Am I being a food snob?

[Haventaclue2]

Hi,

DD is starting school in September and I have been sent the menus to chose her first months worth of lunches.

There are two jacket potato options, a meat dish and a veggie dish. There seems to be the same 6-7 meals: burger & potato cubes, pizza & potato cubes, lasagna, fish and chips, tomato pasta & garlic bread etc. Desserts are a cookie, ice-cream, yoghurt, chocolate mouse...

The veggie options sometimes include some veg but I was expecting more fruit and veg in general, some days there is no fruit or veg at all and mainly carbs? I expected some peas on the side or an apple for example?

I always planned for her to have a hot meal at lunch as mum friends have always said how expensive and a faff packed lunches are and most of it can left anyway where as at least she'll probably eat all of the hot meal?

Am I being a terrible snob? 😳

Obviously its only one meal a day so its not going to do her any harm but the food at her nursery is so different it just came as a surprise?

School dinners are truly vile. I am a teacher and I used to order myself one when I forgot my lunch. Made for a very depressing ‘meal’.

Maybe you are a snob, so am I! People laugh at me when I tell them my daughter only eats organic food, and we aim for at least 30 plants a week, have a different cheese each day, and three courses. Sod em. There’s nothing more important than health imho, and food is one of the greatest pleasures in life… which is far too short to waste it on cardboard pizzas and mulch ‘fish’ fingers! It’s no better than junk food. Steer well clear!

I worked in a school recently that had these options but there was always a salad trolley too. It had about 10 different vegetable options such as lettuce, sweetcorn, grated carrot, tomatoes, coleslaw, cucumber chunks etc. It was very popular with all the kids queuing up for salad. This was never listed on the menu but I think it's standard to have a separate salad bar. My children have one at their primary school too.

Also, I think we need a new Jamie Oliver to shine the light on what schools are actually serving kids. Yes there might technically be a vegetable on offer, but not a single child has actually had that - unsurprisingly they didn’t fancy the warm salad or overcooked frozen carrots 😷 what results is a plate (sorry, plastic tray!) of food every day which offers VERY low nutritional value.

Have a look at the law on minimum standards of food for school dinners, it sounds like the meals you’ve described fall well short of these legal requirements.

Often, even if decent meat is served (which is rare, if ever) the serving will literally include one tiny cube of chicken swimming about in a stew or curry.

It’s embarrassing. There are some very interesting videos on Youtube about the French school dining system, which starts in crèche.

That sounds awful. I'd rather spend the money and time on making my DD a packed lunch every day. If you meal plan it should be cost effective, and full of variety each day. Not that I have much choice as DD is vegan anyway, I highly doubt the average school is going to cater for her. 🤔

My reception aged child has much better variety than this and TBH I wouldn’t be happy with the beige choice. Each day we have a hot, veggie, jacket and cold option and all of those have protein, carbs and veg. We had two parent lunches when you get to go sit with them and I found it honestly very reassuring to see what a portion of their food looks like on a plate.

if you’re not happy, send them a packed lunch. I know it’s extra expense but I personally wouldn’t want my child eating 5 beige meals a week.

Infants get free fruit as a snack every day in school so they’ll get that in addition. Sounds like fairly standard school dinners to be honest. They’re not the best, but they’re probably not as bad as you imagine either. At my kids school there’s always salad like carrot sticks, peppers and cucumber at lunchtime too. The children help themselves to this and lots do.

I never understand people who say packed lunches are expensive and/or a faff .. so long as you keep them simple they can be much less expensive and more nutritious than the school lunch. My DS had a ham sandwich, yogurt and a banana for practically every day of his school life . Never added crisps, chocolate bars, cake etc .. if he wanted more food he could have a second sandwich.

Do children actually eat the fruit snack ... I volunteer at a Food Bank and we frequently get fruit given to us by the local school as the children don't eat it ......

The fruit provided to ks1 for free is horrific and barely edible. The banana have been frozen so impossible to peel and hard, the apples are beyond bruised and tomatoes squishy. It used to be much better but in the last 5 years it's gone downhill massively.

This is because the price of food, energy and paying staff has gone up, but the amount that schools are given to provide for food has not. At my school the meal is meant to cost £2.75 (we have universal free school meals R-6 but that is the supposed cost per meal). They spend 35p of that on ingredients. The rest goes on energy and wages. I have noticed the quality massively go downhill in the last two years.

YANBU, the menu at my DDs school is much more varied

Ours are provided by a third party, I don’t have know common that is now.

On the chips thing, the portion on the day I went to was 4 chips. Literally 2 normal size chips and 2 half sized ones. It’s the pizza or jacket with a side of pasta that I think is more of an issue.

I wouldn't be happy with those choices , my primary aged child has a roast , vegetable curry , gammon, fajitas , jacket pot and fish and chips this week. They only serve chips once a week. They have a salad bar or packed lunch option every day too. State school albeit a very middle class area

maybe some fruit providers are better than others. Seems ok at my kids school, both have eaten it anyway. This week I saw sugar snap peas in the box. All the kids in after school were munching on them. If the infants don’t eat it all then it gets distributed round school.

Am I right the government want to abolish inheritance tax? Glad to see the tories got their priorities worked out .

This is why none of mine had school dinners!

I work in a school and am entitled to free school dinners as part payment for some of my hours.

They are awful. Even stuff that superficially sounds OK is nasty in reality, made with the cheapest possible ingredients and not cooked well. Even though they're free, I've stopped eating them because they're just too disgusting. They're not healthy either. When I was trying to force myself to eat them (to save a few quid) I felt pretty ill in the afternoons. I hope it's different in other schools, but I wouldn't feed that crap to my dc.

Just make a packed lunch - it doesn't have to be expensive, depending on what you choose to put in it. Yes, it is extra hassle, but I'd rather know what my kids are eating. School dinners have to be carb heavy because the budget won't stretch to anything else.

Everyone saying packed lunches can work out cheaper - school dinners are free in ks1!

We got sugar snap peas too. Once a year! We get strawberries once a year too!

It's crazy
I went to college where it was catered and yes obviously you pay for it, but it wasn't a huge budget
Always veg and salad available, a home cooked type meal and proper puddings and custard or cheese and biscuits or fruit, whatever you wanted. Fruit juices too

mine had 15 mins to eat their hot dinner, I stayed and helped one day, switched to packed lunch straight after.
they were moved along the line being served so quickly, no time to make a choice and then pitiful amounts on the plate.
Packed lunch kids went straight in, no waiting and had a leisurely 25 mins to eat.
it was a 3 form entry school though.

Nothing at all 🙂and I'm sure it wont do her any harm, I just thought there were stricter rules and was interested to see if it was the norm.

Exactly this! That's why I was expecting a bit more variety ...

Thanks for the replies, I didn't realise they'll probably be fruit and veg offered on the side so that's good to know.

I think I was expecting a variety, just the odd curry, fajitas, chili - it all looks so boring 😂

Like a few have said I thought there was more focus on on lunches after Jamie Oliver but I suppose they have all be affected by budget cuts.

I'll see how she gets on, she'd live of jacket potato and beans if she could so that and a few days of pizza and pasta wont do her any harm and I can always do the odd packed lunch if she's getting bored.