Nursery food very unhealthy??

[Kira7]

Does anyone else have issues with their nursery menu? I am quite worried it's extremely unhealthy but don't know how to bring up the subject without sounding awful!

Examples of dinners:
Spaghetti hoops and crumpets (???)
Baked beans on toast
Scrambled eggs and waffles
Pizza and garlic bread
Chicken dippers with baked beans

Lunches are a bit better and include risottos, bolognese, macaroni cheese, curries, sausages and peas (don't think under 5s should have sausages but okay).

They also get chocolate chip cookies, ice cream and chocolate rice krispies!!!

It's not like this is a cheap nursery with fees at over £1000 a month.

I'm not allowed to send my own food and feel disappointed that all my efforts to give my child a healthy lifestyle have gone to waste. She is starting to refuse healthy food at home too :(

How can I bring up my concerns without sounding awful? In the nursery prospectus it says that the menu is created by a child nutritionist and that everything is cooked from scratch but just can't see how this can be true?

Realistically you are paying for a service, if you aren’t happy complain.

Our nursery does the main meal for lunch time and snack for tea time, beans on toast, soup, sandwiches etc.

I’d not find it a huge issue the menu as the lunch you said is balanced and they have a fruit as a snack.

Also at our nursery they do a better meal at lunch as children on funded hours tend to be there for lunch, but not breakfast or tea time. So @BornOnThe4thJuly that explains why they food is better at lunch time

I'd imagine the cook works short hours something like 10am-2pm, so the nursery nurses have to be able to nip out of the room at 4pm and shove something in the oven quick.
That's a common set up in nurseries.

I wouldn’t be happy with that menu either. We’re moving soon and when looking at new nurseries one of them gave details of a menu like that. That’s what swung us towards a different, but otherwise equally matched, nursery in the end.

Are you sure that those meals (lunch especially) aren't served with veg or salad? My dc school menu looks bad but when I ask what they've had it's always accompanied by veg etc.

I wouldn't be happy with this as a nursery menu. My DS2 goes to nursery and the menu there is brilliant (and much better than I would bother preparing most days!). They do veggie curries, pasta in various guises, jacket potatoes, roast dinners. Snacks are fruit, vegetables, breadsticks etc. With DS1 I was really good at keeping to a healthy diet, so I was really pleased the nursery followed this. I'm less strict/more relaxed with DS2's diet, but still wouldn't be happy with the menu you describe. I wouldn't have a problem with one of those options maybe once a week/occasionally.

We do main meal at lunch time - cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients, all have salad or veg. Fresh made puddings too.

Tea at 4.30 is much lighter like beans on toast. Mainly because we have far fewer children eating then and need to have a quick turn around in tidying up. All the younger children will have eaten a main meal at lunch time and many eat again at home (although they have enough for this not to be necessary).

As for opting out of pudding - we had a family who chose this and wanted us to give fruit instead. The child would look so disappointed when they weren’t given what the others had that it made us feel so guilty. Lunch time puddings are a healthy balance to the main meal and offer just as many tastes and textures to experience as the savoury meal. Things like apple crumble introduce spices, for example.

And to think I had a raised eyebrow at what my daughter was fed one day last week because it was a bit carb heavy! I think your menu seems pretty off and I’d be raising my concerns!

For comparison, my daughters nursery menu (baby room so older ones might get cake for pudding occasionally)

Breakfast: cereal, toast, pancakes, fruit bread (one each day, not all of them at once!) usually with the option of fruit as well

AM & PM snacks: fruit, crackers & cheese (I’m sure there’s other stuff too I just can’t think of it!)

Lunch: sausage casserole, veg curry, Bolognese or similar, all fresh and made from scratch, usually alternating between veggie and meaty (I think this is a Covid thing as they have less kids in) and pudding of some sort.

Dinner: scones 🙄, sandwiches, Pitta bread pizza, soup, beans on toast, toasties.

They have a little garden and meals often contain the veg the older children have grown and picked, which I really like.

I'm not getting the problem.
They are getting a healthy hot lunch, a tea, and I'm guessing they get a healthy hot dinner at home in the evening?
Do you expect them to get 3 full dinners a day?

I did look at the menus of the nurseries I visited. This menu looks like they’re taking the proverbial. DS’s nursery does offer some home-made cake or sausages sometimes but there’s also a lot of veg, salmon, fruit etc. I think I’d question it.

Dinners/ teas and breakfasts aren’t always the best quality because it relies on fully paid kids to fund them - if your nursery has more kids on funded places then those meals will be cheaper and not as great. Having a similar problem with DS’ nursery in that tea time seems to always be some kind of cake (home made but still I don’t want this everyday) and bread product

Whilst I agree it’s not a great menu, not awful but not great, you can’t really complain because you must have known what you were signing up to at the beginning. They have their reasons for serving that kind of menu and to get the to change it will probably require a complete overhaul of how they run that part of the nursery.

One of the deciding factors for the nursery we chose for our dc was the menu. They serve healthy balanced, organic meals such as bean stews, chicken curries, beef casseroles, roast dinners, baked potatoes - all at lunchtime with yoghurt and fruit for pudding. Snacks are usually cheese and crackers or veg and hummous.

I chose that because I know there is not a chance in hell my children will eat that food at home so I want to reserve chicken nuggets, sausages and crumpets for meals I’m serving.

If your not happy ask to speak to the manager or if you're not comfortable doing that then send an email. It doesn't have to be confrontational just outline your concerns. For what it's worth that looks like what my kids grew up on, all very healthy teens but if you're not happy speak up.

@VeggieSausageRoll

Wait until your DC gets their own opinions about food. This week mine has had turkey dinosaurs, chicken fingers and fish fingers already, and it's only Thursday

Agreed. Our primary school prides itself on the fact that it only offers chips one day a week. The menu on the other days however includes curly fries, potato waffles, wedges and fritters 👀

The meals you've listed are for tea and sound pretty normal for a nursery. The lunches are better and include vegetables. They also have fruit for snacks so it doesn't sound that bad.
The puddings are probably tiny, always were where I worked.

I'd raise it. My daughter's nursery make a point of offering healthy food, there's lots of stews, veg balls, that kind of thing, no cakes allowed. You have to start this when they're small otherwise they grow up with bad habits. If you pay them good money there's no reason they can't afford decent, nutritious food. IMHO.

I work at a pre-school. With us, parents have to send their child with a packed lunch, so they can decide what they eat. Obviously there are certain things we would have to take out if they were in there though. Mid-mornings we'll give them a snack, but it's usually very small. Something like crackers, toast, breadsticks, or something, with two slices of fruit (eg apple, orange, cucumber, banana).

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/article/government-unveils-example-menus-and-food-guidance
This might help you have the conversation with the nursery @Kira7

Now I really fancy hot buttered crumpets with spaghetti hoops and to the disgust of some, some Richmond pork sausages. Bar quorn ones they're actually the only sausages I like

Are the foods you listed the things they have for tea? It's usually that they have proper cooked lunch as they will have a cook in for lunch time but then tea time are usually just light teas as they don't have anybody in the kitchen at that time so it's the staff/managers that make it and it's usually something quick

I have the exact same issue as you at mine. Lunches are fine but the tea time menu isn’t great. Angel delight, crumpets, brioche etc. I did ask to see ingredients of the cakes and sugary food to see if they’d made it child friendly (banana in cake instead of lots of sugar for example) but they hadn’t. The tea menu is all ready made from Asda. The lunch is done by a caterer.

Tea is not really a meal, it’s a stop gap till they go home and eat with their family
It is usually something quick and easy to make as it is done by the practitioners who are still in ratio as usually the nursery cook will have gone home
That’s how it’s been in every nursery I’ve ever worked in

Did you ask?

I would have. I thought my child's (same over £1k a month) nursery meals weren't great but they are compared to yours!

Ours fill up the kids with carbs, loads of bread, toast, potato, rice, pasta etc every day. To the point you can tell the kids that are in 4-5 days a week as their stomachs (inc my dc) all stick out and look bloated- surely that's not a coincidence?

During lockdown my dc and some parents I talk to in the same class said their dc stomachs had gone down. Surprisingly (sarcasm) they all have their pot bellies back. Can't say anything to ours though as alongside the carbs there is usually at least 1 veg.

They do give milkshakes, cookies etc most days though but I just make sure I balance home food as best as I can.

As long as they eat it/enjoy it and have a decent balanced diet at home, it sounds fine... they’re getting fruit, carbs, some protein.

Maybe I’m slack but I think the nursery is doing okay.

As long as they eat it/enjoy it and have a decent balanced diet at home, it sounds fine... they’re getting fruit, carbs, some protein.

But what if the OP's child is going 5 days a week and so having all their meals there for 5 days? That's only 2 days left for the decent, balanced diet.

Tbh OP, I wouldn't be happy with that. It seems to be a lot of quick, convenient meals. I would be fine with these every other day maybe but at least half of the time, I think there should be more home cooked meals with veg, like stews, curries etc.