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?

Are you proposing this is done at a free before school breakfast club?

No just adding to the idea of kids making yogurt. I think the curriculum at school is full enough but it was a nice thing to do at playgroup, I can imagine it at brownies/cubs or similar groups if people think making yogurt is a good idea.

Understanding of how much protein is needed is not based on a few children’s parents filling in a questionnaire. Exactly how little protein growing children can get away with has been very carefully studied for children with PKU, and it is a tiny amount - less per day than that in a glass of milk.

Yep. I was working in an inner city secondary school around the time Jamie Oliver did his school meals push - school stopped offering total junk and moved to (somewhat) healthier offerings - nothing crazy, just not chips every day. The parents were bringing McDonald’s and fish and chips and handing it to their kids over the railings…

That's different to whether or not children from the most vulnerable socioeconomic groups do get enough, though. Which in the case of the ongoing study you refer to as confirming that children do get enough was based upon parents self reporting online on the basis of four separate days and a tiny number having blood tests.

ETA: The fact that a large proportion of the sample children have cereal and milk on the days reported (even if they didn't have anything or actually had half a stale yum yum from Greggs) suggests that fortifying milk with vitamin D wouldn't be a necessarily bad idea for all groups, not just the poorest.

High protein diets are not appropriate for children, they are often misunderstood, badly executed and an expensive fad.

@Booboomylove I am suggesting adequate protein at every meal, not a high protein diet. The dietician on DH’s NHS pre diabetes course said refined white carbohydrates like supermarket white sliced bread are just turned into sugar, so along with jam, isn’t it all sugar? How does it keep children full until lunchtime? My husband’s cardiac rehab dietitian said she could hardly recommend cereal for breakfast, because it’s barely got any nutritional value - and anything that has to have nutrients added to it, has them, because they’ve been stripped out in the manufacturing processing. She could only possibly recommend Shredded Wheat?

How do you know poor children get enough protein the rest of the day? At DGCs’ infants school, the children are allowed to choose what they have for lunch, as it’s supposed to empower them and cut down on waste. DDIL was tearing her hair out, as DGS has been under a consultant since last August for constipation, and now DGS is free not to choose any veg or fruit (or protein) with his lunch.

The point is ‘enough’ protein is very little. Children with PKU struggle to eat a diet with low enough protein even with specialist foods. Milk in a bowl of cereal and a slice of white bread with margarine would be more protein than a PKU child can have in a day but it is still enough protein for growth.

I still think the "French kids aren't fussy" is a myth because some of them are. I've had a total of 3 French exchange girls and they were all very fussy, my DD was a fussy eater by British standards but these girls were a different level. As I said before one of the fathers phoned me and he said not to worry she was always the same.

Some kids do. One of mine isn’t a fan, I love porridge and it’s my default breakfast, so good behaviour has been modelled. I’ve tried toppings fruit, honey, jam , chocolate chips but still no.

I make them breakfast flapjacks instead made with lots of ripe bananas and peanut butter.

I think with children it’s generally good to have a couple of options.

In the 30 minutes they have to make breakfast, serve, eat, wash up, dry up, sweep, mop and set up for lessons you think making butter, bread and yoghurt?

I'm also fascinated how this could be managed in that timescale! Why don't you model it to the school how to fit it all in?

I know nothing about PKU, but wonder if it’s a case of the benefits outweigh the risks for children, who need a specialist diet - rather than the optimum for “normal” children?

I did the ketogenic diet for DD1, because the potential benefits in terms of quality of life outweighed my concerns, about it not being a balanced diet, the high levels of fat, very little fibre and restricted range of micronutrients due to the very low carbohydrate levels? It’s not something I would have chosen to do in a million years for her “normal” siblings.

The level of protein they have is very likely not to be optimum for other children. But my point is they manage and grow on very small amounts of protein. Levels that without very careful management and specialists foods are unobtainable. A ‘poor’ diet considered ‘low’ in protein and full of UPF would have protein levels many times higher.