My Children wont eat school dinners - still on packed lunches in September

[destroyerOFdandelions]

Hi, My 1st son is turning 6 next week (youngest in his class) and moving into year 2. My middle child is 4 and starting school in the same class. It's a v.small primary school and years Reception 1 and 2 are in the same classroom.

Basically i have signed them up for school dinners, but they refuse to have them. My eldest has had them on occasion before, and he says he doesn't like people watching him go up to get his food. Also the times he did go for fish fingers for example, he didn't eat them as they had 'brown' bits in them and there wasn't any tomato sauce. So basically he's Mr grumpy at hometime and ravenous for tea at 3.30.
He says he will have a hot dinner or the Jacket Potato alternative if i go in and eat with him, but i also have a 11 month old and obviously paying £2.60 a day for my meal is out of the question.
My 4 year old doesn't want to have a hot dinner either, he's been going over with his packed lunch from playgroup and joining the main school children in the hall and is still refusing to try most new foods i offer him, even if the ingredients of which he eats separately.

They each have their own identical packed lunches every day - one philadelphia, one laughing cow sandwiches plus their preferred other bits and bobs. I have never sent them with crisps but other parents do, i send fruit based snacks like humzingers and a cake bar, cheesestring, yogurt tubes, bottle of squash etc so i can see why the school dinner alternative would leave them hungry, thinking about how many calories they would ultimately consume.

Just annoyed that i am missing out on not getting any free food for them. If i did make them have a hot lunch i'm sure i'd be doing tea early and then that leads to supper later on before bed so i'd be feeding them twice in the evening so not sure it would save me any money if i did force it on days when the menu is suitable.............

Does anyone else have this lunchtime problem?

Sorry, one more thing, we all define 'Healthy' differently it seems. I would rather allow my children chocolate and crisps and sweets in moderation as part of a balanced diet and active lifestyle. We live at the seaside and we are on the beach every week getting fresh air and running around. Surely if you deny children of exploring different foods, as soon as they leave home aren't they then more likely to binge eat these foods rather than have an understanding of how to enjoy them sensibly?

And how rude - i do not need to google fruit and vegetables for a packed lunch! It's just easier to give them veg with their evening meal!. We grow our own veg and our children DO know where their food comes from.

Dried fruit is not very healthy. It is really bad for teeth unless they brush their teeth straight afterwards. If your children have a sweet tooth and are used to very salty food then obviously they wouldn't want to eat lunch. If you are not happy with quality of school meals I would talk to other parents (do you have parents' association) to gain support. Do they eat fresh vegetables, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots etc?

porridge with berries is unappealing?

My son love porridge, has it plain and never says it tastes unappealing but then given the amount of sugary things your child seems to have, he will think unsweetened things are boring.

I have seen those banana saver things but i wouldn't fit one in his lunchbox. He has a banana after his tea if he is still hungry before bed, and that works for us.

Humzingers are 100% fruit. no added sugar, colours or flavours. Mainly a mix of apple and pear along with a smaller proportion of one other flavour. Th packs have 5 different flavours in them, and they are 10 for £2, so 20p each. If they dont get eaten you just put them in the following day and they are not wasted. They are 35 calories each so less than the 50cals of your average content of an apple. I cannot recommend them highly enough for parents who struggle to get their children to eat fresh or dried fruit.

Yes plain porridge with berries IS unappealing. I make them homemade porridge with full fat (shock horrow 4% fat) milk, and allow them asprinkling of demerara sugar and about a teaspoon of golden syrup. They mainly have this on their PE days. No more sugar than in something like shreddies. They dont have sugar added to any other breakfasts, unless you count Jam on toast which they rarely have on a school day.

They do fit in all the children's character boxes.

Unappealing to you and yours. Not everyone.

Humzingers look so sticky I can't believe they aren't bad for teeth.

Why the shock horror over milk? Children should have full fat milk .

6yo eats carrots sticks, cucumber, and will eat tomato outsides but not the seeds. They both eat brocolli, cauliflower, corn on the cob and at a push i can bribe them to eat some peas. My runner beans are almost ready to start picking so i will see if they remember the like theose!

Humzingers are slightly dusted in starch so they are not sticky.

The difference between fruit and processed fruit is the way the sugars are processed by the liver. Both will contain similar amounts of fructose but the procesed version will make it available to the liver in one huge hit whereas the sugar hit from an apple is slower as the body needs to work on the fibre before the sugar is released.

A humzinger contains fruit concentrate. This is extremely sugary particularly if it comes from apples. Manufacturers use apple concentrate in children's products so they can make them sweet and claim no added sugar on the label. Look at the sugar content of the product.

The other reason I don't give my children humzinger bars is that they have a very soft texture and can be comsumed in seconds. An apple will take 5 or 10 minutes. I feel that this promotes conscious eating and is healthier psychologically.

I don't think you are expected to count calories at this stage as long as they are not empty calories like sugar, cakes etc. but I seem to remember that after 24 months parents are supposed to give semi-skimmed milk. But all food advice is so confusing, changes a lot and is a very emotive issue depending on what circles you are in. You've been given good advice but some of it us very specific to middle class kids (no sugar, porridge, expectation that a child will eat anything). I would personally question what manufacturers put on packaging as it can be misleading to say the least. I would love to live so close to the sea. Sea air in my opinion should count as 1 of 5.

Vimto squash with no added sugar has sweeteners.
Just saying...

All the time you offer an alternative , with high sugar content , they will choose it . If school dinner or nothing I doubt they will go hungry for long.

theyll eat them if theyre hungry and especially if everyone around them is eating the same thing.

If the meals are that bad write to the governing body.
Our school has had a number of complaints about dinners and they have introduced a new 3 choice system.

itsfab I thought the guidance had changed and full fat milk is only recommended for children up to 2yo then best to switch to lower fat.

I think the government should give you tesco or asda vouchers if you don't take up the hot meal option.

That way you can buy all the frubes you want.

I'm confused about the whole milk thing in general - i'm sure it used to be full fat up to 5 - but since when did full fat milk become the enemy? is it really so bad? I'd be tempted to switch back to it but OH is convinced its bad for cholesterol levels.

I see you're having a dance with the MN food police, OP.

It's not that big a deal is it? Is money very tight for you? It would be nice if DS would eat school dinners & we could save a bit of dosh, but he won't, so pack-ups it is. He would eat if they offered plain bagels with butter every single day, but they insist on things like pasta with sauce, gravy, veg, roast & yorkshire pudding all of which he refuses despite my best efforts to bribe or cajole. The packed lunch option might do, but packed or hot, I'm upset about the waste. He barely eats so he'd probably get enough out of most school meals. He'd just skip the pudding if the only way to get it is to eat more of the savoury options, so there's huge amounts on the plate /in the bag he'll refuse. I can't stomach thought of it mostly going in the bin.

DS has eaten blackberries recently, can't tell you how excited I am!

Vimto has added vitamins , maybe so but you are very naive op to think all this processed food and drinks is even vaguely healthy. You are a marketers dream customer.

I wouldn't worry about it.

If he wants packed lunch for the time being, then go for it. You might find that he gets more keen on the idea of hot dinners as more of his mates take it up.
Keep asking him periodically if he wants hot dinners this week, but don't force the issue.
There are bigger things to worry about.

I might be inclined to push a little harder with the little one though... "You're starting big school now, and its the rules that you have to have hot dinners. DS1 doesn't have to (make up any rule you like) because he's older."

Given my children are very slim I am not really bothered that the "guidance" is semi-skimmed milk after five. I spend a lot of time cooking and planning their meals and am very happy with how they eat. Full fat milk is not going to make any massive difference.

Fullfat milk is only 3.8% fat iirc. I suppose it only gets "high fat food label" because it's easy to drink a lot quickly.

Interesting research reported by the BMJ found that young children given full fat milk had lower BMIs than those given semi skimmed EssexMummy adc.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/13/archdischild-2012-302941.short?g=w_adc_ahead_tab

I still can't see what the problem is. The government isn't providing "free food", it is providing free hot meals. You don't want them so you provide your own "healthy" packed lunch.

The reason that lunches taste bland is that the government sets stringent nutrition standards with very little sugar and salt included. If children are used to processed foods they are used to levels of sugar and salt they wouldn't be getting in school dinners so they turn their noses up!

These healthy school dinners I'm hearing about haven't reached our school! When I went in with dd to try the dinners, vegetables were so overcooked that all the nutrition was gone, everything else was basically slop, and the vegetarian option basically the same thing re-hashed each day (some form of cheesy dish). Also, there is no way of knowing what dc have chosen so whilst there may be a salad bar (it was so unappealing and wet that I wouldn't eat it), there's no way of knowing whether dc have chosen anything from it or eaten it. TBH, I'd be even less happy if they were made to eat it. So it's packed lunches here even though we struggle financially. I'm quite relaxed about dcs' food compared to many on mn but there will be fresh fruit, veg, carbs, protein and enough water (they were given a tiny drink of water with school dinner and not really able to get any more without making a big song and dance about it) - and I'll know what they've eaten. I wish the dinners were better quality but they just weren't, especially for my vegetarian children.

Itsfab apologies for not knowing the exact build of your children. I was just replying to your question about why people might have "shock horror" about full fat milk, by pointing out the the NHS 'guidance' differs from your own 'guidance' that "children should have full fat milk". I have no particular axe to grind on the matter. I just noticed on some leaflet that the kids brought home from school last year that the recommendations had changed. I'm glad you're very happy with how your DC eat, but that wasn't really the point.