To think that free breakfast at school is a bad idea due to the quality?

[Mushypeass]

Firstly, I fully agree with the principle of free breakfast for all pupils. My reservation comes from the quality of food that is often served up in UK school canteens. Obviously a poor quality breakfast is better than no breakfast at all but AIBU that it could encourage children to eat even more UPFs? For example, children who have may had a relatively healthy breakfast at home may now opt eat UPFs at school with their pals instead.

Seocondly, why is the food so poor in so many schools? How can other countries manage to provide their youth with nutritious and healthy meals but we can’t?

I don't know where you're shopping if you're managing to get cornflakes for 80p?

My GC go to the paid-for Breakfast Club which starts earlier and we're all concerned by how little they are given to eat and the fact that my GS sometimes doesn't eat anything. It's all carbohydrate, cereal and toast, never any protein. Also concerning for us us that now there is a free BC which starts later, effictively my DD is paying a hefty fee for what is really 45 minutes of childcare with an inadequate breakfast.

I’m coeliac just on a pension now and you have my sympathy.
Everything we have to buy that is gluten free costs twice, sometimes three times as much yet it’s half the size and mostly tastes disgusting.

Families use the breakfast club because they go to work. If they can leave the children earlier they can often get home earlier so don't need to spend money on after school care. And I know that the breakfast is pretty basic, my GC have been in Breakfast club for months before the free one started.

I feel you there. My son doesn't have coeliac disease but he has other medical needs and at one point he had to have a vegan, gluten free, low fibre diet which was such a nightmare and incredibly expensive.

Now he is restricted to a low fibre diet which is still a pain but not half as bad as it used to be.

Asda, Aldi, Sainsbury's and Tesco are all 88p for a box.

I was under 25 at one point 🙂

Sometimes there are reasons why providing breakfast at home outside the obvious neglect isn't reliable/feasible/manageable or where a free one in school can be an absolute godsend. And that's why Fed is Best, rather than focusing on attributing blame - focus on the children who need food and how to deliver it, rather than diversions that will be used to justify not doing it.

Really! Fair enough, I can't remember where we bought our last box but they weren't that cheap.

Most supermarkets, I'm talking about regular cornflakes not Kellogg's though

You was under 25 once but did you have rent and bills to pay and kids to get to school? Because I did until recently and you get far less money when you're jobless and under 25 then people realise. Still managed to buy cornflakes for the kids.

Like I said though I'm focusing on the kids who need food by pointing out every family I know with kids who don't get breakfast they aren't getting to school on time for the breakfast club so it's not the solution. Those families need help from social services

I thought it was only single people under 25 that were affected,?
Surely regardless of age you would have received universal credit ,that made provision for up to two children, and child benefit?

Thankfully I'm not on benefits any more and can afford the overpriced gluten free food but back then I had to rely a lot on expired bread given away by charity - gf bread is hard and dry enough as it is, even worse when its stale.

Universal credit for children and to help with the rent but it was far less than what an over 25 gets despite living an adult life. Now I have a job and am much better off (no time for people who insist anyone unemployed is better off than someone with a job), truly there aren't many people broker than an under 25 with no job and kids.
This is why I don't buy that there's a large percentage of people who apparently can't afford breakfast for their kids someone even once tried saying one in three.

That must have been so tough, glad its not as restricted now.
For a few years it was me with coeliac disease and my daughter who was allergic to milk, soya, and eggs, so a bit difficult and cake was out of the question (her first birthday cake would have made a good Frisbee ) but then she outgrew those allergies and it got easier, then was diagnosed with coeliac disease too which actually helped because in my country children with coeliac disease get disability benefits until they're 16. That made a massive difference. And thankfully those poor days are behind me now.

I didn't know that ,thanks for the explanation and I do agree but also think thst if parents won't feed their kids there needs to be more intervention from ss and a less than perfect breakfast from school is better than no breakfast.

It was. He didn't like 99% of the gluten free stuff and practically lived on the same 'special' pizza for 3 meals a day until we could start slowly introducing other foods.

The pleasure on his little face when he could finally eat regular bread and things like rice krispies was everything.😂

I think schools in poorer areas should we prioritised to provide healthier options. My daughter's school is deprived area (top 10%) and they do a lot of effort at their breakfast club of including healthier options as poorer child are more likely to be obese.

So you'd rather see kids starve?

There is plenty of money, the government just aren't spending it wisely!!

Yes. She would. That's exactly what she said 🙄

You honestly wouldn't suggest porridge if you had to make it on mass. We made it at scout camp when we had the building for Winter camp and the vast majority of the kids wouldn't even try it. It was also awful to keep warm without it ending up too thick to use. Scrubbing the dried remains off of the plastic bowls was also fairly gross and time consuming when we needed adults for other tasks, meaning often one of us got stuck doing it each day while the others did other tasks.

The kitchen facilities at 3 of the schools my kids attended would struggle to provide hot food for a breakfast club, the breakfast clubs they did have served bagels and cereal, and that was mostly with very few staff who struggled to get it done in time for school to start.

You said you have been in a lot of schools have you seen the amount of fruit that gets thrown away every week? I used to be on the PTA and we asked why it couldn't be given to the kids rather than put in the bin, it was purely a logistics problem, which apparently they were unwilling to solve with a free fruit table in the playground each day, even when we offered to organise it.

You would have the same problem with the food you want to see on the breakfast club menu. The school got around storing bread products by fundraising and buying a chest freezer. They got dry goods delivered and they could just about find space to store a weeks worth. They wouldn't have anyone willing to be responsible for ordering fresh stuff daily and storing it correctly.

In an ideal world they would offer what you deem acceptable but if we were in an ideal world it wouldn't be needed anyway would it?

The biggest barriers to increasing the quality of food are cost, time, space and actual people to do the jobs and they are all in short supply in every single school across the country. You could solve any one of those problems individually and you still might not get the kids to actually eat the food provided.

Yes, I did. I found having a low but regular, reliable income was vastly better than the financial chaos and insecurity of trying to work with small children and manage the hugely increased costs of working - along with the tendency of employers to know they have you over a barrel and threaten not just to end your employment without warning, but to say you were fired so that you'd get sanctioned for months.

Eh? Where did she say that??

So youre saying you also had rent and bills to pay and multiple school age kids to get to school before you were 25? in recent years because rents never been higher than the past ten years?

I mean of course I'm not the only one but seems that way on the school run haha. Sounds like your employers were assholes and I'm sorry to hear you had such a stressful time but me personally find I'm a lot better off working even a minimum wage job than when I was jobless

Shouln’t we also be angry at the parents who could afford 50p for a loaf and just dont? Throwing money at stuff doesn't always stick in the right place (from experience). Those of us who did it right don’t begrudge children being fed, but we do begrudge feckless parents being enabled.