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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Packed lunches....Grrrrr

71 replies

HenniPenni · 26/09/2006 16:02

Rant alert....DDS school has banned all crisps, snacks, chocolate and chocolate covered cakes. But they are still allowing children to take things like cheese strings, cheese dippers, fruit winders etc.

Whist I agree to a certain extent with what they have banned, I have been extremely annoyed to find out today that they are not even allowed to take cakes that contain chocolate chips! how can they decide that but allow cr*p such as cheese strings/dippers etc.

I wouldn't mind but my DDs all take at least two pieces of fruit/veg, and to be honest their lunch boxes now look boring and unappealing.

OP posts:

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Furball · 27/09/2006 10:03

Flack - there was a load of blurb last week reporting kids that have one pack of crips a day are consuming 5 litres of cooking oil per year! The story is Here

Enid · 27/09/2006 10:05

lol @ angsting over marmite

joelallie · 27/09/2006 11:03

This is Mumsnet - I thought it was de rigeur to angst over everything .

Seashells · 27/09/2006 11:11

What will the goverment do next, do random checks to our homes at dinner time to see what we are feeding our kids???
As far as I'm concerned, ds can take whatever he bloody likes for his packed lunch, he is an extremely fussy eater and underweight, if he takes cakes, choccy and crisps and they get eaten, then I'm happy. I try to make his packed lunch as healthy as possible but sometimes he just won't touch the fruit etc, I'd rather he ate something even if it isn't 100% healthy, he eats a healthy meal after school, and has a healthy breakfast. It's not my fault if some kids at his school are obese, ds isn't!

Gobbledigook · 27/09/2006 11:22

Apparently ds isn't supposed to take chocolate or sweets in his lunchbox either. I couldn't give a stuff and he usually gets a penguin or something anyway. My child, I'll decide.

The rest of his lunchbox is sandwiches, fruit and yoghurt. No cheese strings, dippers or anything like that - plain fruit, plain cubes of cheese, grapes etc.

If I want to give him a chocolate biscuit to finish off with I bloody well will!

Gobbledigook · 27/09/2006 11:24

And since he is still under the paed consultant for being 'underweight', I'd happily have a conversation with the head about the harm the odd penguin is going to do him!

Tawny75 · 27/09/2006 11:31

Amen to that Gobbledigook.

dd's lunchbox today consists of, 1 bottle of water, 1 cheese granary roll, 1 apple, 1 packet of crisps and a fruit winder.

She has another piece of fruit at break time provided by the school.

She eats a yoghurt or toast for breakfast and dinner tonight is homemade lasagne and salad.

If that is not balanced I don't know what is.

They are children ffs, not robots.

oliveoil · 27/09/2006 11:31

I give dd1 chocolate sometimes - jaffa cake or small choc bar - and she gets a small box filled with those Teddy Bear crisps.

BUT if the school/playgroup/nursery say no, I would abide by that.

She can always eat it after her tea or at 3pm when collected.

Rules are rules imo even if you think they are daft.

Blu · 27/09/2006 11:31

I am quite pleased that the teaching staff at DS's school do not spend their time engaged in detailed 'lunchbox' inspections, grading chocolate on a scale from Pink Panther pink chocolate to Green and Blacks 70% and then giving detailed feedback to individual parents about where a Freddy Frog lies in relation to a packet of M&Ms and trying to decide which is acceptable.

And I'm laid-back-liberal-slack-standards Mummy, but if the school makes a rule, I won't have DS see me break it!

C'mon - they have to have rules that they can explain simply, and implement easily, and 'thickness of choc in relation to milligrams of biscuit' isn't a practical guideline!

Blu · 27/09/2006 11:32

But Tawny - is any of that banned by the school? If not, no problem!

oliveoil · 27/09/2006 11:34

dd1 today had

cheese sandwiches on brown
organic apple juice carton
3 mini jaffa cakes
satsuma
half pack of mini cheddars (in box)
humzinger

easily take out the crisps and jaffa cakes if I was asked to, no problem

Gobbledigook · 27/09/2006 11:37

Yes agree really about the rule thing. The 'no choc' thing is just something I've heard tbh - it's not written anywhere and I've not had a letter about it or anything.

Agree they can just have the treat out of school. Yes, I do agree with that.

However, nobody has pulled me up on it, ds hasn't mentioned it for months and today he's got a Blue Riband (plus, cheese on brown, organic apple juice, banana, box organic raisins, organic yoghurt)

FluffyCharlotteCorday · 27/09/2006 11:38

TBH I think people who insist on putting crisps etc. in their kids' lunchboxes when the school have specifically asked them not to, are undermining all the other parents who do stick to the rules and are trying to get the message home to our kids that junk food is an occasional, not an everyday thing.

All of you who say your kids eat healthy breakfast and dinner - why not give them a healthy lunch instead, and give them the crap in the privacy of your own home so that it doesn't affect either the school's efforts to promote healthy eating, or other children's views of what normal food is?

Blu · 27/09/2006 11:42

I can't see a school barring choc biscuits when choc sponge with choc custartd is served as part of the 'Jamie' dinner.
It's just sweets (including chocolate minus biscuit)and fizzy drinks that are barred for packed lunches in DS's school, I think.

Blu · 27/09/2006 11:42

It drives me mad when parents 'sneak' soft drinks into the water bottles when the rule is water.

Tawny75 · 27/09/2006 11:43

Nope, I was just saying what I give her.

The only thing banned by school is chocolate at breaktime (they now provide fruit) and nuts.

The nuts thins is because they have a couple of children with a severe nut allergy where even touching them can bring on an attack. So I can understand that.

FluffyCharlotteCorday · 27/09/2006 11:44

The reason they banned sweets from my DS's school years ago, was not because of any health reason, but because of the litter.

Gobbledigook · 27/09/2006 11:48

I've not seen anything written that anything is 'banned' tbh. Ds just told me one day he wasn't allowed sweets.

They don't take snacks in for break because they get fruit and they only have water in their bottles - that's all I know about.

If I was expressly told 'no chocolate biscuits' then I would adhere to it even though I wouldn't really be happy with it (particularly since crap such as cheese dippers and strings and crisps are allowed)

Bozza · 27/09/2006 11:49

DS is supposed to take fruit for morning playtime and has the Govt provided fruit in the afternoon. Nothing else allowed. However I am not sure about the packed lunches because he has dinners. And yes chocolate sponge features as a pudding.

Blu · 27/09/2006 11:54

So none of us need to get 'all bothered and bosomy' as Hunker so eloquently put it?

alligator · 27/09/2006 11:55

Is this something new tho? School I went to banned all sweets/crisps and wrapped biscuits eg penguins from lunchboxes and that was back in the 70's. Mind you it was a litter issue not a healthy eating issue .

flack · 27/09/2006 11:57

All I know is that for most kids lunch is the huge highlight of their school day. I don't see a problem with some "fun" food there. What's so bad about some cooking oil in the diet, anyway?
39 weeks of school makes 195 possible days to have a bag of crisps, or only 8 litres per year (assuming that 15 litre figure is right, and I don't think it is, and assuming no hot dinners when they don't usually serve crisps). I have problems with DS not eating his lunch (too keen to play) so calorie dense lunchfoods are the only way to go for us.

Surprised you guys aren't more worried about the salt, really.

That 5 litre value.... It works out (I think I've done the maths right?!) to 14.2 ml/day, or just under 1 (15ml, or 12.2 g in weight) tablespoons. A tablespoon of oil (15 ml) is about 110 calories. I've got a bag of McCoy's in my hand that has 15.3 g of fat, so that would be more than that 14.2ml/day figure. But Sainsbury's own S+V crisps (which is what my kids have)has 8.5g of fat in it, or 9.5 ml of fat (and we all know how much of that sticks to the lining of the bag or gets scattered around the inside of the lunchbox). Even so, it only scales up to 1.855 litres of cooking oil a year, if my kids had crisps every school day (& they don't). Bags of Hulahoops are lower in fat still...

All this talk of crisps has made me hungry. Now I have these yummy bags of crisps in my hand I think I'll share them with my 2yo, and find out what's become of my life.

Gobbledigook · 27/09/2006 11:57

Oh times have changed. We used to be able to buy a packet of 'puffs' (crisps) for 7p for breaktime in primary school. I can remember them clearly - they were like little tiny tubes and I think they had a dragon on the packet

It's all good though really. My kids eat tons of fruit and i hardly eat any. I just didn't eat much of it as a child so it's not something I choose when I'm hungry. Do eat loads of veg though.

FluffyCharlotteCorday · 27/09/2006 13:06

LOL Flack.

Glad to know people are so thorough in their nutrition research!

Froglette · 27/09/2006 13:09

My sons school have a no sweets, chocolate and nuts policy. Plus only water and no juice or other drinks. I think along with the healthy eating side it probably helps with reducing sticky mess!

I don't have a problem and quite like the rules. At least I don't have to pay out on cartons of drink LOL I also don't have the pester power I used to get at pre-school lunch club. I used to get non stop had jaffa cakes had fruit winders had crisps had and on and on. Hey they all have dull lunch boxes now

They are allowed biscuits and cakes, so I make up a quick batch of flapjack of fairy cakes once a week. He has school dinners twice a week and the puddings there are fruit, yogurt, apple crumble, sultana shortbread. So the that sort of ties up with the lunch box rules.

Of course no amount of rules are necessarily going to make all lunchboxes balanced, parents can still provide only jam sarnies and 4 thick slices of lard On the other hand it makes it less easy to fall back on coke, chocolate, biscuit, cake, crisps and jam sandwich if there are some rules.

The primary school I went to we were allowed home for lunch or had to have school dinners. The school dinners there was no choice and you had to eat ALL of it. I spent many a lunchbreak staring at my liver and swede .

So incomparison a few simple rules about what food allowed on their premesis doesn't seem like a great denial of civil liberty to me.

I'm no food faciest and alongside healthy diet he can have chocolate cheesecake, crisps, McD's at the weekend if we do. Friday after school it's a trip to the sweet store. However if the rules are fair and reasonable I'm all for them and find they've made my lunch box packing easier.

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