School lunches

Teachers talk to kids, very often - and know a lot about the life of kids at home, including what they eat, often.

Looking at all the evidence and medical and educational research re poor diet and current and future health, and the educational impact of such- I cannot see how you can't see that poor diet is no less a form of abuse- with much more of an impact in many ways than being exposed to second hand smoke, and so many things which are accepted as forms of 'abuse'.

Why should the 'State' protect kids from second hand smoke, for instance - and at the same time saying that exposing to poor diet on a long term basis is 'none of their business'. One could say that excessive physical punishment such as smacking, may well have much less repercussion on a child's health, educational achievement and future chances.

So is it that we think it is our duty to protect children from some form of abuse, and not this one - with possibly much deeper future impact??? Tell me, what is the difference Bags?

That's OK Bags My own children's lunch boxes were not models of perfection. My children had a substantial breakfast and and good evening meal. As far as lunch boxes went, I always thought that what they ate was doing them more good than stuff they didn't eat. So, typically they had a sandwich (white bread - brown would have been binned), perhaps a small Kit-Kat, a piece of fruit, crisps, or worse ... Monster Munch etc.

I think I'd be considered a bad mother now!

Just realised it was a Telegraph article at the start, but there was one on the BBC online news as well.

Sorry, noodles, crossed posts.

But teachers don't know what kids eat at home. That was noodles point. And anyway, it's none of their business.

I understand the Jamie Oliver connection, and that some teachers have lunch duties. I'm sure you've seen many more lunch boxes than I have, but that being so, what sort of things are these middle class children being given to eat? Is it the sort of thing people are complaining about generally - crisps, Kit-Kats, sweet fizzy drinks etc, or something different.

Not everyone agrees that adding grains to meat makes it more nutritious. Followers of the paleo or primal diet (I don't) would disagree, for instance. While I don't follow such a diet (too fond of bread, and flapjack), I think they have a point.

It is also argued by such people that we don't need to eat fruit every day, nor even every week. I think their concern is that fruit contains too much sugar. When I looked at the picture which came with the BBC article at the start of the thread, my first thought was that there was far too much fruit in that child's 'supposed' lunchbox. The poor kid would have constant diarrhoea with that amount of fruit every day, not to mention the problem of fruit acids and sugar on her teeth. I didn't think it was a particularly 'healthy' lunchbox at all.

Teachers know, as many eat with the kids every day - which I did for all the years I taught. And the reason why teachers are concerned. Jamie Oliver knows, because he studied what kids ate at school too.

I'm not disputing your information granjura, but how do you know what these children are being fed?

I have absolutely no idea what my neighbours feed their children, either at family meals, or in lunchboxes and wouldn't know how to find out (other than peeping through windows).

It is a myth that nutritious and fresh food is very expensive btw.
Really.

And poor nutrition is classless - I know many middle class children who are fed a very poor diet too.

Excellent news Bags - the lower meat content with added rusk is fine. As said I always add some oats to extend, and it is actually better for you.

Things may well have improved significantly since the recent meat scandal- I hope. There are plenty of burgers out there still, I'm sure, with some more dubious ingredients. McDonalds burgers are indeed good quality.

What do you call the best? The best nutritious food does not have to be expensive, I can assure you. Adding a large tin of lentils to bolognese makes it go twice as far, for instance, with added good protein - and so does a large tin of baked beans.

You cannot sensibly ban packed lunches.
Looking at the above it seems still that the key is the lack of a balanced diet. Cereals packed full of vitamins but 36% sugar. Fizzy sweetened drinks with no real nutrition. High fat food every day with few vegetables and fruit. far too many sweet foods.

I feel that parents need to encourage their children from weaning to eat
fruit and veg. The problem is lots of their parents don't eat this stuff either.

There will always be some children who do not take a good diet and have particular difficulties with food but with with the majority, unless parents get it right from the start I think that by the time the child is 5 and their tastes have not been challegened with fruit and veg etc its getting a bit late.

Serving good vegetable soup for school dinners perhaps?

Here you are. Just the facts:

Ingredients: 100% pure USDA inspected beef; no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper).

I think your post was unjustifiably alarmist, jura, as are other comments slating burgers.

Just had a wee google. Tesco's cheapest frozen burgers contain the following:
Irish Beef (58%), Onion (12%), Beef Fat, Rusk (Wheat Flour; Salt), Water, Soya Protein Isolate, Salt, Onion Powder, Yeast, Sugar, Pepper Extract, Barley Malt Extract, Garlic Powder, Onion Extract.

That doesn't look like 'rubbish' to me. OK, it hasn't got as high a meat content as the best burger, but it's still perfectly edible and nourishing food. Not everyone can afford the best.

Going to see if I can find the ingredients listing for Macdonald's burgers now.

Just depends what goes in said burgers, there are burgers... and burgers!

Having burgers for lunch today - home-made and I know what is in them! Fresh ground beef, an egg, spices and herbs and a handful of oats to make the meat go further. We often had those as a family. Cheap frozen burgers are made with total rubbish, sadly.

It's all very nice saying parents should have the choice to feed their children what they wish, but a permanent diet of poor food does have immense repercussion on kids and later adults in so many ways. So what is the answer, I do not know but something has to be done. The consequences of doing nothing are too dire not to.

Gove has, according to the Inde "joined war on packed lunches"
He has no scruples when it comes to headline grabbing.
But he has no money to provide better funding for lunches - we are just entering a phase of austerity and spending cuts that will make the last few years look like land of milk and honey.

Yes of course when Jamie O highlighted some of the worst aspect and it stopped schools selling twizzlers sugary drinks
I think JO really wanted a committment to spend more money on them and improve the quality of food, not make a lot of rules about what was not allowed.
The problem came when a committee/quango (the schools food trust) was appointed to draw up a long list of rules that had to be applied in all circumstances.

Yes, the end result, the 'what ends up on the plate' matters a great deal. I'd like to think some lessons have been learnt along the way. Conceptually I like the idea. A reasonable first step in re-addressing the whole 'school dinners' debate.

Won't that depend on the quality of the food - if it is put out to tender, the history of out-sourcing to the lowest bidder, cf hospital cleaning, does not inspire me with confidence.

It may well be more kite-flying, but if the idea does fly, then I think it's a good idea.

I am listening to Today on Radio 4, and it was reported that offering free school meals to all primary school children, starting in certain very deprived areas, is being considered. More kite-flying?

Add comment | Report | Private message whenim64 Sat 13-Jul-13 07:38:35
Just a quiet word of support for Jamie Oliver, who came into the school meals fray because he was shocked at what was being cooked, or warmed up, for children. Turkey twizzlers, mechanically extracted meat slurry that you wouldn't give your dog, over-emphasis on chips, poor nutritional balance, and meals provided for less than the prison system is allowed. He took on the politicians and they ate him alive. To his credit, he raised awareness about the lowering of standards for school meals. The bureaucracy that governs what kids can eat has done more damage than anything else, but that can't be attributed to him. He has commented recently that he will never get involved in the politics of school food again.

I agree that there is too much fuss being made about what children eat, where they are healthy and not under-nourished. Jam butties and the odd Kit-Kat shouldn't make anyone throw their hands up in horror, nor the occasional trip to McDonalds. It's the kids who fall through the net that need the support and better quality food. If a perfectly healthy child has crisps in their lunch box, what's it got to do with anyone else? When an under-nourished looking child has junk food that will not sustain them, by all means intervene and find ways to improve their diet, and do it in a way that doesn't stigmatise them.........and stop sending letters saying that kids who spend ther leisure time charging round and bouncing on trampolines happen to fall outside the agreed measurement by a sqillionth need to have their weight monitored. Do these people ever look at the child before wasting a stamp?

Isn't it true that all the big supermarket chains use only halal meat because it would be too expensive to separate it out from non-halal?

It's a case of stick your oar in where you have the illusion of control, and it costs while, back at ranch, ConDems have caved into industry pressure re packaging of cigarettes and minimum pricing on alcohol.
Absent lots of schools serve halal compliant school lunches these days otherwise they could not comply with their obligation to provide FSM for those entitled. And let's not forget that if the majority have packed lunches the poor old FSM kids tend to get an inferior service because numbers go down.