Vegans School Dinners any good experiences?

[MrsTaraPlumbing]

I do love the idea that school will sort out the lunch time meal for my vegan children every day BUT - will they really be left hungry?

In Sept when my twins go into year 1 the school are removing the packed lunch option.

OK, I exaggerate there are chips and beans on Friday (yum) 2 other main courses that appear over the 3 week menu might be vegan. No vegan puddings so just fruit every day.
I am contacting the school but I really wondered if anyone had experiences they can share.

BTW, my older child went to a (different) school where meals were provided. He seemed to eat very little and came home hungry every day. Just a potato and some unappealing veg with no sauce.

I read that Rastafari is a spiritual ideology, some see it as a religion.

Rastafari follow an ital diet -many are vegan.

*Rastafarian is a vegan religion

Now I've heard it all. You've made my day .*

In what way Jewellfairies?

No experience, but depending on how it's looking, could they take in a protein or pudding element each day to supplement it?

Can't help feeling the OP would have had a better reaction if she had posted 'my DC have a diet free from meat, dairy, eggs and fish. Previously I supplied them with a packed lunch that met their needs but their school has banned packed lunches. Has anyone experience of school lunches that suggests they will be able to cater for my DC?' There something about 'vegan' that gets people's goats on MN, I've noticed.

Anyway OP no experience but I think this banning of packed lunches is causing problems for quite a few people. I'm interested to hear what answer you get.

Expat of course the school has to provide a vegan option if school dinners are compulsory. It'll probably be rubbish though. :(

The letter from school about ending packed lunches only came home on Friday.
Of course I will talk with the school and I dropped in a letter today.

My post is about practical matters asking for real experience.
Some of the people who have replied seem totally ignorant of the subject of catering for vegans so I do not know why they read the thread or replied.

For anyone who is interested a few thoughts from my own mind:
Many large (cheap) catering companies cater easily for vegans and often do this by making all the vegetarian food vegan.
This has the advantage that:

• it is cheap to produce and
• is suitable for those who are intolerant to eggs and dairy. You will often come across vegan food without knowing it. 2 excellent examples that spring to my mind are the Whetherspoons chain and airline food (when I fly my vegan meal is delicious).

School puddings could very easily be vegan with every day cheap ingredients (and for kids perhaps pudding is the most important part!)
e.g. fruit crumble, strudel, flapjacks, chocolate brownies, iced buns.

Low budget, mass catering food that is nice to eat and suitable for vegans can be be done and is done often in many settings.
I am only asking about school experiences - given that the government is funding meals for ALL children and my school do not want children to bring packed lunches.

Finally on some of the other issues raised - I believe Seventh Day Adventists are Vegan. Other people who may or may not believe in a deity choose a vegan diet for a number of ethical reasons.

Tara - I'm surprised you fns airline vegan food good. BA and virgin are, IME, pants at doing vegan food. BA don't do it, as policy, on their European flights. They easily could - they could do a hummus wrap instead of a cheese or egg sandwich - but they make a positive choice not to do so. Virgin try but get it wrong so often that I don't trust their main courses (they seem to not properly understand what vegan food actually is).

Pret always have at least 1 vegan option and often many more so it's clear that vegan food can work fine in a commercial, high turnover context. But so many people are in thrall to cheese. :(

None of my kids have school dinners, despite not being vegan, just being veggie, because although they are fine with milk as an ingredient, and eggs, they won't eat cheese. And the school veggie options are always invariably Cheese + - except on chip day (but they aren't allowed to have just chips at any of their schools - which is fair enough (and I have my doubts about the chips anyway)).

HercS - I may have been lucky I have had excellent vegan food on airlines. Including on BA to and from Greece in 2013.

What I meant by "excellent" wasn't actually about the quality of the food but the way they make it simple by making all the veggie food vegan.

HERCS - I was just reading there are new school meals guidelines - I think they came out July 2014 - and they say something like Veggie meal can only be cheese based twice per week.

I wish someone would tell the LEA (which panders ridiculously to the farming vote - mainly rural county).

If they can't provide a balanced vegan two week menu, send packed lunches and send a letter to the head, governors and LEA explaining why.

[flak jacket] Why is your choice that your child should be vegan more important than the choice of other parents not to give their child highly processed fats such a margarine (which a quick google suggests is used in lieu of butter in many vegan dishes)? I can see how it might be done if there is a medical reason for it, but not simply because of a choice you've made - that shouldn't take precedent over choices others have made.[/flak jacket]

The whole 'free lunches' thing is a ridiculous waste of public money anyway. Just tell the school that you are sending your children in with packed lunches and that you expect them to be given the opportunity to eat them - and why.

I think Elizabeth has hit the nail on the head.

Some people seem to see veganism as a personal affront.

If the school want to ban packed lunches, they need to account for those who choose to eat an animal free diet whether its for ethical, health or religious reasons imo.

I wouldn't hold your breath. I went in to try a school dinner with my dd last week - we are vegetarian, not vegan - and after looking at the monthly menu and tasting the food myself, I've decided they won't be having school dinners no matter how much money it saves us. I wouldn't hold my breath for an appropriate vegan option. I hope you have some joy with the school and that they simply haven't thought this through.

Would bringing them home for lunch be an option for you?

You will update us, won't you, MrsTara ?

I was vegan in college.

Forget about it unless you want your kid living off dry toast and chips. Or plain salad.

I would not trust them to do it properly. And likely o he processed shite if there's an actual meal. You may have to take it higher to get your kid allowed a packed lunch.

An update.
I should tell you that the school has a large kitchen, food is cooked on site but provided by outside catering company.
Last year when twins started school I did contact the caterers to find out what vegan options were on the menu. There are a few things in the rolling 3 week menu and some things can be adapted but they would end up with jacket potato with salad a bit too frequently and no nice puddings (just boring old fruit).

I like the idea of the twins having school lunch so I don't have to sort out a lunch box! But packed lunch works out cheaper and I know they eat it, whereas school dinners work out a lot more expensive for food they may not eat.

Moving forward to now - I discussed matters with the head of catering on Monday, I wrote to the school and I spoke to the head teacher today.

Firstly, packed lunches will continue to be an option but personally I will work with the caterers to get my children having school dinners some days of the week - for a number of reasons including that those lunches will be "free" and all the other children will be having them.

As there is a large kitchen at the school the head and the caterer both think that food can be put aside for my children, so even if they are at the end of the queue it will not be that all the vegan food has gone AND they believe they can manage to adapt some dishes to be cooked separately. Obviously schools with smaller kitchens may find this more difficult.

The head teacher was quite definite that Vegan children are entitled to be catered for and that this is enshrined in legislation - contrary to the opinions of many who felt the need to comment on this thread.

The problem may be, however that there is insufficient variety on the menu for it to be interesting.

I will be meeting with the caterers to take this forward. As they provide meals to almost 100 Kent schools there may be other vegan children in Kent who could be eating the food.

Well done MrsTara.

I hope you manage to get a really good vegan option going, and get some support.

And well done your school, with their open minded, inclusive and tolerant approeach.

Huzzah!!!

I imagine the willingness/ability of the average primary/infant school to cater for a vegan diet is slim to none. In my experiences as a teacher, I wouldn't rely on a vegetarian meal at school to leave my child satisfied day after day. A vegan diet would be near to impossible IME.

I'm not a nutritional expert, but my worry would be that the same principles would be applied as for the meat/vegetarian meal.

Ie, the portions of protein/carb etc with no adjustment made to allow for the fact it's plant based protein and maybe more/less of it is needed and cooking certain ways destroys it etc

If any of that makes sense to people more knowledgeable

In some ways being vegan might be better than being vegetarian as they may look to you as an expert and you might be able to guide them.