School meals in UK

bonnieUK · Post by **bonnieUK** » Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:04 pm

I mentioned in another post that I was impressed by the healthy lunch menu at the school of a friend's children, all healthy real food, actual vegetables and no deep fried chicken nuggets and chips in sight! (and no "ketchup is an honorary vegetable" nonsense

)

I did notice though that desserts are served daily and considered normal, but these were traditional stuff like homemade puddings/cakes, custard and fruit salad which I remember eating at primary school too.

I then saw this:

https://www.gov.uk/school-meals-healthy ... -standards

Seems schools are turning back to "real food" which is great. I'm not a parent (yet) so I don't know if schools actually comply with these guidelines or not, I find it hard to imagine a school canteen without deep fried something lurking somewhere and vending machines full of kitkats, snickers, wotsits, coke and fanta (how I remember Secondary school - the vending machines were a novelty so we went crazy for a while)

Dale · Post by **Dale** » Sun Jun 22, 2014 8:05 am

My son (now 18 ) usually had school dinners and he loved them! They seemed to be quite healthy meals to me, proper cooked dinners with veg, but I think a lot of parents were put off as they were quite expensive. I felt they were better quality than I could provide as a packed lunch, so I was happy to pay (well, maybe "happy" is an exaggeration, but I felt it was a fair price). Yes, they did have daily desserts, but for my son I was glad to get some extra calories in as he is on the slim side! His food at nursery was even better - they had a resident cook, and everything was home-cooked and quite imaginative, encouraging the children to try new foods. I think it's a shame that school meals are so maligned!

chomp0 · Post by **chomp0** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 8:04 pm

Yeah I was quite jealous of my youngest brothers school menu when I first saw it a few years ago. When I was in school I'd usually have oven chips, 'pizza' (half a burger bun with cheese on top), a cupcake and a small coke. The only vegetables were beans and peas which I don't like. They also had chicken nuggets, fish fingers and stuff like that but I didn't eat much meat as a child.

The best thing about the menu at my little brothers school is that they have different meals each day for two weeks, so they won't get sick of stuff. My brother doesn't appreciate it though, he brings a packed lunch. I'm sure he would prefer to have the food from my school in the 90's and eat chips and drink coke everyday.