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.

I guess it's just pot luck what contract your school has...

And the ethos of the school.

I'm a supply teacher and one school I worked at breakfast was compulsory for staff and students, it was also free.

The menu for breakfast was

toast, porridge, beans on toast but in addition there was fruit, water, tea and coffee.

The lunch menu only listed three things but again there were salads, wraps, sandwiches and fruit not listed but available. Oh and they employed a French chef!

So it is worth asking what else is available.

BTW this school is in a very deprived area and the academy sponsor is concerned with raising achievement all round, not just academically.

I don't take up the universal FSM option for ds2 because he would be hungry most days. I don't see the point in a free meal that he cannot eat! Ds2 is weirdly limited in his diet and although he is improving greatly, he hasn't widened his range enough that school dinners are an option. Besides which, once when he did have a school dinner his request to not have gravy was ignored and then staff told him off for not eating the food that they'd made it impossible for him to eat, and made him sit with it until the end of dinner time.

I hated school meals for that very reason: everything was convenience food (I think the only item of food I really did like was Turkey Twizzlers - rip ).

I'm actually shocked that primary schools are still serving processed food, what happened to the healthy eating campaign?

Secondary school was easier as I had a choice of having either hot or cold food like sandwiches or Pasta King. If you wanted water for your drink then you had to pay for a bottle otherwise it was either milk or these juice cartons (once I had one that smelt like beer...)

That sounds really poor. As a PP said, I'd find out who the catering contractor is (or whether it's the local council) and maybe get involved with trying to get some changes made.

Our veggie options are things like home-made quiche, chickpea and veggie bake with rice, vegetable/lentil/chickpea curries, 3-bean chilli, pasta bakes with various veg, and then the odd bit of Quorn (bolognaise with wholewheat spaghetti) and jacket potatoes with cheese.

With the desserts, they do have to be 50% fruit, but I guess that's not that reassuring if the other 50% is sugar! Ours are sometimes sensible things like fruit and yoghurt, sometimes treat things like cake and ice-cream (like on Friday because it was nearly father's day ) and sometimes bonkers "on trend" items like beetroot and chocolate brownies or courgette cake.

At our school they use organic local meat and produce, which is all well and good. But, the vegetarian main tends to be Quorn and/or cheese heavy.

There are 5 choices daily; main, vegetarian main, baked potato, pasta or the packed lunch. Frustratingly, on days where DD doesn't like the vegetarian main, the pasta option has chicken in, the potato comes with tuna and the sandwiches are ham. Yet, on other days, the main is cheese and tomato pizza, the potato comes with beans, there's macoroni cheese and the sandwich is egg!
So, even though we can pre-order up to a term in advance, sometimes there simply isn't a healthy/non-minging vegetarian option.
There is, however always a pudding, ranging from a biscuit to arctic roll. The yogurts in the school pack up are the cheap, low fat, high sugar ones. The school removes the fruit juice, which renders it short of the nutritional standard, anyway!
We tried, as I hoped DD would expand her diet, but no hope of that with what's on offer around here! So, next year, it's pack ups all the way (even though we're FSM because of low income).

If I were you, I'd have a good look on the website at what they serve on an average week. You could be lucky, and get a catering contractor who actually knows what vegetarian/healthy means! Ours informed me that Quorn is made from mushrooms and is healthy

Oh, one more thing. The portions are miniscule. But there is unlimited dry bread...

School meals are really poor round us and there is a large amount of waste. It's not hard to pack a reasonable lunch box and at least you'll know what they've had.
Unless the caterer really is one that cares about the quality, they are not worth bothering with.

Our school meals are reasonably good - three options each day, one of which is always a baked potato, they will make arrangements to cater for dietary needs including vegetarians. There is a choice of pudding each day but he often chooses yoghurt as he's not keen on puddings really. DS is in Y4 so just missed out on the UFSM. He has the school dinner most days but on the days he takes a packed lunch he usually has something like a small pot of houmous with carrot sticks and breadsticks, some cold meat or cheese, some fruit, a yoghurt and a small cake or biscuit. He's a skinny kid who eats well. He has an insulated lunch bag and I put a cool block in the bottom, he says his lunch is still cool at lunchtime, even in the heat of summer.