@brollyjoy
Sauté broccolini?! What's wrong with a sandwich?
Would you mind a question? I am French, now living in Australia, and I don't really get the sandwich thing.
In France - well at least until they reduced the working hours to 35 by mainly cutting the lunch hours - sandwich were only eaten when you couldn't access food because you were on a train, bus or on an excursion. People who work and kids a school eat real food, with fork and knife. And to just throw broccolini in a pan isn't over the top, there would be some veggies with whatever piece of meat/fish/eggs you were cooking.
So to answer your question:
The problem with sandwich is first the huge amount of bread, mostly industrial, with a long list of additives, bread improvers, additional gluten and so on that you eat in a year. Second what you put in it. Processed meat is a class 1 carcinogen, no discussion allowed. So you can't or wouldn't want to put ham or other meats in it. But manly because a sandwich is not satisfying. It won 't fill you for the hours to come. There is no variety, no vegetables, no flavours, no nothing.
I had look at the NHS website and nowhere did I found the sandwich recommendation, so what question, where did this sandwich culture come from?
And I totally agree with @Babdoc . Why are people eating all day long. When I am in New Caledonia, I always know when a cruise from Australia has arrived because all of a sudden you see all these people - adults and children - on the beach eating crisps, or cracker or rice cakes or whatever.
Of course in France, children have a snack. After school you stop at the bakery for a croissant or other gateau, or two cookies at home, but then nothing till 7 or 8 pm. Because children have a real lunch in their stomach.
Crisps are party food, for birthdays or when you go out for a drink there is a small bowl with crisps.
Do your children eat now the way you ate when you were little? Or has something changed? In France, not so much. YEs the supermarket have shelves full of crap but mostly the culture of food is the same, as it is in Italy and other countries I have lived in.
Someone was mentioning the cost of eating the way I described.
A small steak for a child cost as much as a Frappucino in Starbucks or a milkshake or the Kombucha everyone seems to drink here.
A packet of mince and a bottle of passata isn't expensive and you can make meatballs in tomato sauce. Kids love it, and I usually add two handfuls of frozen peas (again super cheap) to the sauce. This is what I cook every time my kids have friends over and for some it was the first time that had ever tried peas.
Domino or pizza hut is way more expensive, because that's what my sons have to order when they go to friends' house.
It is not the cost. A meatloaf isn't expensive. A pumpkin isn't expensive . I cannot agree to that.
So why the sandwich? I understand for school but during weekends or holidays?
and and a small healthy snack in between or before bed if needed. a snack before bed? If you've had a real dinner, you certainly do not need a snack before bed.