To think a leftover happy meal isn’t the worst packed lunch you could have?

[Tulipdreams]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/teachers-share-students-worst-packed-36878989.amp

Hear me out first. Of course the article is pretty terrible, children being sent into school with only packets of biscuits for lunch, stories of children having no milk for their cereal and bringing in energy drinks.

But one example was a child took a leftover happy meal to school. Aibu to think that this isn’t the worst thing you could have?

No I have never sent my child into school with a cold takeaway for their lunch, and it would be concerning if it was happening all the time. But I would eat leftover McDonald’s if I hadn’t eaten it the night before. It’s probably no worse than taking a ham sandwich and a packet of crisps (which would be deemed as acceptable).

When I was a child most kids took meat paste sandwiches and a wagon wheel and that was a completely normal lunch.

Initially I was on the side that yes, this is terrible and a cold burger and fries is definitely not something that I think is at all appealing to eat the next day. However, I do think my feelings change depending on what is in the happy meal. After googling as it’s been about 20 years since I last bought one, I see that they offer little bags of apple slices as an alternative to the fries. Therefore, if a child takes in cold nuggets, apple slices and a drink I don’t think that is as bad and does change my view somewhat. Obviously it’s not ideal but back when my kids were little I would occasionally send the youngest in with cold chicken goujons and a small dip as part of their lunch. DS loved this - adored cold goujons and everyone once in a while I didn’t think this was a terrible option as the goujons were home made with good quality chicken etc. TBH I can’t really see a massive difference in the two meals. However, if it’s a cold burger and fries they have gone in with them no, I don’t think this is appropriate. They aren’t the type of foods that do well as leftovers IMO - cold pizza, Chinese or Indian, yes I would eat the next day cold but not burgers and fries.

Of you can afford to buy a Happy Meal, go buy some bagels, will last a few days. Probably be able to get some cheese spread too.

I doubt the teacher eo be complaining if it fruit slices, carton of juice and chicken nuggets, how woukd they even know they were from McDonald's

More than you do, perhaps?

You’re not, sorry you seem to be describing a teacher noticing something judging it and filing it away in their head which is meaningless

So do you draw a distinction between mothers who can't breastfeed and those who'd just rather not?

All foodstuffs should be ranked from 0 to 10 in terms of health benefits with 10 for healthiest foods.
So much of what is called "food" is anything but.
It's mashed up starch with sugar, salt and seed oil.
A hamburger from McDonald's happy meal doesn't merit the term "food".

There should be a dedicated minister for food to manage this - the standard of food has disintegrated in my lifetime.

I remember the first time I was on holiday in America decades ago, I lost weight because everything tasted sweet, even savoury dishes in restaurants and I lost my appetite. I did eat at McDonald's at the time and the largest container for cola was huge - family sized for one person.

Sugar makes you fat, it makes your body age much faster than it would otherwise and it makes us all chronically ill.

Big Pharma and doctors are rubbing their hands as we all eat ourselves into chronic illness.

But calories are not the only or even the main thing about food.

You can't meaningfully separate the different elements of food out.

All calories are not equal.

And fast food will be pappy, rapidly digested and full of non-food substances such as additives with no nutritional value for humans.

Right but no school is going to complaining about slices of apple and a carton g of orange juice are they
Left over half eaten cold burger and fries on the other hand.....

'leftover' - are we talking half eaten burger and half a dozen fries

I realise I'm harping on this thread but I just hate the competitive shrugging.

Fast food is not proper food. The additives in it have often not been tested properly for human consumption and the way the original materials have been broken down and reconstituted have effects on the way we digest and use the nutrition that are still being explored.

That's one thing. Another is a cold half eaten fast food meal being chucked in a kid's bag. It is arrant bullshit to suggest that this is likely to be a one-off and just fine, and the rest of the time they're probably eating handmade poke bowls. I know one woman who would think something like this was okay. She's the birth mum of my sister's adoptive children. She isn't allowed to see them anymore.

And no, before some smartarse asks, not because one time she put one bad thing in a lunchbox. Because behaviour like this is going to be indicative of crappy standards and repeated parenting fails.

Personally I think nutrition is an essential right for all kids and I want better, for all kids.

I agree with you to a point. As a country we need to completely rethink the way we view food if we want our population to become healthier.

But McDonald's hamburger patty is 100% beef. It is real food and I would argue that its nutrionally better than some processed ham. The bun is shite but then so is cheap white bread. But because we have grown up with shite lunches of processed crap a ham sandwich seems acceptable.

I get that. I don't eat McDonalds but I've had Popeyes takeaway a few times and couldn't eat it all so finished it the next day - chicken wrap usually so it was fine.

DS is autistic, and a fairly fussy eater. He doesn't have a balanced diet, I've just had to learn to live that. I try and vary what he eats as much as I can within his limits, I'll buy him anything in the local veg shop he asks for (he likes dragon fruit at £5 a fruit!) and I gently offer him a bit of anything I'm eating if he shows even the slightest interest in it. I'm sure we've been judged on what we feed him, but I can't make him eat food he doesn't find safe.

I never sent him to school with a happy meal, he had school dinners and usually had a cheese sub, but if he'd taken a packed lunch I could envisage a situation where he took in something similar to a happy meal - left over pizza maybe -because he wouldn't eat anything else and I needed to get him out of the house and into school at something approaching the correct time (he was nearly always late, transitions are a huge problem for him.)

No its shit and unless the family had suddenly found themselves in a financial crisis and had no other option its not acceptable.

I had to chaperone ds on a school trip last year. Before we set off the teachers discretely went round to some of the children checking if they had any food as letters had gone out saying that packed lunch was required. More then one child had no food with them and a few others only had a couple of snacks chucked in their bag. It broke my heart.

Of course it's not just "fat and salt ". Not an ideal meal though!

Are you suggesting there are additives in McDonalds that haven’t been tested for human consumption (what does that even mean- approved? Legal? They’re clearlytested every time they’re consumed)

Leftover? A happy meal barely counts as a meal of any kind when complete and warm. If there's any missing they are eating little of something not amazing to start with, and that tastes vastly worse cold.

Is it really the worst of edible things you could take? No. And in the end better than nothing. But pretty bad.

A shame to waste it?! Do you normally save any remnants of uneaten dinner and produce them again the next day, rather than put it in the bin like normal people?
A happy meal is a load of shite to begin with, never mind 12 hours later.

I didn’t say what I thought the school would do, my point was that it’s easy to judge without knowing the full facts.

If any school is concerned they have procedures they will follow.

unless the family had suddenly found themselves in a financial crisis and had no other option its not acceptable
Anyone in financial crisis shouldn’t be wasting what they do have on McDonalds.
You don’t veer into bankruptcy between dinner and breakfast the following day. There is literally no excuse that makes this ok.

A happy meal is £3.60.

A loaf of bread, pack of ham, some sort of spread, and cheese slices, is over £6. Now yes, that will last for several lunches, but if you only have £3.60, thats no use to you. That would get you the ham and the bread, and that is frankly as miserable a sandwich as the cold happy meal.

But it was bought for the previous days dinner? It was only chance that the child hadn’t eaten it.
If the £3.60 was all the parents had, they bought a happy meal knowing the child wouldn’t eat lunch the following day.

Then you don’t know what safeguarding is.

No, I didn't specify that particular brand. I said fast food/ UPFs generally. Although I am sure it is true of them too.

A number of additives put into ultraprocessed foods have not been subjected to the testing we normally require for stuff we put in our bodies. (In the US, this would be testing by the FDA.) They are not food in themselves and we thus don't fully know the longterm impact on human bodies of repeated ingestion. There is some evidence that some of them interact in unexpected ways with human bodies.

I am busy cooking right now (!) so cannot find chapter and verse, but Chris van Tulleken's book is good on this, albeit a couple of years old.

Actually just nipped out and found it. It's chapter 15 of Ultra-Processed People. It explains that when a company creates a novel kind of molecule that will be put in something humans will ingest, there is meant to be a rigorous set of tests to show it is safe. But there is also a big loophole which allows companies to basically self-certify that the chemical compounds they are adding to food to bulk it out, give it a certain texture etc, are safe.