school vending machines

[williamsmummy]

The 'school food trust' are changing the foods in vending machines from sept this year.

unhealthy options will be replaced with milk, water, fruit juice, nuts, seeds, fruit.

what are your opinons as a parent?
if you are the parent of a food allergic child what are your views?

We only have until the end of this month to have our views heard.
please post on
www.dfes.gov.uk
'school food trust'

thanks

Don't understand why anyone would have a problem with these options - surely better than things full of additives, e numbers, sugar, salt etc. Good idea imo.

I'm with Callisto.
You can teach a kid with bad allergy issue not to (say) eat peanuts. But most junk food has so many different ingredients that you are relying upon the child reading very small writing typically in brown on a black background, which is not ideal.

Personally, I'd think about seeds a bit harder, but that's it.

Aside from distilled water, there is nothing you can sell which is 100% safe. Indeed a couple of years ago I read of a couple of blokes working in a hot environment who managed to drink so much water they screwed up their bloodstream and died.

Even oranges and carrots aren't "safe", both contain things that if eaten in abnormal amounts have been known to kill.

The only possible bad thing I can to say about this excellent policy is that occasionally diabetics need to consume sugar now. But there are other ways of handling this.

We have switched out vending machines to only dispense milk and water. We are also only selling friut/grain/nuts type bars (I know the sugar is bad but at least the kids get come complex carbohydrates)

Most chocolates are made in nut environments are they not? So they aould be a risk to an allergic child anyway.

Behaviour has improved, particularly since we got rid of the fizzy drinks

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.
IMO this is not really 'nanny state'. Nanny state would be to ban these things altogether, but it's not as if there aren't plenty of opportunities for kids to buy fizzy drinks, chocolate etc outside of school, or even bring it in with them if they want.

I noticed recently that the vending machines in our sports centre (which is attached to a school) had 1 row that was choc bars etc & a notice saying that this row was not available during school hours. Crisps were available though as were water, cereal bars etc.
But if kids wanted to 'stock up' before school they could always stop off at the shop on the way in.
Limiting choc etc on the school premises is a good idea IMO.