School Dinners

[amateurgobshite]

Fully prepared to be told IABU as I know resources in schools are massively stretched and they need to provide food that they know will be eaten by the pupils but...

If your primary aged child was allowed to choose a slice of cheese pizza, pasta and spaghetti hoops would you be okay with that? The children do have a choice between one of two mains, one of two carbs, and either one veg option or one of a choice of two veg so today child could have also chosen fish fingers, chips and sweetcorn.

I just think it's quite a disappointing choice of stodge and UPFs. Pasta is on the menu every day, along with lots of beige freezer type food that we don't really eat at home, and very few vegetables.

I'd be interested to hear what things are on the menu at other primary/first schools as maybe that's just how it is with restricted budgets.

As a one off and wouldn’t mind, but what are the meals like the rest of the week? And why didn’t she choose a vegetable if there was two on offer? DDs school does meals like stir fry, sausage casserole and mash, pasta bolognese, all with vegetables and also a side salad available, but Friday is fish fingers chips and beans day.

Schools are trying to serve the best they can or a limited budget and making sure children will eat it. The latter being the biggest battle often.

The school I work in have pizza every Friday as an option, it is a homemade base, with a homemade tomato sauce and some cheese. It’s served with some chips and beans. The kids love it (I will often pick to have the pizza with some salad myself!)

Pasta is on the menu a few times a week because we know for a lot of children it’s a meal that will be eaten. Again the sauces are all homemade.

There’s also jacket potatoes and sandwichs available every day as well as the main meal options.

Whats wrong with pasta? Children and adults need carbohydrates for energy. It's a main food group. Its made from flour, egg and water.

I am surprised at pizza and fish being both the same day as they are different days for my kids.
Weds is always roast, Fri always fish fingers.
Then there are meals like chicken curry, hot dogs, pizza, tacos, bolognese and veggie alternatives on other days.
Every day there is pasta, jacket potatoes and a sandwich choice.
I personally feel the offering is good. It's cooked in school. And each meal does come with some vegetables as the side (however my kids don't usually eat this e.g. pizza might come with potato wedges and sweetcorn but mine would only eat the pizza).

Pasta's not a upf? Nor is the pizza as it will be made from scratch.

Seems fine. What do you think should be on the menu?

I have to say I disagree really OP.

Pasta isn’t a UPF & the legislation schools have to follow for meals does say that a starchy food e.g. pasta, potatoes MUST be there every day, so they are compliant with that.

The legislation also says that schools have to provide at least 1 portion of veg, sweetcorn being there hits that.

Cheese pizza won’t be what we would think of as cheese pizza, it’s more likely to be what we would call cheese on toast.

And there are hundreds and hundreds of different pasta recipes many of which are vegetable based, and not all are tomato based. Pasta is not just bolognaise, meat lasagna, or tuna bake.

I really don’t care to be honest. If you care that much, make them a packed lunch. This is my 5 year olds choices for random day next week, and then a Friday which has fish and pizza (she will chose rhe pizza, and then we will have pizza again for dinner as it’s Friday - flame me. I see nothing wrong with bread, tomato sauce and cheese and my Italian in laws certainly don’t).

I’ll tick jacket potato with tuna the day before as she loves it.

She came home the other day saying she eats the potato skin now (she always wanted it scooped out before) as the lunch lady told them that potato skin had a vitamin in that would make thier hair grow like Rapunzel.

Fucking inspired IMO, the lunch staff were probably sick to the back teeth of scooping out the potato.

What is wrong with flour and water combined to make either rotis, or pizzas, or pasta with egg?

I mix flour and water into rotis. I have no issues if someone uses the same flour and water to make it a pizza. I serve the rotis with veggies cooked in a tomtaro based curry. I have no issues if the same veggies and roasted on top of the same tomato based sauce. What is the issue?

Most primaries ask parents to book in advance. I think it’s quite unusual for children to have free choice in the moment until secondary.

A lot of the time, with school dinners, it’s about making sure children eat - particularly for those for whom it might be the only consistent meal they get. Many children simply wouldn’t eat if they were made to have things they didn’t recognise or want to try. In an ideal world, school lunches would be well-funded enough to provide greater variety, and schools would be well-resourced enough that midday staff could engage more and help support healthy eating choices, rather than just supervise and assist. In the absence of that, letting children pick the things they will eat, even if that is just carbs with carbs, at least ensures most will have a lunch.

As an aside, I have a great photo I took several years ago when I went to one of my then early primary aged goddaughter’s school “invite the grown ups in” days and stayed for lunch with her. Her mum and I chuckle about it: she chose a slice of pizza, a bread roll, and some potato wedges, and the sight of those on a dinky plate with her smiling face is just great a great image. The options were actually okay (I still recall I chose to have the baked chicken and some peas and carrots with my wedges and bread roll.) Her mum was furious at the time when I showed it to her - but does now see why the canteen staff let her pick it, and acknowledged that it was one meal a day, that she was able to mitigate with more balanced meals at home, but that some children weren’t fortunate enough to have that, and needed to just eat.

Trust me, most of it ends up in the bin and so many kids will not touch vegetables.

The school I work at is provided the food by an outside caterer. They provide a menu, parents order their child's choice online. Some schools may still provide and cook their own food but the vast majority are provided by an outside caterer, and either cooked at the school or heated up. These caterers have to Tender for the contract. You'd hope a school would choose a caterer that provides decent quality food, but that depends on their budget. Generally the school has no control over the menu, if they're using an outside caterer either.

Do you not pick in advance what they will eat? We select what main and desert they will have in advance, and then they can have vegetables or salad bar.
There is fish and chips, nuggets, wraps, stir fry, pasta dishes, curry, roast, chilli, pizza etc, and then option of jacket daily. Desert is a cake item or fruit, we mix this up with fruit most days and cake 1-2 times a week

If it bothers you just send them in with a packed lunch. 🤷‍♀️ This is not a big deal to me.

Back when I was a kid the school dinners were repulsive. I lived on grated cheese, grated carrots and double portions of treacle or jam sponge when it was available.

Some days we got semolina and half a browning soggy apple. Those were not good days!

Safe to say I was always ravenous for snacks after school.

I was delighted when they stared allowing pack lunch in year six.

So I think things have improved significantly since then!

I work in a school kitchen. Parents pick the meals at the start of the week, kids pick their pudding and which veg they would like.

Pizza is home made, as are the curries/stir fries type meals. There's a roast every week, fish on Fridays, always a nice vegetarian option (cheese and tomato quiche, home made, today.)

Jacket potatoes and beans, cheese or tuna available every day. Fresh fruit and yoghurt every day. Brown bread, also home made, every day. All the puddings are home made.

There are a tonne of nutritional guidelines schools have to stick to, whilst not saying everything is made fresh from scratch, its also pretty decent compared to yesteryear. If you are concerned then there should be the option to take a packed lunch then you have more control over what they have. Generally as DC have no allergies I am not arsed what they eat at school, especially given the portion sizes.

What would you suggest they do instead given budget constraints? They provide food kids will eat so that they can concentrate on afternoon learning. If it bothers you, send a packed lunch.

This is partly due to making them free for all. I’d like to see them only free if families earn under £30k, that way they can afford to make better food