Sch9oll dinners -- do your DCs get them?

[eleusis]

I'm feeling like the nutrition geschtapo for not letting my DD get school dinners. I'm just not convinced they are nutritionally sound. And wondered if I'm in the minority.

So, just wondered if your DCs get them? Do you think they have improved with the new government guidelines?

The meals at dd's school are much healthier than previously. Still taste rubbish though ANd still too much custard!

Ds starts full time later this year. I can't afford £20 a week for 2 children.

Your children sound like they get a balanced 'sandwich' meal roisin. Parents who aren't nutritionally savvy could serve a heavy salted 'sandwich' meal. Bread, butter, processed meat, cheese then crisps. Then a sugary desert. It's a long time from 12.15 until bedtime and with only that in between doesn't sound very healthy to me.
But then again one could just as easily serve an unhealthy hot meal every evening so I think I'll retire now

ours have always been really healthy delicious meals freshly cooked on premises

this week's menu is:

Mon: spag bol, salad, garlic bread, orange segments
Tue: Fish with herbs, noodles, carrots, spotted dick
Wed: chicken korma, rice & naan, fruit jelly
Thur: Gammon steaks green beans, potato, peacehs and custard
Fri tuna past, mixed veg, brownies

water only to drink

really nice - dd had packed lunch last term so she could sit with her friends but missed school lunch so much she has moved back

Another reason we don't cook for the boys in the evening is timings. They have 'tea' at 5 pm, and ds2 goes to bed at 6.30. I sit down and have a cup of coffee with them, but if I ate at that time of day then I would want to snack all evening.

Whenever possible dh and I eat a mainmeal at lunchtime too, then have sandwich/salad/soup whatever later in the evening once the boys are upstairs in bed!

Yes but there isn't an alternative and I am a bit worried about the choice on Fridays

Fish and chips or
Hotdog and chips or
Vegetarian quiche

Followed by crumble and custard

I mean they love it but how nutritious is all that?

School dinners are compulsary at DD's school. All girls stay for school dinner, included in fees. The food is good though - all cooked on premises and all sound nutrionous and healthy, and a good variety over a 3 week menu. DD certainly seems to enjoy them.

The girls sit in mixed year groups tables with a member of staff sat at each table also. There is no choice, bar a vaggie option. And dessert is the option offered or fruit. Seems to work really well - very much like when I was at school way back when

And I am more than happy for DD to have a cold tea after school some days, depending on what she has had at lunch time (have to rely on her telling me though, lol!) Sometimes it is not as healthy as other days Generally she does have another hot meal though as she eats with DH and I, when DH gets home from work.

Only hot meals in the quat household. DH disapproves - he produces the most wonderful salads - they won't eat them unfortunately ...

On weekdays the DCs have their tea with the au-pair around 5pm. We eat between 8&9 pm when we get back from work. At weekends we all eat together.

The have improved no end since I was at school. Ds1 tells me he has meat, gravy, jacket potatoes, carrots, then other days it will be pasta, broccoli and cheese, and still other days it will be "don't know"

They do have chips once a week. I think chips have a place in a balanced diet.

For example, on today's menu was Roast pork with apple sauce, beef lasagne, or cheese and egg salad, the veg was cauliflower, broccoli or salad, parsley potato or jacket potato, freshly backed bread, apple cobbler and custard or a biscuit.

but I am aware that a high degree of messing about goes on at school, and he is happy to skip his dinner to go out and play, so I usually do a hot meal at home - but not always.

Quattro - the Friday choice sounds fine imo, it covers all bases.

I'd love mine to have them but they won't, ds says they're 'too healthy'

quick hijack - the school my dss are about to attend, the diners are about £3.50 , so that's going to work out at over £10 a day, for the 3 of them, over £50 a week. Dh thinks I'm tight in balking at this, and wanting to give 'em packed lunch. But I don't fancy all the extra work of 3 packed lunches a day.

What do you wise mn think?

Are packed lunches really a nutritionaly sound alternative? I can imagine them ending up with carrot stick and a ham sarnie every day

£3.50 is very pricey but maybe worth it to spare the pain of the three packed lunches. I had to do one packed lunch a day before DS had school dinners and that was a major pain in the arse.

Ours offers fish and chips on a Friday, which is fine.

DS's school dinners are very healthy and have just been granted Healthy School Status. The meals consist of meat or fish, or some veggie option, vegetables and a carb (pasta or potatoes usually). They have a salad bar (or rather, bowls of carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and sweetcorn) and DS helps himself to at LEAST 3 fruits (from his class snack) and veggies a day - he adores carrot and cucumber sticks! He gets that topped up at home with fruit in one way or another so is getting his five a day.

On a Friday it is pizza day - that consists of a slice of pizza, veg and baked beans which is a 9% healthy meal still.

Puddings are various cakes/custard/pie/crumbles but that doesn't bother me - puddings are a nice end to a nice meal.

I can't afford to give him packed lunch - he gets free school dinners and I am very happy. This way he gets one healthy, warm (because it is winter) meal a day - I couldn't afford to feed him that well myself so it is very helpful to me.

oops it is 90% healthy - not 9!

gave in and let dd have them today, asked her what she had on return home and she said pizza, pasta, potatoes and beans looks like back to cold lunches.

quattro. whats wrong with fish?? or quiche??
and they dont have to have the chips. surely there is also a vegetable offered, even if its just beans or peas

lol at 'fish on a friday'. its the same in hospitals.

carol3, i dont see whats wrong with pizza pasta potatoes and beans
pizza - prob home made, whats wrong with that? bread, cheese and tomatoes. pasta - full of energy for children. potatoes and beans - vitamins for growing children.

Not sure what ds has at lunch - he never tells us - or only occasionally defends his not eating vegetables and fruit at home on the grounds that he eatsa them at school!

However, what I have seen of the school menus, they look very healthy and they try to encourage the kids to make healthy choices, like giving them stickers for eating extra fruit or veg. They only have chips once a week.

And the best thing is, at the moment they are free It's a pilot scheme running until the end of March for P1 to P3 kids. Even so, it's normally only £1.15, which is heavily subsidised, so I don't see the point in the hassle of making up a packed lunch.

The problem with pizza, pasta, potatoes and beans is that it is a bit of a carb overload. It sounds to me that nobody was guiding carol's DD in her choices. We had this problem with DS in the beginning but I think we have now educated him to choose a balanced meal. It might not be what you would think of as going together but that is his choice. Eg he might have pasta, fishfingers, cucumber and carrots. He did come home once and say "sorry mummy there wasn't any meat" - turned out he'd had sausage casserole.

Ours are OK - not as good as my home cooking but I agree with Roisin regarding peer pressure to get a decent packed lunch. Also DS is not fussy and will eat most vegetables (just not mushrooms but will pick these out of casseroles etc). So I don't have your worry, eleusis, on that score. He will eat all the usual suspects on a dinner menu - peas, carrots, corn, cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower etc. And most things from the salad bar except tomatoes. And I don't have a nanny so it would be me making it on an evening after a day's work and also having put a cooked dinner on the table.

Eleusis - "And I do think a good meal for £2 is rather a tall order. I would pay more if that was an option."
Well if you have to buy organic veg from Waitrose. Factor in the basic principles of catering for hundreds and relatively small portions, £2.00 a head is actually pretty high!

Quattro, I'd be surprised if the vegetarian quiche didn't have a vegetable in it.
And baked beans count as a veg.

buckets, yes I can easily do a meal for £2/head at home - sometimes £2 for the four of us. But nobody is paying me for my time, which cuts down on a major cost. Also you have to factor in fuel costs etc.

I guess if you all eat togther in the evenings it makes sense to give the kids a packed lunch in the day.
I can't understand giving the kids meat and 2 veg etc at lunctime and then giving them the same in the evening.
As someone said that is the problem in this country - we eat too much. one meal should be a dinner the other should be lighter surely