel less guilty about feeding them just mini sausages, crisps and chocolate fingers.

I didn’t do many parties at home as preferred them catered once they got to school age but for the home parties I had a successful easy format - pizza, crisps and party type biscuits (chocolate fingers, jammy dodgers, party rings etc) followed by birthday cake. Always popular.

The kids will eat the crisps, sausages and biscuits and swerve the rest

This has never been my experience with 3 dc and multiple parties thrown/attended over the years.

The salad is a bit hit or miss. I've seen a fair few kids buffets with a sad and mainly ignored bowl of carrot or cucumber sticks.

Fruit though, when cut up...it always gets hoovered up almost as fast as the beige stuff ime, whether the attendees are 1 or 12.

Noone will care!

I’m swaying over to pizza from sandwiches, cold pizza would be ok wouldn’t it? It’s the first time we are catering a party ourselves so sorry for the questions!

Don’t bother. It’s a party, not a nutritionally balanced mealtime.

Yep absolutely fine. I would just make sure you are aware of any dietary needs- sandwiches are easier to account of dairy/gluten allergies than pizza is.

I don't even eat meat and you sound like the thief of joy with this suggestion!

I don’t bother with fruit for adult parties, nobody eats it! Had bbqs this summer the salads mostly went untouched!

So, get rid of the two things that are filling and high in protein? No.

In my experience there's always at least a couple of children who love fruit so I would try to get something.

Grapes and a sliced up watermelon always go first at a party here and are pretty cheap. I’d definitely get rid of the popcorn though!