Blaardy lunchbox police at ds's school. Tomorrow I may lamp them.

[DrNortherner]

Every day ds get his packed lunch inspected by an 8 year old year 3 pupil who makes a list of how many healthy items are in his lunch, she inspects the whole class and makes a list for the teacher. God knows what the teacher does with this info, I need to find out.....

Today this was his lunch
REAL chicken breast sandwhich on a white roll
ASDA cheese dipper
Yoghurt
1 x Plum
Slice of swiss roll
Bottle of water.

It was deemed his plum and yoghurt were the only healthy items in his lunch.

FWIW his outdoor games teacher is about a size 24 and shouts orders whilst sitting on a bench. Is anyone inspectin her lunch?

Grrrrr.

The thought of anyone never mind an 8 year old inspecting packed lunches would make me livid. Can you not refuse to have his done?

"Hey Mrs Q. The white 'processed' roll was made by his Dad at work who happens to be a chef, does that tick another one of your little boxes? "

notso much. Being made by a chef or by Mr Kipling or Mr Tesco Value does not make much difference to the loaf or roll, the flour is still white whoever makes the loaf!
Though, there may be less preservatives, so that is a bonus! Half a tick for home made.

A really healthy roll/slice is wholemeal or wholegrain.

My mother used to give me the money to buy a pastie for my lunch.

can you send him in with a weightwatchers ready meal tomorrow?
Low calorie and fat, high salt and heavily processed = perfect I'd imagine

Yes, yes, - we should all be milling the flour from the wheat we have grown ourselves. Eating seasonal fruit and veg grown in our own gardens, organically. So achievable for most people - NOT. Just another example of mumupmanship.

As long as children have a varied and predominantly healthy diet does it matter that they have white bread on occasion? Or even biscuits

OP - why don't you suggest that everybody keeps a food, drink and activity diary for a week so that everyone's lifestyle can be assessed over a more meaningful period. Suggest a display in the main hall.

I think this is a case of trying to create jobs for kids to help self esteem/heighten awareness of things , in this case healthy eating. But it can so so easily go wrong if not kept an eye on!

I'm crap at packed lunches.
ds2 today has: tupperware full of macaroni, pulse spaghetti, cucumber, tomato, carrot
presliced apple and grapes
oj
cereal bar
a few pretzel sticks

We have nothing else in the house! Waiting for payday to do a tescos order. So under the circs, I think I cobbled together a reasonable meal

We had to stop eating brown bread as a family because the high fibre upset ds2's stomach. Verdict was after a lot of to-and-froing with the GP that we weren't giving ds2 enough FAT and were giving him too much FIBRE. One of the things we were recommended to get his fat intake up was full fat (processed, gasp) yoghurt.

QSnon - I think you need to take off your judgy hat asap, cos you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

DrN: I'd be well chuffed if either of my two ate that for lunch.

This is such a bag of hypocrisy - whatever the DCs have in their (non-inspected) lunchboxes at DD's school is far healthier than the Cr** the children who eat hot dinners at school are served up.

It's carbs, carbs and more carbs basically, very little protein and they are only allowed one portion of (overcooked) veg as two portions don't fit in the spaces on their not-very-well-washed plastic plate-tray thingies.

So when DD last had a school dinner she had a sausage roll (processed meat, fatty pastry), chips, overcooked peas and then a choice between a giant cookie or a muffin for pudding.

I think it would take a lot of white bread sandwiches in lunchboxes and cheesestrings to rival that!! And this from a school that's apparently going for healthy school status with its meals!!!

Lunch box inspections?? By anonther pupil??? Outrageous!

Agree with thirtysomething too. Might be worth a perusal of the the school lunch menu to provide further ammunition to your cause DrN.

There are often many many things on there that would be deemed inappropriate were they to be found in a lunch box.

In fact I might even plant a big bit of school type pud ie jam rolypoly in the lunch box to gauge the reaction

This sort of thing makes me really cross. If a child eats 3 meals a day 7 days a week and only 5 of those are at school it hardly means that what is in their lunch box is a typical meal for them. OP I think your packed lunch was fine.

The thought of another child going through other childrens lunches makes me shudder. How can you be sure they have got clean hands etc. I think the school is out of order.

Nowt wrong with white bread at all.
As for low fat yoghurt.
Bleeeurghhh.

One of the patronising recommendations in aforementioned leaflet is to give your kid a 'low sugar' jelly. in other words, one full of artificial sweeteners.
No bloody way.

I think the whole lunch box 'inspection' notion is quite unpleasant, but a set up where children are informing on other children is even more so.

Quite a sinister way to operate imo.

Well, you are all gonna weep when I let you judge MY lunchbox.

1 slice of wholemeal bread. margarine spread thinly. Salami or wafer thin ham.
one piece of fruit, or a few strawberries.

The school provides milk. And some fruit or veg (such as kiwi, carrots)

That is IT.

Sweets or cakes or biscuits in ANY form are not allowed. No jam, no chocolate spread.

tut tut tut

Rubberduck. Go on. Tell me why you think I have no clue what I am talking about. I am keen to provide healthy food for my kids, so please let me know where I am going wrong.

QS I don't particularly want to "judge" your lunchbox; that's the whole point!!

QS, Well I wouldn't give ds processed meat but I won't judge you.

After reading the OP my first thought is who in their right mind lets a year 3 child poke through other children's lunch boxes.

I would speak to the head and tell him that if they have an issue with your DCs lunch box then tell the parent.

I would also ask what they do with the information.

QS, are you QuintessentialShadows? Anyway, on the DM school of health, they'll run screaming from your processed meat...

I'll judge you QS

Margarine? Trans fats, ugh.

Salami? Salt.

Wafer thin ham? Where do I start - salt, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, extremely highly processed.

And your lunchbox is full of sugar - fruit alone won't cut it, you need to have veg too!

Judgeyness aside, a balance is what's important. No child will keel over if they have some cheap ham and a bit of bloody swiss roll once in a while. Unless they're doing large scale analyses, not of healthy items but of the balance in the lunchbox, then the actual process of recording is flawed enormously. That's before we even start to discuss the rights and wrongs of children monitoring one another like this.

It's a massive, huge, rainforest-wasting exercise in pointlessness.

The thing is, you cannot do ANYTHING right.
If jam and spread is out, and ham and meats are salty and processed, what is left to give?

Celery sticks and cucumber for a child to fill up on during a full day in school?

Home churned cheese? Home cultivated youghurt?

Admittedly, my posts were tongue-in-cheek, though I see they may not have been taken in that way.

Yes, tis QuintessentialShadows, this is my election name.... see?

The 8 year olds' scoring system is very open to corruption.

I would fill his lunchbox with many Gillian McKeith type products and his normal lunch as well.

He will score lots of points for the number of healthy items it contains, enjoy a normal lunch and then recycle the same McKeith items every day.

DrNo, you are NBU at all.

My ds who is 9, is on the low end of BMI. He walks a mile to school and back, every day, we go cycling and swimming every weekend, he runs around for a couple of hours after school etc etc.

He has 2 portions of of and veg at breakfast and 2 - often 3 - with dinner. we all eat wholemeal bread. So yes, in his packed lucnh I give him, homemade cake like flapjack (with fruit and nuts), cherry and apricots cake or fruit scones.

He also has cheese sandwiches ocasionally and yoghurts.

He gets told this is 'junk' and fattening. and sometimes comes home with it uneaten.
Where, pray, is he supposed to get his energy from?

QS, if you are going to get snippy about white bread, I'd have to say salami is very salty and fatty

I wouldn't have margarine in the house - processed crap. If you need a scientist to make it I consider it to be a non food.

Processed meat? Hmm, not really healthy at all.

My husband has this new theory. If it has been made by somebody else (ie in a factory or something) he wont eat it.

We have olive spread. I am not sure if that is better than margarine. Butter here is very salty.

Lol @ this thread.

I would be furious. I gave DD a penguin bar one day, accidently as it happens as she doesn't even like them, and I got a sticky note in her lunch box asking for no chocolate. Grrrrrr

Absolutely ludicrus !