"Only 1% of kids packed lunches healthy" says BBC breakfast news - surely this can't be true?

[Littleknight]

Just saw an article on BBC breakfast news that only 1% of children have healthy packed lunches. I can't believe this - surely it's more.
Come MN's lets set the record straight!

Wouldn't matter how many times I put a falafel in a lunchbox - it would return uneaten every single day.
Agree with the consesus that the menus are barking and fiddly. And would not get eaten.

Mine used to have school dinners, but swapped to packed lunches because of the food on offer and the time taken to queue for it.

Today they had:

veggie soup
ham and pickle sandwich
apple
grapes
actimel

They never have crisps, but they usually have a biscuit on a Friday instead of the yoghurt-type item.

Depends on your definition of "healthy" I think.

DS today had:

Bread roll (grainy) with cream cheese and Vegemite (not that nasty gloop you people try to pretend is as good ).
Bottle of water
Raisins, Dried apricots
Banana
Yoghurt
Babybel
Carrot sticks with hummous
Nutrigrain bar thingy

Plenty of fat and sugar (and salt with vegemite) in there I reckon, but then I don't view those as bad things really, just things that need to be taken into account throughout the day.

'I get very frustrated by the school, which is a healthy eating school, but thinks that fruit is an appropriate and filling snack for small kids.'

Here! Here! Most of the children at DD1's school bring along supplemental snacks of things like cheese cubes and crackers. I do!

This whole thing operates under the assumption that all children have a weight problem/are obese.

Our primary school has a garden space of several hectares, full of trees and an obstacle course and playground equipment.

There's hardly an obese child in the place.

'Healthy eating' doesn't just mean low-fat.

Absolutely expat.

Low fat Must Not Be Questioned.

Funny how the obesity crisis really took off when low fat food and sugar substitutes became the norm within processed food.

morloth - I must just take issue with you. We don't pretend it is as good. We know it is better

It is all slimy though Orm all slimy and not nearly salty enough.

Agree with recent posts about exercise, kids can burn anything off if you give them the opportunity.

All these bloody "low fat" foods where they take out the fat and with it the flavour, have to put chemicals in to perform the function the fat was performing naturally (creamyness or whatever) then stuff it full of sugar to make it palatable. But the label simply says "reduced fat only 0.1% fat" and doesn't mention all the shit. Grrrr.

Ah, but what you have all got to remember is that by government nutritional standards there would be no white bread, no salt whatsoever, no saturated fat, so no cheese or butter, no processed meats, so ham's out, only a tiny amount of tuna once a year (too much mercury) but no mayo to mix it with, no eggs, (salmonella, cholesterol) no added sugar including all that is found in any remotely appetising yoghurts, no peanut butter in case someone in the next building falls down dead when Tarquin unzips his coolbag, etc, etc,etc,.

So, unless you send your five year old in with two sticks of celery, some dry wholemeal bread sprinkled liberally with mung means and cress, a dried apricot and a cube of steamed tofu (also useful if they lose they pencil eraser) then you're fucked I mean stuffed.

E numbers, guar gum, aspartame, and transfats from dubious sources found in supposedly healthy 'low-salt low-fat' con-merchant foods, are however, perfectly acceptable by government standards.

Sorry ImSoNotTelling, didn't read whole thread and just realised I'm making your point all over again!!!!

Anoher agreement about exercise

They get 45 minutes lunch at ours chool if they get out on time,inclding eating and play. At my school we had 1.5 hours.

I suppose it is. But when you are spreading it on toast it doesn't matter much.

Tried vegemite once. I think my taste buds have forgiven me

Would this be the same govt. that has sold thousands of acres of playing fields? Tossers.

'The sort of parents who send their child to school with a packet of Jaffa Cakes (happened at DS1's school) are not going to suddenly start making beef with and avocado and onion salad. '

This is the whole problem!! I would say the chances of this happening are nil! Initiative after initiative will make the caring parent feel guilty that their DC won't obediently tuck into rice salad at school, and that every other DC is happy to crunch raw vegetables rather than get out to play quick, but do nothing to the parent who has never eaten a vegetable in their life and doesn't cook!

I think that, rather than attacking packed lunches, it would be better to attack the culture of children eating out in UK. When mine were small I got almost apoplectic that a children's menu was sausage and chips, chicken nuggets and chips, fish and chips etc. WHY?! Why can't they just have smaller portions of the main menu?

I read a report once about a possible downside to sugar substitutes. It had lots of technical terms I don't recall, but the general idea went something like this:

Mouth tastes (artificial) sweetness.

Body prepares to deal with sugar (insulin?)

No actual sugar appears so body demands sugar and you go have another snack.

No idea if this is proven, but it was interesting.

TiggyR you are spot on, sadly...

A fun activity is giving an American vegemite/marmite - they invariably react all horrified and then ask for some more...

yeah, crackfox, the local education authority is building on ds's primary school playing field. A sports hall for the high school next door, ironically enough... I did try to point out that if they don't get to run around at primary, they are not very likely to suddenly develop an interest in sport as teenagers, but the council weren't interested in the views of mere primary school governors.

I never give them anything that they need cutlery to eat, because otherwise I would have no cutlery left.

Occasionally they get some pizza or quiche but that is leftovers, not something that I prepare in the morning before school.

We have to be out of the house by 8am, no way am I getting up at 6am so that I can prepare mixed veg and rice salad that they would not eat anyway.

By the government's traffic light system of healthy, moderately healthy and unhealthy foods you find ridiculous examples where perhaps a boiled egg sprinkled with salt, with buttered wholemeal soldiers or cheese and marmite on rye crackers, or a pile of veggie sticks dipped liberally into creamy dips or a homemade organic beef hamburger would be worse than, say, a packet of instant noodles followed by a pot of ready made sugar free jelly, and a can of diet coke. They amy indeed be low in fat and salt and possibly sugar, but then again they are nutrionally empty all round, and full of suspect crapola. The powers that be are so fat and salt obsessed, and though they pay lip service to not eating too much sugar they don't seem to get the connection that the carohydrate-heavy diet they tell us we should be giving our children is a major factor in the obesity epidemic.

I would far rather my ds had a home-made cake full of butter and sugar than a Low-fat, No Added Sugar processed cake full of chemical spread and aspartame!

And what's more both he and I would enjoy the home made cake far more.

Agreed Snow. If people stop relying on heavily salt-laden over-processed chemical crap then there is no reason why a palatable, sensible amount of salt should not be added to homecooked fresh food. Likewise with butter, unless you consume a ridiculously greedy amount of bread and potatoes or pastry it's pretty hard to o/d on butter, so stick a knob on your broccoli and be proud. If it makes my kids eat their broccoli it's fine by me!

Exactly! We eat butter rather than so-called healthy spread, and also have sugar in some cakes, desserts etc. But I rarely buy anything processed. And ds eats almost every sort of veg (except cauliflower), quite a lot of salad and fruit, plus bread, pasta, rice, fish, chicken, meat etc, so I don't feel he is having an unhealthy or unbalanced diet.