To think banning fried eggs is a step too far?

[NameChanger2026]

Whilst I agree with most of this, what’s wrong with an egg in decent oil?

How does microwaving degrade nutrients?

I host international students. Maybe there are countries where children eat healthily but most will choose fast food and snacks given free rein. Very few will eat the healthier options that have been offered, picking at their meal until they can rush to their room to eat the cakes, pastries, chocolate and crisps they brought into the home. The healthier food their parents sent with them for the journey is thrown away.

You can always search science studies instead to show the effects of eating fried food - I did link further back

In my experience the puddings at school are things like a biscuit, small piece of brownie, crispy cake or yes sometimes a hot pudding. Which if the kid is eating their dinner at lunch and then having a sandwich for tea I don’t see the issue. They’re at school for 6 hours so I guess they’re trying to fill them up.

I had lunch in a restaurant yesterday and loads of people were having a dessert after.
It’s not exactly unusual? Yes at home you wouldn’t eat a sandwich and then sticky toffee pudding lol but school dinners have to assume this is the kids main meal.

That's how I cook my fried eggs, I use a dash of avocado oil and that's it.

I have a cooked breakfast on a Sunday usually and that's the only time I eat fried eggs. Two of them with a large portion of poached mushrooms and a slice of toast and occasionally a couple of rashers of bacon.

They have been. Remember Jamie Oliver? It's slipped back in recent years, though. I remember my friend whose daughter was at school in the Jamie Oliver years saying how good the food was compared to when we were at school. But I also remember the big backlash against it with parents passing McDonald's over the fence to their kids.

I hate seeing deep fried eggs. No need to do that. I doubt schools will be frying eggs though. They can barely it would seem provide anything these days that has not be packaged up elsewhere and brought in by a van.
Schools heat up food. These days they rarely cook anything.

Cripes, total madness! Is it to counteract the rubbish diets some children are having at home? When people my age, school in 60s and 70s, reminise about school dinners , we always turn to the magnificent afters we had, none low sugar at all. The chips on a Friday were great too. We were not a fat generation either.

There is so much research out there now proving that spikes in blood sugar are caused by quick releasing carbs and sugar. Many adults are now ditching all these things and processed food to manage weight and health.

So why are we giving DC a loaded with sugar dessert every afternoon? If they need energy they should be given slow releasing carbs and more protein, not sponge and custard.

It's to do with the heat.

It's all relative though and i wouldn't worry about it too much. In real terms, its not going to make much difference. Its only relevant wjen comparing egg cooking methods.

Microwaved scrambled eggs - still better than cereal.

Kids need calories. Especially children who live in poverty

Kids, much like adults, need good quality nutrient dense food for their health and development.

Yes, they need calories but not all calories are equal.

The quality of food served in most schools is shocking, tbh.

I don't understand why we as a nation are limiting food for all children, to solve obesity in some children. Obesity and the bad habits that come with it isn't just from school lunches, it's primarily from the food eaten at home. Meanwhile eating disorders are increasing year on year in young people and can be fatal.

Why not target the kids who need it. First with support for the whole family, then by making child obesity a child protection issue (after support has been offered along the way from when the child becomes overweight, with no improvement). Targeted at mum and dad so as not to create food issues.

Active kids need 2000 calories a day. All kids need some fat in their diet and kids with eating disorders need lots of fats in their food and to know that no food is "bad" food, it is all healthy in moderation (especially in comparison to the option of being terrified of eating something "bad" and literally starving).

My mum taught me to "eat healthily" - no puddings, barely any fat, skimmed milk, low fat spread. I was underweight. It was only when I found myself with my own child I realised that whilst technically healthy there were nowhere near enough calories or animal fats in the food I was making.

I welcome these requirements, even though some children do get nutritious food at home.

Oh, God yes, who doesn't remember sponge with currants in (fly cemetery) and custard, Jam roly-poly and custard, and semolina with a big dollop of jam in the middle. This was in the 80s for me, but same sort of thing. I think our school had shares in a custard factory...

I'm going to be a bit controversial here, I actually liked the skin on the custard, most of the other kids hated it. I especially liked the chocolate custard we had sometimes. 😆

Indeed. Some loon somewhere decided it was cheaper if you got rid of the kitchens and all the dinner ladies and just had a sort of heat up kitchen. Look how much you save ! Idiots.
My school dinners cooked from scratch by local ladies were delicious. And the puddings were indeed fabulous. Chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce.
Pink custard. Cornflake tart. And fish and chips always on a Friday.
We did have a playing field to play on that nobody had sold off to run around on.
And yes, we were mostly slim.
It is more a case of what we did not have in our diets. Very little fast food. No chicken shops. Or additional things with dinners. Ready meals were not commonplace. No huge bags of crisps, garlic breads, naans, bhajis, samosas, pizzas were not a regular thing, nor was pasta much. Burgers rarely, chips once or twice a week.
And portion sizes were not as massive as they are today. Hard to explain to those who have never had an old fashioned school dinner.

My kids are currently offered the following for breakfast at school: white toast (butter, or butter and jam), scotch pancake (butter, or with jam) or cereal. On Fridays they’re offered chocolate spread. I think it’s a strange set of rules - I doubt a pastry differs that much nutritionally to a thickly buttered pancake other than the latter is dry and horrid (we are in NI and they seem to love them cold here 🫤) but under these rules there will be no change.

I’d have mandated minimum two portions of veg with lunch and no highly processed cereals. I guess the issue is lack of budget and often cooking facilities.

I agree, there's a misconception that fried eggs are fatty, but the egg isn't, just needs to be well drained: the egg doesn't absorb the fat it is fried in, so drainage/something to absorb the fat like kitchen roll, is the key here. Scrambled eggs are much fattier as the butter (yes it has to be butter!) is mixed in the dish.

Never did fried eggs at breakfast club, it was beans on toast. Why not have that?

I wasn't a skin lover, myself, though I loved the skin on rice pudding when my mum made it at home. Never got it on school rice pudding. Come to that, never really got it on school custard. I reckon they skimmed it off, probably because of all the kids who didn't like it. You'd have been out of luck.
I had forgotten about the chocolate custard.

We hardly ever had ice cream, though.

I love eggs but fried is a treat. It also smells more than poached or boiled.

And Shredded Wheat which is literally one ingredient

That sounds like an advert for the likes of ZOE which was not based on any good research

Cake with pink icing! Those cupcakes with really hard icing on them (not like 'cupcakes' today that are huge dollops of goo). Bakewell tart! Syrup sponge puddings! I've never liked custard but fortunately it was always optional - I remember the big metal jug of custard with yellow streaks running down it - bleurgh - but it was popular.

There were a lot of children on free school meals at my school - in those days, they got metal tokens with which to buy their meal at the till, otherwise you paid - I think the cost for a full meal was around 50p when I was at secondary school in the 80s. It might well have been the only meal some of those children got in the day, but it was a filling, appetising meal.

I think it depends on how the eggs are cooked to be honest. If we have them they’re done in a pan that only requires a tiny drop of oil wiped around it, to produce a decent fried egg but I doubt schools would be able to replicate that. I would have thought scrambled eggs a decent option as these can be microwaved or cooked in batches with minimum oil.