Is chocolate unfairly demonised as unhealthy?

[JambonetFromage]

DC are supposed to take a "healthy snack" into school for break.

What I send varies depending on what's in the house - sometimes it's something like a babybel, ricecakes, fruit etc. Often things which are questionable like hobnobs, banana bread, malt loaf, flapjack. But it's all been fine.

This week I sent them with homemade chocolate cornflake cakes - these were just cornflakes mixed with some melted chocolate. DC came back with a letter from school saying these were unsuitable snacks.

Now I'm not trying to claim that chocolate cornflake cakes are "healthy" but I don't think they're nutritionally any better/worse than a flapjack or a slice of maltloaf which I've sent the DC with on many an occasion. I think the problem is one contains chocolate and the others don't.

AIBU to say that chocolate isn't evil and something containing chocolate doesn't necessarily make it less healthy?

You’re not wrong – nutritionally it’s no worse than flapjack or malt loaf. Schools just tend to have a blanket “no chocolate” rule because it’s easy to police, not because it’s genuinely less healthy. Chocolate isn’t evil, but you may be stuck working around an arbitrary policy rather than common sense.

We make choc crispy cakes with Montezumas 100% dark chocolate (no sugar) and sugar free muslei. Very healthy for a treat!

It's all nonsense really, most school dinners are just crap and a McVities oaty flapjack contain half a child's daily allowance of sugar. No idea why schools think flapjack is better, it's made from oats, butter, brown sugar and golden syrup!

You're allowed nuts???!!! Haven't seen a school allowing nuts in decades even if there's no child with an allergy.

Ours doesn’t. Cereal bars are awful( mostly!)

“No snacks, except nuts

really?!!

OMG, you let your DC eat chocolate??? My darling Araminta is ten years old and she has never eaten that dreadful stuff. Even on her birthday, all she has is a handful of carob coated banana chips and I feel very uneasy allowing her to eat those if I'm honest.

Why not try making some date and buckwheat slices instead? You could even add a tiny drizzle of natural yoghurt (homemade, of course) to make them extra special.

Wait so government guidance is just fruit, veg or seeds for the breaktime snack (ignoring nuts, how many schools allow nuts?)

Crikey.

I’m all for healthy eating and it’s a good thing but similarly, the doorstep sized wedges of jam roly poly my school used to dish up never did me much harm.

I think you’ve actually identified the issue with this comment. ‘No chocolate’ is an easy line to draw, something more nuanced would be better but harder to define and hard to enforce.

Can’t you just give them the treats afterschool instead? Our school has free fruit available all day for when the children want something, so it’s a lot easier for us and we don’t send in anything!

Yes I'm not particularly criticising the school on this, they give more leeway than many by the sounds of things.

It just got me thinking really - is the average chocolate-based sweet snack less healthy than the average sweet snack without chocolate? Chocolate just seems to have the reputation as being "unhealthy" when I don't think it's really chocolate that's the problem.

I'm not stamping my feet and demanding the right for my DC to eat chocolate crispy cakes 😁

We used to get free fruit in EY/KS1 but KS2 kids don't.

This drives me nuts. No chocolate allowed at break then the school serves up chocolate brick wall with chocolate sauce for dinner. Which to be fair is my kids favourite but why the angst over healthy snacks from home then?!

You're probably right. At least most people think of chocolate as a ‘treat’. Don’t get me started on those biscuits which are marketed as a healthy breakfast food 🙄

No it doesn’t sound like you are at all! I just thought it might be easier to just comply to the no chocolate rule than to try and concoct something ‘healthier’ that involves chocolate when it’s not needed, when as you say they do get other forms of treats like cake and things supplied by the school already. Then they can have as much chocolate as you want to give them at home.

To be fair I don’t usually give them chocolatey stuff. I just happened to have run out of school snacks (I turn my back and they demolish a packet of rice cakes and clear the fruit bowl) and it was just what we had in the house having made some at the weekend. Having sent them with various biscuits in the past I wasn’t expecting to have crossed a line!

I totally agree about chocolate.

I see why they don't have it, but there are far worse things, even in school dinners, especially if it is "decent" chocolate.

muesli bars!

Well I give mine chocolate op, so don't feel on the back foot.

Perfectly healthy children. We don't have much candy bar style chocolate, but I'd far rather a few squares of chocolate than things like party rings or crisps. Even most packets of relatively plain supermarket biscuits are worse.

Oh they have chocolatey stuff in general, just not typically for school snacks!

Though nothing compared to my childhood, which was slap-bang in the middle of the era of Trios and Club bars being standard issue snacks, and I can still sing all the words to the Milky Way advert the advocated it as a smart snacking choice. I think a day without chocolate was a rare thing!

"I'd rather they ate a homemade cornflake cake that's just cornflakes and chocolate."

I'm presuming you made the cake at home, but the cornflakes and chocolate were bought so UPF.

Possibly because of diary allergies? Kids are supervised in the school dinner hall, seating plan etc, but outside playing not so much.

No they are allowed dairy in general. Yogurt suckies, that kind of thing.

I love chocolate but no it is not healthy ans just because something is home made doesn't make it healthy either, I know what schools consider healthy or not so go along with that i can justify it to myself all I want, there is plenty of hours out of school they can eat what they want then

I dont need to do what appears popular on here and find endless ways to complain about schools, they need to consider all children not just our own and I find it easier to help them

Chocolate isn't evil, but cornflakes stuck together with chocolate is definitely not a healthy snack and it's a bit unfair for other children who follow the rules if they're sat there with proper healthy snacks while someone else has chocolate. Our school just does a "fruit time" because it's easier than having to police what a healthy snack is.