vegetarian child having school meals - have I been naive?

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

In thinking that the school can provide my son with a vegetarian meal every day...

My son is 4 and cannot be expected to ensure the ingredients of each meal are veggie - that is up to the school. But the very first day he has a school meal he comes home saying he had jelly for pudding - not generally veggie (although it is possible to make jelly w/out gelatine). He couldn't remember the main - but I think that was something cheesy.

So I phone the school for some reassurance - expecting them to say 'oh it was veggie' 'we have x system set up to ensure dietary restrictions are catered for' instead she sounded unsure and said she would speak to the kitchen and asked if i wanted someone to accompany my son at school meal times to ensure he got the right options.

I did not think children in reception would be left to their own devices at lunch anyway, do I have to go back to giving him a packed lunch every day?

What are other veggie parents experience - am i expecting too much?

Actually Riven a lot of people get very tired and don't function properly if they don't eat a proper serving of animal protein at meals. Human bodies function best when they eat a wide variety of foods including animal protein.

Inclusion is a completely different issue btw .

Anna - it may be a minority activity in the UK as a whole but if a school is 50/50 then it would be madness (and racist?) to just cater for meateaters.

No, it cannot possibly be racist not to cater for vegetarians. It might be discriminatory .

But I do really believe deep, deep down that children go to school to be exposed to things that they do not encounter at home and to have their horizons broadened and that school should not pander to parents' lifestyle whims.

Sorry have only read some of the thread- my DD decided she didn't want to eat meat from around age 3- she had school dinners for a while, but i think due to the dinner ladies lack of understanding it just didn't work out, such as the jelly thing mentioned in the OP, and she was also offered a tuna sandwich, which she was upset by, but really its about not understanding, and taking a small child seriously perhaps too?

As it was her choice, she was quite aware from a young age of the foods with animal things in, ie jelly sweets etc, because she wanted to find out.

Anyway, sorry I know this has been really boring, but she's been on packed lunches from reception and is fine with it.

So, if you're not happy, go on packed lunches?

I think what you'd be exposing a lot of children to there (certainly at my sons school) is hunger - and granted while that might be a new experience its certainly not a welcome one...

How can you describe religion as a lifestyle whim as well - am a bit shocked tbh.

That was for Anna obv - am a very slow typer...

School just cannot, for all sorts of reasons, adapt to individual children's (or their parents') whims. It is one thing to adapt to individual children's requirements in order for them to participate in school life (eg assistance for children with SN), quite another to think that lifestyle whims should be catered for.

People won't actually be tired or function badly if they have ONE meal a day without meat. Most omnivores don't eat meat at every meal and nor should they - terribly bad for your health to have such a large proportion of animal fat in your diet.

If all school dinners were veggie, it would abolish all these problems at a stroke for all the children who are Muslim/Jewish/vegetarian.

I'm not actually advocating that as I think lots of parents would object if little James couldn't have sausages but I do think the line that vegetarians/religious minorities should be ignored is ridiculous.

I gather France has a completely different attitude to diversity, hence the ban on headscarves in schools, and to food.

Principled beliefs such as Islam, Judaism and vegetarianism are hardly whims. Just because you may not share the same values, doesn't make them not deserving of respect.

I don't happen to give two hoots about all sorts of things that matter to other people, doesn't mean I tell them to fuck off and stop worrying about it.

In France you can always choose to go home for lunch. So the issue of school meals needing to meet dietary requirements just isn't addressed - if you don't like school food (for whatever reason), you go home. Obviously you need an alternative to school meals (but a packed lunch is a good alternative) but I really don't think there should be lots of catering to lifestyle whims at school. It is a big enough job for schools (and this job isn't properly done yet in the UK) to cater to children's REAL differences in acquiring skills without pandering to preciousness...

I quite agree that a vegetarian lunch at school from time to time is a good thing (provided it has a proper protein component).

You say 'precious' other people say 'conscience' or 'principles' or 'beliefs'.

Providing children have an alternative solution for their special dietary requirements (ie packed lunch or go home), what is the problem, Edam? I think it is bad for children to see schools bend over backwards to meet non-essential needs and I wish schools would concentrate more on education.

(Ds is not veggie btw, but I am so am wholeheartedly behind a parent's right to bring up their children in accordance with their own beliefs and moral standards.)

Going home for lunch is not really done in the UK any more, although I can remember a very few kids doing this in those dim and distant days when I was little. I even persuaded the teachers at my infant school that I was going home while my mother was actually at work - apparently she only realised because I made a jam sandwich and forgot to put the jar away. (We lived in a small village and no-one locked their back door.)

Yes, and packed lunch isn't really done in France (though it is done at my DD's school in the later years of primary). Just as long as there is an alternative...

You aren't in the UK, though, so it's not any skin off your nose if British schools take catering seriously. Which they are doing - there's been lots of publicity around how poor school meals were thanks to contracting out and school kitchens closing.

Now there's a big push by government and campaigners to bring back proper cooking and decent meals with real ingredients, not turkey twizzlers made from mechanically-recovered meat.

Surely as a French resident you should approve of that?

(Ds's school has no kitchen so it's packed lunches all the way although the governors have just asked us if we'd like school dinners - haven't met one parent who said no!)

I mean, my guess would be that French schools serve proper hot meals made with raw ingredients, not the sort of mass produced processed gunk that's been standard fare in this country for the past 20 years.

I was living in the UK when Jamie Oliver did his programmes about turkey swizzlers and six-week constipation among school children - I know all about it.

The issue of what schools do and do not do to cater to individual children is not a national issue but a global one.

State primary schools in Paris get their meals from central kitchens ie don't cook on the premises and the meals are dietetically correct but not very appealing.

My DD's school is a private school and employs its own cooks and kitchen staff and invents its own menus. The food is fine and very varied and introduces the children to all sorts of things. Obviously it doesn't please everyone every day and it costs a fortune. But it is fine and I refuse to get upset when my child isn't catered to individually - that's life and it's good for her. If, however, she wasn't catered for individually in class and I thought she wasn't being taught appropriately for her level of development, I would be complaining to school in a flash.

Bonsoir Anna - thank you for your input.

It transported me suddenly back in time to the 1980's when I was a teenage vegetarian being told by helpful people 'how pale' I looked (nothing to do with the fact I am ginger and freckly ffs!!!).

I would have replied sooner but being so weak from 20 years without meat protein I had not the strength

I don't think 20 years of vegetarianism can be dismissed as a whim but I do thank you for reminding me of the ignorant and dismissive attitude held by a significant proportion of the population.

I do think I will limit my son to max 2 school meals per week - as I want to get involved in ensuring there is an awareness of the need for my sons school to provide for a variety of diets, on all sorts of grounds, moral, religious and of course medical.

now I will drag my poor weak body to the kitchen and prepare a healthy veggie snack for my puny daughter (who is not at all huge and bonny no).

Au revoir Anna

the thing that I am annoyed about is that people do not know what goes into lunches.

Honestly, how difficult is it to know that jelly had gelatine in it, and that gelatine is most often derived form a meat source (I know that the Op has been reassured on this point, but why did anyone have to "look into it"? why was this fact not known?)

I speak as someone with a child with complex dietary issues.

actually, they are not that hard to adhere to, but people get in a muddle all the same.

dd1 cannot have gluten, dairy, or MSG/sweetners. That's it. So she can have any other "real" food, but not gravies, jelly, most puddings, etc. she goes to a special school, where they are familiar with her diet, and can apparently cope well.

She has been there 3 months and has already eaten more gluten/msg containing food than she has had ove rthe past 2 years. Because the kitchens do not actually check the ingredients list of what they send over for her.

it is not rocket science, you just need to look at the ingredients list (and actually, to help out, I have pointed out that if it has an ingredients list then it is most likely unsuitable for dd1, as bound to have some form of gluten/dairy derivative in, or flavourings/colourigs (msg derivatives)), but seemingly that is not possible.