School Lunches

[NewMama22]

I've been getting complaints from madam that she doesn't like her lunch any more, and to be fair, its coming home half eaten every day. Everything I've suggested as replacement has been greeted with either "boring" or "ewww", so I'm hoping I can get some ideas here.

Her current lunch is
2 slices of soda bread with a tiny bit of butter
Banana
Carrot sticks
Baby Bell cheese
Small bottle of water and a carton of natural 100% pure apple juice.

Any suggestions? She absolutely will not eat yoghurt under any circumstances, since she found out its made from milk (which she also refuses to drink) because a kid in her class told her that milk is cow urine (to put it politely) and no amount of convincing will get her to eat or drink it. So milk and yoghurt aren't options.

What do your kids take, or what would you give your kids if you had them?

Thanks x

[NorthernRose]

Pitta pockets with humous
Bread sticks
Red pepper
Cucumber
Grapes
Wraps with salad
Pasta salad

I'm speaking with no experience here so I'm sure a lot of those are really impractical!

[HBMoose]

I think that red pepper, cucumber, grapes and wraps are a good shout if she'll eat them.

Will she eat school dinners? The schools dinners in the schools I have worked in over the last couple of years are amazing now, I actually get a little envious reading out the options to the kids during the register

[katb12002]

Josh loves his school dinners. On the days he doesn't like what they are having he has - cheese, cucumber and ham sandwich. 1 apple 1 banana, choc yoghurt and a drink of blackcurrant(his autism means he wants exactly the same each time). When Charlie was younger she didn't like sandwiches so she would take either a small mixed salad in a tub or tuna and sweetcorn mixed, along with cucumber sticks and a handful of cherry tomatoes. You could also try little pasta mixes (pasta, tuna, sweetcorn, philadelphia).

[pinksparkle98]

I don't have packed lunches I have school diners now I'm at secondary school because they're a lot nicer but I used to refuse to eat them at primary school, my sister takes packed lunches though and she likes to have these things that are called fruit flakes, they're little bits of dried fruit coated in dried yogurt (don't know whether that would come under the yogurt ban as it's dried and she might not realise what it is). She also sometimes has rice or pasta instead of sandwiches or whatever, and you can mix whatever you want into it really, chopped hotdog, prawns, tuna, ham, sweetcorn, peas, peppers, spring onion, anything she will eat really.

You could also give her something to dip her carrot sticks in, like humous or low fat salad cream, or some other things instead like baby sweetcorn, baby pea pods, peppers cut into strips, cherry tomatoes, bread sticks or cucumber sticks. Also my sister has a rather large variety of fruits as it's her next best option from sweets bevause she's not allowed them, a couple are Dragon Fruit, Cherries, Kiwi, Mango, Passion Fruit, Strawberries, Grapes, Sharon Fruit, Blackberries, Blue berries, Apples, Bananas, Pears and peaches.

[Louise123]

How about cooked, cold sausages with a little pot of ketchup (sounds gross but F likes them!) Quiche, savoury muffins or bagels?

Also pineapple chunks always go down well here and flapjack (sweet, filling and full of slow releasing energy)

[NewMama22]

The peppers have been a huge hit, she's even asking for them as snacks in between meals! She has also started taking ryvita crackers with a tiny bit of Philadelphia She's eaten much more than usual this week, which is no harm as she's on the 9th centile for weight and height for her age and I do anything I can to get her to eat as much as possible.