Banning School Packed Lunches

[Tealady]

Anyone caught the news this morning. A report has suggested banning packed lunches as they are too many are unhealthy or not nutritionally balanced.

I think schools should offer guidelines or even ban certain items (or quantity of certain items) but the government bringing in a policy that just bans them outright I think is ridiculous.

Are they right to do this or is it just Nanny State gone mad?

[Kiddleywinks]

My DS wouldn't have eaten in primary school if he'd not had a packed lunch.
I tried him on school dinners for a while and he stopped eating loads of stuff at home as school food put him off so switched him back

[Mouse]

Going back to my days at school (ok, a long time ago), there wasn't the choice of taking a packed lunch. You either had school dinners, or went home.

But back then we weren't fussy eaters. You got your lunch and you ate it, whether it was awful or not! Most of it was freshly made on school premises and, from what I can remember, was pretty healthy. I don't remember ever being hungry at school, or going home hungry.

Nowadays my children's school dinners are dreadful. The glossy, printed menu that we get sent home is supposed to entice us into believing our children are being provided with wonderful meals. The reality is completely different. The full choice is only available for the first lot of children that go in for dinners. By the time the later ones go in, there is no choice. They get what's left - whatever no one else has wanted. My daughter has often ended up with a plain jacket potato, the size of a golf ball, with no filling as there's none left. Or she'll be told she has to have something that she really doesn't like as it's the only thing left.
Through all the time my children had school dinners they were encouraged to take something to eat at break and I had to take food for them to eat on the way hme from school. My daughter, in particular, has a tiny appetite, but even she would be hungry. I'd often wonder what I was paying for and would switch back to packed lunches.

I would have no problem in limiting packed lunches (I'm not so sure about banning them completely), but school dinners have got to improve massively before that can happen.

[ziggy]

I so agree, school dinners will need to improve!!

I used to work in a school where my grandaughter attended and i paid for her school dinners. I went into dining hall one day and was appalled at what children were eating, i wouldnt feed it to my dog

[sarah707]

My main worry is that lunches sit in little boxes and bags on trolleys in hot corridors for hours and hours - and might have been out of the fridge for even more hours - and often don't contain freezer blocks

We often collect children who say 'I'll just finish my lunch sandwich now' and open their boxes .... errrrr NO!

[Mouse]

My main worry is that lunches sit in little boxes and bags on trolleys in hot corridors for hours and hours - and might have been out of the fridge for even more hours - and often don't contain freezer blocks

We often collect children who say 'I'll just finish my lunch sandwich now' and open their boxes .... errrrr NO!

Oh, I've had that. It's even worse when the half eaten fromage frais has tipped out and congealed around the half eaten sandwich

[tulip0803]

With 2 children at school and the current school dinner prices here I would be paying £25 a week! A couple of years ago there would have been 3 children at school so that would have been £40 a week!!!!!! 2 in secondary at £15 each and one in primary at £10. I don't qualify for free school meals but most people around here cannot afford to pay that much for school lunch particularly if there is more than one child in school.


DD2 would not eat most of what they serve. I try to keep her lunch box healthy and she has popcorn instead of crisps and the chocolate penguin bar has been in her box for over a week cos she doesn't feel like eating it. She likes carrots, salad and tomatoes in her box.

[Kiddleywinks]

I got around that problem by freezing yoghurts and drinks and popping them inside the lunch box.
These days there are some really good insulated 'mini cool bag' style ones

Showing my age, but we never had anything like they do now, and it never did us any harm

[bindy]

School lunches can be awful, cheap food, no thank you, my child will be taking a packed lunch ( not full with rubbish) if she does not get into the local free school, which grow their own veg and eat good quality meat, which of course I will not begrudge paying more money for.

[Mouse]

I got around that problem by freezing yoghurts and drinks and popping them inside the lunch box.
These days there are some really good insulated 'mini cool bag' style ones

Showing my age, but we never had anything like they do now, and it never did us any harm

My children are horrified when I tell them we used to have rabbit pie

[Glitter]

Our school has lovely fresh cooked meals everyday. They are restaurant quality and the dinner ladies serve everyone (not quite silver service but almost!).
I know most schools are not like this, but the teachers all have a school dinner so they must be good.

My oldest daughter has food phobias and will only eat a dry bread bun, some pineapple and a biscuit for her packed lunch. If anyone tries to get her to eat anything else she will not eat for the rest of the day. It will be interesting to see if the school will allow her to keep bringing a packed lunch, or if she will have to starve.

[hectors house]

A lot of our primary schools did away with their kitchens to convert them into classrooms about 20+ years ago when there was a baby boom and very high intakes for several years - these schools now have meals delivered in a taxi that are prepared at the middle schools - not sure the middle schools could cook for all the primary school children each day.

[bunyip]

Ooh, now let's see.

"Tory Ministers Find New Way to Boost Usage of their Pals' Highly Profitable School Catering Business Rackets."

Yup, it's right up there with "Ursine Defecation Discovered in Arboreal Habitat."

[emma04]

All good if you get free school meals, but at £1.90 per day! I can't afford it! £50 per month and I'd still have to buy the Packed lunch stuff, as my children eat yoghurt, fruit, ham and cheese etc. at other times!

Really gets my goat when they forget about how much MORE money parents are going to have to pay!

[BuggsieMoo]

I have 4 kids to pay school dinners for if I chose - no way can I afford £8 a day on school dinners! (sometimes they are more, as their new school is £2.20 a meal). My kids have a balanced healthy lunch and they all eat it. We allow them school dinners on Friday as we sometimes have to do lots of travelling on a Friday night so I can ensure they have had at least one cooked meal. Feel free to bring it in, but look at the costs as well. x

[Rubybubbles]

Our school has lovely fresh cooked meals everyday. They are restaurant quality and the dinner ladies serve everyone (not quite silver service but almost!).
I know most schools are not like this, but the teachers all have a school dinner so they must be good.

.

Same here :-) we have eaten in the school canteen too and the food is lovely. But then they go to private so the cost is taken within school fees xx

[covgalxxx]

I was on free school lunches when my daughter 1st went to school never complained once about the food, then I moved out of the city to a little town and school is posh but in my dd eyes the food was not very nice a week she was on it and had to move to pack lunch, she said there roast potatoes tasted like fairy liquid, that was enough for me to switch, so if they ban pack lunches my daughter coming home, I'm not paying what nearly £10 week for food she won't eat, having a laugh xx

[Petshrinklj]

I wouldn't be happy with that. It's too expensive for my son to have school diners everyday. His school makes a big thing about lunch boxes having to be healthy (which my kids lunches are) but then serve school dinners with suaasges and chips and cakes and stuff for pudding.

[AliceK]

My DS has a school lunch every day, his choice, but the new catering company they bought in last Sept are rubbish and a lot of the meals he now wont eat at school so on those days (usually 1 day a week) he will have a filled jacket potato which is an option every day. My DD however with her limited diet would not eat a hot school dinner so she takes a packed lunch. If they banned them I would have no choice but to bring her home for lunch otherwise she would actually starve. She will happily sit in the dining hall for the full hour and not eat if she doesn't like it.

xxxx

[Bumble Beez]

Here they have brought in 'school packed lunches' which cost the same as a cooked school lunch. My boys have tried them out today and were pleasantly surprised but I would still prefer to send a packed lunch I think.
My boys have school dinners on a Thursday and Friday as its their favourites on those days...
At my boys school too they have a chilled area where the lunches are kept until lunch

Sarah x