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.

In hate it if I do get a McDonald’s and it’s only cool. If it’s not hot I don’t find it edible.

The same ham which contains nitrites and nitrates which have been found to cause cancer? I think I’d rather the cold burger

Also, you know, I understand that people are going to get all snarky about this, but...

Kids don't need fast food. They just don't. There is this weird idea on MN that if you don't periodically feed your kids shite, they are somehow deprived / will develop an eating disorder. It just isn't true. The vast majority of people throughout history have not eaten Western fast food and have survived.

My 11yo has never eaten in McDonald's or any other crappy fast food joint. I'm happy with that and intend to keep it that way as long as possible.

Sure.

Your lunches require parental effort though and teachers will understand ‘fussy eaters’.

Sending a leftover happy meal is no effort. The meal would be pretty bad cold and the child hadn’t wanted it fresh the night before, so is unlikely to find it appetising the next day.

I don’t really understand why people are trying to tie themselves in knots trying to say it’s ok. I don’t know one decent parent that would send their child in with a leftover happy meal. I do know teachers who have been concerned about children coming in with only chocolate and fizzy drinks for lunch and it’s because they’re also the child whose parents don’t come to parents evening, is often late for school, with unwashed uniform, no PE kit, always forgets or is absent in dress up days, doesn’t do reading homework etc. It’s the bigger picture.

I have opened the fridge sometimes on a monday morning and realised there's no ham/cheese, and made my child a jam sandwich instead and worried enough about that!
I would judge leftover mcdonalds as it's just not something I'd ever do. Left over and cold is grim and the child would stand out at school and probably be embarrassed.

Pack lunches are pretty awful
health wise whatever you have - unless it’s a salad / poke bowl sort of thing with many different items pulses / veg / protein. Most children’s ’pack lunch’ options are not healthy. I’ll get flamed but a sandwich, cereal bar, fruit is not sufficient.
Agree there’s worse you could eat than a mc Donald’s. I think another issue of packed lunch is that it instills the idea of ‘convience’ food with long shelf life. Of course once or twice doesn’t matter. But decades of it ingrained in our school system and here we are with obese children and poor diet as a nation..

will add that we live in France; I had to provide lunch for my toddler at nursery - one day my mum sent him with a packed lunch ‘English style’ and the manager rang me to say they had fed him another option as she assumed we had forgotten to include ‘lunch’ and only included the afternoon snack!!!!

They don’t, and although I’m defending this, to be honest we eat takeaway maybe 3-4 times a year. It’s not needed but I also don’t think that it hurts to eat occasionally.

I also recognise that a lot of processed foods are pretty bad but don’t hold the same judgement.

Exactly.

Or "This is really shit but it's not the absolute worst shit, so it's ok".

There is no need for them to eat fast food and of course everyday or a 3/4 times a week is bad. But as a treat every now and again is fine imo.

Kids don’t technically need to go to theme parks or have an ice cream on a sunny day but its nice to have a treat every now an again.

As a one off, I really don't think it is a big deal. If every day, then I would be concerned about the child's diet and if things are okay at home.

Sometimes my son would take a couple of leftover pizza slices or some leftover McDonald's chicken nuggets as his packed lunch. He had requested it and I'm not going to waste my time making a sandwich if he doesn't want it. However, when I am ill and either haven't been able to go to shops for bread or too ill to prepare his packed lunch, I have just grabbed stuff from the fridge/cupboard for random stuff he can take. You do what you can to make sure they have something to eat even if it isn't very healthy. I would have appreciated someone checking in to make sure things were okay as they really were not.

The children who bring left over chips to school are not the ones who had quinoa for lunch the day before. At my school it's very common that children do not eat any home cooked food at all, they have fast food takeaway every single night. Families go to the 'chicken shop' on the way home from school. You can be disingenuous around "as a one off" but many, many kids are fed shit on a daily basis.

I don't mind taking my kids for McDonald's as a treat. However cold McDonald's burgers are not very pleasant at all.
My son would only eat Jam sandwiches for school packed lunches so I can't say I'm any better tbh. We had to switch him to school dinners since I know he will eat hot food. Our school won't let the kids take a thermos with pasta or soup.

I was at primary school in the 80s. The standard lunch at my very average school was

Cheese sandwich
Club biscuit
Apple
Squash in a beaker

Many kids had salad on their sandwiches, chicken, beef. Some kids had crisps instead of chocolate biscuit. The vast majority had an apple or another piece of fruit. NO ONE had McDonald’s ever, or just biscuits and fizzy drinks etc. If they would have, it would have been flagged.

My kids take a packed lunch around once a week. They usually have a little pot of some kind of protein such as tuna, or cheese cubes, then a tub of cut-up veggies, some plain crackers and a piece of fruit. DH often lets them take some dried fruit too.

In the 80s, we had sandwiches made with homemade brown bread and fruit.

It's not great, but it's one day- who knows what was going on. All families can experience crisis; maybe mum had been rushed into hospital overnight, or a relative had died, and that's why the kids were left with nan who clearly didn't know what to do. If it happens on a regular basis then of course it's an issue.

a ham sandwich is cheaper than a mcdonalds.

Kids don't need fast food. They just don't.

That's a miserably low bar to live by if we only ever give our kids what they actually need.

Unless you're Amish of course.

Someone who usually gives their child a 'nice balanced lunch' isn't ever going to give their child cold McDonalds the following day and certainly wouldn't send it into school.

Well now the 2 child benefit cap has been lifted theres no excuse......is there?

When did they stop teaching cookery/housecraft/domestioc science in schools I wonder ? !

Another point is, most of us as good parents wouldn’t send a happy meal in as we are aware how it would look. When parents send a happy meal in, oblivious that it may be questioned, thinking there is no issue at all with doing that, it can show a lack of judgement and therefore a lack of good parenting. They aren’t even aware that it wouldn’t look great because they don’t have the skills to see that, and again, it can be an indicator of a child having a problematic home life.

Exactly this.

What does this have to do with anything?

I mean considering there are literally millions of online step-by-step cooking tutorials.

But yeah, let's blame the schools 🙄