"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!

Sadly they do, youwillnotwin, and it is very common.

I heard Pru Leith on the radio as well this morning, pretending she didn't want to ban things.

My DS1 has an adequate lunchbox. He has one fruit snack and one veg snack each day, so I don't add any to his lunch if it's a sandwich.

He usually has a cheese sandwich in 50/50 bread (homemade). Sometimes he has pasta in a flask and I chuck some veg in with that. He likes the pasta but it does take him too long to eat enough to fill him.

He has a little savoury snack box but healthier stuff like oatcakes. Not crisps. When it's mini cheddars a small bag lasts three or four days .

And he has a home made fairy cake without icing virtually every day. I can't see how one eighteenth of a 2-egg cake mixture is going to lead to obesity, especially as he often doesn't finish it.

He and I would far rather he had a hot school meal but they are not available. At home he'll happily tuck into cottage pie, spag bol, fish pie and so on. Always with lots of veg.

Mmmmm I melt a bit of butter on DDs veg she woofs it all down.

Food should be enjoyable. That is the other thing missing in a lot of these directives.

And at hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Youwillnotwin- you may laugh at the jam sandwich lunch, but one of ds's friends always used to bring a chocolate spread sandwich (on white bread), a packet of crisps, and some sort of cake. He did have water to drink though.

Yeah? Well 0% of the school dinners are healthy (unless of course they take their own initiative to exceed the government standards). So that put packed lunches way ahead of school dinners.

Bet they didn't look in our packed lunches when they did this survey!

Let's face it, I am not the only mum who refuses school dinners because they are made out of crap.

My kids (and DH) have packed lunches BECAUSE I always cook for them at night. Thus making sure they get their 5 a day. If they eat a cake, biscuit or bag of crisps at lunchtime what does it matter as long as they get enough at the end of the day?
Everything in moderation.

LOL at suggested lunchboxes. I never eat brown rice. Brown rice has no place in my kitchen. Life is too short for brown rice (and don't tell me life will be too short if I don't eat brown rice).

DS1 had sushi today. Is that good or bad? Career women make quite decent lunchboxes, I'm sure.

But there's been several posts in other threads recommending bento boxes. It is the pinnacle of lunchboxing to which I aspire.

Can we talk about the government standards which are not up to mine?

1. "Fresh bread" means crappy white bread andd it should not be offered to my children.
2. Salmon/tuna/other oil fish should be weekly not monthly.
3. Nutrasweet should never be on the menu (except for diabetics)
4. Veg needs to be mixed into the meal or it will be left on the side.
5. Pudding is not necesssary every day.

Shall I go on?

Can' t see my DS eating much of teh sugested packlunches, bar the bread based bits and the meat. I think I'll carry on with sending him with a roll or sandwich (chese - stilton yesterday-, honey or peanut butter). a handfull of unsalted crisps , 3 thick cucumber rings or apple slices, and a viscount bisc or a fairy cake.

Mainly because that is teh only lunch he considers normal enough to eat. even at home.

Can you guys send peanut butter????

My dd's school meals are probably really healthy, the problem being that they get to choose their meals, so 9 times out of 10 my dd will choose either the sandwich or baked potato option with an occasional pizza or chicken dish thrown in.

I do school meals atm because I haven't done a shop and I can't be bothered. But I fail to see how a school cheese butty and bit of cake or whatever is better than the meals I provide, not to mention the fact that it in no way shape or form costs £1.90 to provide these meals.

Dd would usually have some kind of sandwich/roll/pitta/wrap, carrot/cucumber sticks with dip, one or two pieces of fruit, some kind of yoghurt/ and some other thing, maybe a muffin or biscuit or boiled egg etc along with drink. I realise now reading this thread that this is far too much food and will pare down. When I get my arse in gear to actually do packed lunches lol.

Oh and we have been castigated before for sending in chocolate biscuits etc (pile o wank) although crisps have gone unremarked on .

Oh and brown rice can burn in hell as far as I care. Evil fecking stuff (remembers the bhf diet from when I was young and stupid).

Youwillnotwin - that's what really gets my goat - they've succeeded in persuading you that your perfectly good lunch is 'not ideal'.

It's like those weekly pieces in the Observer mag by Dr John 'Killjoy' Briffa looking in somebody's shopping bag and telling them that they should only be eating brown rice, purified water and broccoli tended by vegan Ra-worshippers and that everything else is 'risky', 'unhealthy', a 'poor choice' etc etc.

The ideal lunch for my (admittedly very picky) DS is bread (white) and butter (salted) with Marmite, and some carrot sticks. As it's all he will eat, I'd rather give him that than wholemeal bread with some pre-approved salt-free filling which would go striaght in the bin and he'd go hungry. (Like an earlier poster, mine would rather not eat at all than eat something unacceptable.)

Sometimes, just getting food into them is good enough.

I obv have poncetastic credentials, as avocado is regulary in DS's lunch as it's one of the few cold fruits or veg he will eat, it makes a v quick sandwich, or he has it in chunks in a v small tupperware, and eats it with a cocktail stick - it doesn't go brown.

But that 'suggested' list is ludicrous.

My white bread is made with milk and is full of calcium. Sometimes they even contain sneaked-in wholemeal flour or seeds and stuff. But I probably should make wholemeal bread more often. >

Blu - does it really not go brown? Do you have to doctor it with lemon juice or something? Am thinking of putting it in my sushi. Is that poncy too?

Oooh yes reveal avocado trick please!

I wish ds would eat avocado. Just because I like them but end up not buying them because I'd end up with leftovers going off in the fridge. And they are easy to use in sandwiches (although I wouldn't have avocado on its own, personally).

I think the government's got a flaming cheek, tbh, the only reason we have nutritional standards for school meals is because a few campaigners pointed out the state was feeding children slops. We can't trust them to feed children actual food - how on earth do they have the front to turn round and lecture us?:

It's misdirection - to draw attention away from what jamie's school dinners brought to the fore.

Keep the mummies on the back foot by tellin them that they are BAD if they are not providing a different hand crafted organic meal every day and they won't have time or strength to tackle or notice the school dinners thing.

They haven't seen this thread eh.

Can't we send it to someone, what with MN apparently being all powerful these days?

to be honest i am grateful that DS eats anything at all for his packed lunch.
he is tiny, and skinny, below 1st percentile on weight- have been to doc but she isn't too bothered
he is such a faddy eater.
never has snack in nursery - it's banana or apple mummy i don't like it
when he went he was supposed to be having school dinners. refused to eat anything for the whole day - 9-3, well at 2.30 they were really worried and said 'we snuck him a biscuit at 2.30 he ate that'
says, i won't eat school dinners they're hot, i don'nt like hot food - indeed only eats stone cold food.
really just wants to eat ham sandwiches, with teh right kind of ham and the right kind of bread every day.
i thought it was a tremendous breakthrough when he started to eat-
ham and cheese sandwiches with bertolli spread
and wraps with ham in
he now eats grapes at nursery, but rarely at home, i eat them in nursery mummmy'
honestly sometimes i wonder if he has aspergers / asc with this approach to eating
or maybe he is just a very fussy three year old
i send in a small pack of 4 mini (very mini) jammy dodgers or similar as otherwise he would barely eat anything.

I think all the lunchbox policing is a cheek and a joke, tbh. School dinners aren't that healthy, IMO.

I have heard my DS say his friends lunchboxes include dairylea lunchables instead of sanwiches and the also get chocolate bars in theirs.

His lunchbox usually includes:

• wholemeal bread sandwich or wholewheat crackers with cheese.
• cherry tomatoes or carrot sticks or cucumber or pepper etc. or olives
• cheese cubes if not in his sandwich, or a yoghurt

-piece of fruit.

He drinks water and a couple of times a week I substitute one of the above with either a home made cake or flapjack or a packet of mini maryland cookies or something. The rest varies a bit, but is basically always similar.

I really don't see the harm in occasiona treats, provided the rest of the childs diet is healthy.