WHAT??? Banning Packed Lunches!

[MojitoMagnet]

So apparently Packed Lunches are likely to be banned!

guardian article

I suspect the main reason is to drive down the cost-per-meal for school dinners. The idea that anyone should be able to dictate what my child eats is so repugnant I'm lost for words. By all means give schools the power to intervene if a particular child is regularly sent to school with a bag of crisps and a mars bar, but taking the choice away from everyone else is ridiculous!

"Packed lunches costs the same or only slightly less than a school dinner if you put in all the packaged stuff like walkers crisps, cheese strings, branded yoghurt, cartons of juice etc. "

Exactly. Which sane people don't do.

I've told DD she can have packed lunch one day a week, as a treat, because they are great.

But it is a treat - a luxury - not a staple necessity.

Well I'm glad it's just a bonkers idea that will never really come to pass, because if it did, our DS1 would simply starve for most of the day and his academic performance would be even less than it already is.

Another fussy one, who would probably just sit there with an apple and be in tears by the end of the day. Very much like I did until Mum took me out of school dinners and made me packed lunches.

No one had packed lunches in my primary. It was simply unthinkable - or perhaps not actually allowed. That was getting on for 50 years ago though.

In secondary I think 3 or 4 people had packed lunches; that was due to allergies.

DD, however, would rather go hungry than eat school food.

Our school used to be good until they contracted out. Ds (11yo y6 fit, healthy, outdoors type) always complains he doesn't get enough. School denied it until I "popped" in one day. His portion was the same as the y1 children got - nowhere near enough for my 8yo so certainly not for an 11yo! I queried it to be told by lunch staff that they ran out of food - who then went on to confirm it happens most days as they have very strict waste targets. Y6 always eat last so always lose out. It turns out my 8yo going in earlier would actually get a bigger lunch than my 11yo most of the time - she started saving him her fruit as she was worried about him.

basil

I volunteer in school one lunchtime a week to run a club. I have to walk through the dining area. I seeeeee the contents of the packed lunches that my sons' friends bring when I pause to say hello to them on my way through.

At least two of them have parents who say they can't afford packed lunches yet they must have £2 worth of branded stuff in their boxes. I can only assume they don't notice the cost if they just bung it in the trolley at Tesco and just assume that packed lunches are automatically cheaper than school dins.

Whoops of course that last post was meant to say that some parents say they can't afford SCHOOL DINNERs, not packed lunches!

This really annoys me
3 dcs, at our school is £32.10
s dcs very healthy packed lunches is £18.00 (I have costed them)
I can't afford cooked dinners

I don't do crisps, confectionary, chocolate or anything like that
They eat wholemeal bread and lunch includes 2 types of fruit

Our school dinners are good, but they don't have enough fresh veg in it for me.

I cook in the evenings for dh and me. I have no intention of cooking for us and doing a separate meal for dcs.
2 cooked meals per day will make the kids obese much faster than packed lunch plus school dinner

My DD tried her school dinners for a week and came home hungry every day because she didn't like the food - she is a vege. It would be a disaster for kids like her not to have the choice of a packed lunch.

This is silly. When DD was on school dinners she went up for secs and thirds for various puddings like semolina. Then they closed down the kitchen and had to take packed lunches and she lost weight.

2 cooked meals per day will make the kids obese much faster than packed lunch plus school dinner

Really? Maybe if they are eating lasagne and chips and sponge pudding and custard twice a day...but it's all the extras that put on the pounds- not the basic meals people eat.

Most packed lunches- I bet you- contain as many or more calories than a nutritious cooked meal.

I do wish people would read the original article and stop banging on about cost. It's been pointed out quite clearly that more uptake of dinners would mean lower costs- just like some parents here are saying they make savings by buying in bulk and unbranded.

I also cannot believe that people's children would starve if they had to eat school dinners. Schools will adapt their menus if this ever comes into force. There will be more choice.

I think it's a serious issue. On the one hand there are children who are clearly malnourished- last week there was a report showing an increase in rickets and scurvy in children- worse than the 1920s- due not to lack of money but ignorance over what was healthy eating.

We have a generation or two who have never had real education on how to cook ( in schools) and heavy reliance on processed food.

(Okay not all families but a huge number.)

We also have poor behaviour at school in the afternoons due to junk food being eaten at lunchtime, not enough food being eaten by some kids, no breakfasts being eaten, etc etc.

With something around 30% of kids aged under 11 being overweight or obese and 40% of adults, it's clear that too many parents are not clued up about food, or don't care- so something needs to be done.

Totally agree with Missbobeep.

Missbobeep, I am in Italy now, where there is no packed lunch option.
Yes, some children don't eat their school dinners (whose menu is decided by nutritionists), but most do.

What is more important is that in some more deprived areas, school dinners are the only occasion for some children to eat a hot meal and proteins.

misbopeep

I refer you to scrazy's post just above yours.

I think healthy packed lunch v. average school dinner is not the same (which is what I am comparing, as that is what it would be for us)

Of course, typical packed lunch (with crisps etc) v. excellent school dinner, may be different case

"We have a generation or two who have never had real education on how to cook ( in schools) "

This could do with addressing then.

I really don't understand what's this affection towards packed lunch, which, if anything, are a huge pita for those who have to prepare them

My DD has a lactose allergy. So if school dinners were made compulsory, is she going to be provided with a lactose free meal every day? After an incident on sports day when she was nearly confused with a child with a gluten allergy and given a 'picnic' lunch containing lactose, I won't be trusting school to get it right on a regular basis.

I still think the key questions (if this were to become policy) are: who sets the menus? How are standards set and enforced? What would stop a provider from substituting proper pork sausages with cheap frankfurters to shave some pennies off each portion? I just can't see that there is a joined-up infrastructure to support this.

They do it here (provide for special diets) in Italy, perfectly sure it'll work in the UK too, where rules are followed more strictly than here.

To check on the quality of school dinners here in Milan each school has a commission of parents and teachers who regularly taste/check the food.

Menus are devised by nutritionists.

The main problem with school dinners here is that they aren't cooked on the premises, so there have been issues of food arriving cold etc.

Not saying it is ideal, but I do believe school dinners are much a better option for the well being of MOST children.

Francagoestohollywood

I think when Italian school lunches are done well, they are really done well. DS got pratically gormet meals in materna. I wanted to go to lunch there. He wpuld have prefered dinner there. too Ungratful for "international" cuisine child.

But not so much in elementary where there was an ASL led quality scandel (resulting in lots of hot air and not much change), and by and large the kids ermerged starving hungry because it was deeply unappetising.

It was a pain in the arse having to take him out for an hour three days a week so he would actually eat. Being allowed to give him a packed lunch would have helped. And this isn't a fussy kid. Not with Italian food cooked by real live Italians anyway. He can get sniffy about Italish or Englian cuisine at home, but that's his father's "dying swan act cos it's baked potatoes for dinner" fault.

Others didn't have that option, the comune's ability to help with lunch contributions beyond the family's means meant some accumulating a debt for food their children weren't eating .... and they had no way around it cos they couldn't take their kids out at lunchtime due to being at work, or not being able to afford the petrol to make a 8k round trip on top of paying for the school bus in the morning and afternoon.

Personally I find making packed lunches hell on earth. I am not organsied and never remember to stick the blue things in the freezer before bed...and have to come down at 2am to do it cos I wake up from a dream of dancing blue thingies. But even packed lunch angst would have been a better option that what we were dealing with. And people being able to vote with their lunchbox might have put more pressure on the school to raise standards.

I wonder how forced school meals would impact upon the number of fussy eaters in a generation? I know that my siblings and I, and our friends, grew up eating almost anything as we'd not had a choice when we were at school - and nothing we were presented with elsewhere was worse than hard, tasteless boiled potatoes, gristley meat, or khaki veg.

Carpe, yes, I know.

On the other hand, if there was an option of packed lunches, there'll be less interest from parents and the community to pretend from the council that the quality of food improves for each and every child. Things are improving here in Milan, it's not perfect, but it really improving.

I wonder how forced school meals would impact upon the number of fussy eaters in a generation?

I was at boarding school. So it was all "not parent created according to personal tastes". I gagged down some stuff I disliked becuase otherwise I would be hungry. Other times it was more than dislike, so I stayed hungrey, and associated hunger with control and power in the face of signficiant pressure to eat stuff I didn't like.

Others just went hungrey. One girl had to go to being a day girl cos she had a small of everything everyday for a couple of months and turned into a walking skeleton.

Kids may appear less fussy during childhood under that sort of regeme, but I'm not sure it doesn't just pay forward other food issues to adulthood to some extent.

By and large I think the Italians (as in gen. pop, not my son's former school) have it right. Nice food, made from actual food, cooked well with skill, served in appitising way, in non mahoosive portions with no mega hang ups abut this food group or that food group being enemy of the week and a pretty child centric attitude towards kids' nutrition and intake with mostly non millitant postions taken on clean your plate etc or forcing the truely disliked upon teeny tinies.