Am I silly to turn down free school meals because of the quality?

[sassylassie]

My DS is starting in Reception in September, and we went to a parents' meeting yesterday. It's a lovely school, but they showed us the sample school dinner menu, and I was not impressed. We are vegetarian, and there is a vegetarian option every day, but it is mostly processed food - vegetarian burger, sausage, pasty, pizza, all day breakfast etc. Not only that, but one day they list a tuna wrap as the 'vegetarian' option, which kind of makes me lose faith that the contractor actually knows what vegetarian means. Then there are puddings every day, but no sign of any fresh fruit or yogurt. And they offer squash, which we avoid at home, due to the sweeteners. I read the government's guidelines on school meals and they don't seem very demanding to be honest. There is nothing at all there about using natural ingredients and avoiding food with additives, for example. It wasn't clear on squashes - it only mentioned fruit juices and water - but his school definitely said they offered squash.

We generally eat pretty healthily at home and I try to avoid processed food as much as possible, but if we're really pressed for time and don't have something prepared in advance) we'll do a pizza or ready meal probably a couple of times a week. If I knew he was eating a processed meal most lunchtimes at school I'd feel obliged to make a healthy option for dinner/tea every day, which is a burden when I roll through the door at 6pm.

So I'm tempted to go for packed lunches, but wondering if I'm silly to look a gift horse in the mouth and also whether my son will be the only one not having the school meal. I don't want him to feel excluded.

Has anyone else opted out for the same reasons? Or not? Interested to hear other mumsnetters' experiences.

The tuna needs addressing and I would want to check ingredients for cheese, jelly (prob not vegetarian) too on the basis that if they think tuna is vegetarian then probably not well informed.

School lunches are fine if you have a human dustbin (ds), but dd always had packed as although she eats most things, she dislikes junk (pizza, sausages, burgers etc) and is particular over how food is cooked (e.g. if pasta left out and beginning to dry up she refuses it). She's not keen on sandwiches but usually has pasta, spring rolls, sushi, rice salad etc.

One of the problems I find with DD's school dinners is that the some of the choices available can combine to make a balanced meal, but my DD might well chose a combination that really doesn't. She avoids all hints of fruit in puddings, so might well have 3 x carbs and 2 x cheese. This would be even worse if she was vegetarian as the options aren't as varied. She does have school dinners about 2/3 of the time and it's great that we can decide on a daily basis.

I don't think I'd turn it down personally but if you choose to I doubt you'll be the only one, there are usually about 6 or 7 packed lunches in DD's year R class (mainly fussy eaters).

DD doesn't have the free school meal as she's a type 1 diabetic and they were far too high in carbs for my liking. Even the homemade low sugar puddings with custard regularly put the meal at over 100g carbs. Too many 'carbs with carbs' meals like pizza with garlic bread, or pasta/rice with bread on the side.

I don't really find it too much of a faff making packed lunches, and I tend to get stuff ready and in the fridge the night before. DD doesn't even mind if it's not all that varied - we mix it up a bit but not totally.

I think about 10-15% of YrR-Yr2 don't have the free lunches. My only problem is that the cook is so lovely and I do feel under pressure to take up the meal as clearly her job relies on numbers.

Making my veggie sons picked much each morning takes me approx 1 min!!
Not hard or time consuming at all!
My sons school arent bad re drinks...it's water on offer or nothing and there is always fresh fruit but yes the Veggie options are very poor if you don't like chips or pizza (neither of which my ds will eat!)

Veggie options are pretty poor at ours (as are meat options) - lots of processed and cheap meat/food as ultimately it all comes down for making as much food in bulk for the least amount of money possible.

Veggie options are generally Quorn burgers/veggie sausages/macaroni cheese, pizza/jacket potatoes - basically lots of stodge and no bean salads, bean burgers, lentils or much in the way of interesting/tasty veg aside from peas, carrots or potatoes. Fridays is stooge overload with pizza served with chips AND potatoes, followed by the daily pudding with custard/jelly/ice cream. And of course most children will choose cake/pudding over fruit if there is a choice..

Lunches take me 5 mins max in the morning to make (I am not one for early mornings so chuck it together at 8.25am LOL) - a sandwich/roll or wrap with cheese/egg/salad/humous etc and a chunk of cheese or egg if not already in the sandwich; or as a change sometimes pasta salad, home made savoury muffins or cold home made pizza if we've made these the day before; plus a selection of chopped carrots/cucumber/peppers/few olives/mushrooms; plus chopped seasonal fruit; plus occasional home made cake as a treat.

I can make a lunch box for far less than it costs for a school lunch and also then I know what my DC has eaten, which then helps re knowing how much/what to make for dinner as well.

I agree that there is nothing wrong with an apple or a pear...however if all your friends have chocolate chip sponge and custard...your apple starts to look a bit crap.

If you have chunks of melon, grapes and raspberries with plain yogurt. It looks better. If you also get a tiny homemade sponge bun....it's way more appealing!

That's the difference, it's ok to say there's fruit on the menu but few five year olds would prefer an apple over sponge and custard! It's difficult to teach your children moderation when it is the norm to eat a slab of sponge everyday.
I teach my children that it's ok to eat the tiny sponge if you also eat all of the lovely natural sugars. ( to be honest they love fruit)

I totally agree with the above re carbs! Cheap carbs pad out the school meals.

DS yr2 and DD reception both take a packed lunch due to quality of the veggie option either quorn or a bit random (rice and quiche anyone? Perhaps I could interest you in a full roast but swap the meat for a Samosa)? They are vastly in the minority but there are a couple of other children from both classes who also take a packed lunch. I'm three years in so have the lunches down now, it's not that much hassle and they get a varied healthy lunch. I do send them with a pudding it's not fair if most of the school gets something but they also get some fresh fruit and salad.

Sassy. My DC are both vegetarian and whilst the school dinner staff do have a list of children with medical dietary requirements they don't have a list of dietary requirements. This may be different in areas with more cultural diversity so worth asking school about. I have tried to take this up with our school but haven't ever been given any reason to think that our dietary decision has been taken very seriously.

I tried both DC on school dinners (hoping that this would mean I could just do a light tea) but gave up and they now have packed lunches this was because:

1. Depending on staff, they were sometimes given meat or fish on their plates without asking for it and had to explain that they could not eat it. As far as I know, this was swapped without a big fuss but they were not happy with this happening and worried that they might be given something that they didn't recognise as meat and eat it anyway (eg chicken nuggets instead of quorn nuggets)
2. The school operates a two sitting system so sometimes by the time my DC got their lunch there was none of the veggie option left, so they ended up with a cheese sandwich.
3. My children have pretty big appetites (skinny buggers both of them but very active) and they often came home saying they were hungry.
4. The final straw was when I went in to school one lunch time and saw what they were actually being given- mainly processed, veg frozen then overcooked and the salad bar mentioned on the menu nowhere to be seen.

I am a bit fussy about where our food comes from but I let DS have the school dinners. The menu isn't too bad - we live in a very multi cultural area so the vegetarian options are good and there is no pork or beef. As others have said check if the food is made from scratch. I make our own pizzas including the dough and I know it's actually reasonably healthy and its something the kids will eat. I have relented a lot on puddings as DS2 was referred to a dietician as he was underweight as a baby and she said kids need a lot of these fats and pudding is a way to get it (even if it is full of sugar). Our school at least has a mix of these puddings and fruit and yogurt. One thing I will say is that school dinners has helped DS try new foods and he has become a much better eater as they learn from their peers. He is SN and he is now interested in cooking which is so fab from our pov as it helps his development in so many ways. Agree with pps about checking out the contractor and where they get their food from.

As your ds is too young to make an informed choice about being a vegetarian allowing him to eat meat would open up more options for him

Actually, I think that the default choice should be vegetarian until the child can make an informed choice to eat meat.

I will be turning down the option for DS due to the nutritional quality.

Sugary pudding each day. That and the processed carbs left on his teeth all afternoon without brushing makes me worry.

There is some fresh fruit and vege but I won't be there to police what he eats.

When I was teaching I'd only get the school dinner in emergency but the quality of the meat was dire. It always sounds so much better on the menu.

He currently attends nursery in the afternoon and I see them bringing out the rubbish from kitchen- giant tins of sugary baked beans etc

School menus I have seen seem to have a focus on avoiding fried food and have completely over looked added sugar which baffles me. Esp with the dental decay rates.

My youngest is now in y3, but when he still qualified for the free infants meal I kept him on packed lunches. I was never that impressed with the school's offerings and have never found it difficult to provide a healthy packed lunch. Plus the portions are pretty tiny at school and not that appealing looking.

I make lunches the night before.

Our schools meals are very good and veg options are interesting and varied and defo vegetarian. They also do halal, kosher etc Some parents do still choose to do packed lunch though - about 10%. I'm always a bit baffled by it as the free meals include sandwiches, fruit, salad. Their choice!

I have never taken up free meals for my children as the quality is dire. As a previous poster commented it always looks so much better written down on the menu compared to the low quality processed crap that they serve up.
The veg / salad is laughable in both the quality and quantity. Hot veg is boiled to the point of mush, salad is generally dried out and lacking much appeal by the time it gets to the plate. Very small portions of both i.e. 2 slices of cucumber and a cherry tomato with a leaf of lettuce, less than a dessert spoon of cooked veg.
The fish / chicken options are often in breadcrumbs and the 'meat' inside a greyish mush with no texture.
Many people take up the option not only because it is free but with a misguided belief that children should have a hot dinner at midday and it is somehow more nutritious.
I say this as someone who has worked in schools for many years and seen a lot of different menus. It would be fair to say that we really have not progressed very far in the last 10- 15 years in regard to what the children are served. Essentially it is still fairly highly processed, low quality food.
To all the posters saying it is very hard to make a balanced nutritious packed lunch, how so? There really is not a lot to packing a decent lunch for any child or adult that will be tasty and much better that any of the crap served up in a school canteen.

Rainbow unicorn I agree it's not difficult to make a single balanced and nutritious packed lunch, but most people tend to give a very similar packed lunch every day of the week to save time and money, so you don't get much variation (and usually an excess of wheat / gluten and no alternative carbs). Whereas the school dinner would alternate wheat products with rice and potatoes which I think provides more balance. There is no cold storage for lunch boxes so whatever you prepare will sit around at 25C ( our school is always baking) for 3 hours before it's eaten. Which makes me wary of adding salads etc.

We used to have a dessert in the evenings but since my DCs have had school dinners and therefore having the option of a pudding at lunchtime, we stopped having them and have plain fruit instead. Better for all of us! Although occasionally, I have been known to sneak out some ice cream after they've gone to bed...

DS has been at two schools and both of them had much better food than people are describing here, as far as I could tell. If you have a concerns I really suggest you get involved with PTA/Parent Council whatever and start making a noise about it. Someone had the nerve to do this at DS current school and squash and sweetened flavoured milk has gone, only milk and water now and kids got used to it within a week. We had an opportunity for parents to give their views first.

Regarding getting in at 6 and having to rush. So do we, sometimes later, a lot of people do, it is possible to cook from scratch most nights, we have a short list of quick and easy meals that are still healthy. If necessary, throw some crudités at the children while you cook. Pasta and pesto is the fallback position.

Please could people give me an idea of what they include in a 'healthy' packed lunch? Ideally not including bread as my dd already has toast at before school club, breaktime and after school club!

I don't take the free meals fir dd2 either.

we have no kitchen so it's all brought in and skeptical of the nutritional value of veg left to go soggy all morning that's inedible due to said watery sogginess. and we all k ow that reducing or removing one undesirable ingredient such as sugar, usually means it's full of something worse or more highly processed.

the guidelines are shit.

no more than 2 deep fried/breaded a week. we'll two out of five meals is still too much.

you can have a ton of shit available such as chicken nuggets and sausages and pizza and pies and chips and smiles etc and still be within guidelines when they have effectively had processed crap all week.

the puddings are there merely to make up the deficit so they don't have to provide a decent portion of meat etc

packed lunches all the way here.

As your ds is too young to make an informed choice about being a vegetarian allowing him to eat meat would open up more options for him

Actually, I think that the default choice should be vegetarian until the child can make an informed choice to eat meat.

Totally agree Jeffreysfavouriteaunt

Sorry, Jeremysfavouriteaunt (is this error due to lack of meat!)

Our school meals are not particularly healthy and DC takes their own pudding as the school one is chocolate cake with chocolate sauce etc. One of her friends takes a packed lunch every day except Fridays.

Gosh I must be a rarity, dd is starting Reception in September and we certainly will be taking up the free meals.

She eats breakfast and evening meal at home seven days a week, and lunch at home twice a week. All healthy and fresh aside from the odd McDonald's (once a month or so). School meals fill a need:- something nutritious in the middle of the school day to see her through till dinner time.

So what if it's pizza once a week, burger once a week? We don't offer pudding at home so puddings after lunch, fine.

It's faff free, cost free, and unless she tells me she doesn't actually enjoy the food then I won't be doing packed lunches.

All you saying that your dcs have "crappy" meals at school, do your kids enjoy the food? I'll bet most of them do.

The fish as a vegetation option is laughable !!!

erm actually no dd1 did not enjoy them.

dd2 thinks they look revolting.

Your dd needs something to give her energy in the middle of the day. Is she a child who eats hot meals better or snacks/sandwiches better?