Food At Child Care

We popped in to the child care centre that we'll probably send DD to and DP happened to notice the lunch 'menu' on the blackboard.

That particular day it was "sausage in bread".

It has been bugging me ever since because I'm a food nazi. I just don't think sausage in bread is a healthy lunch. OK, it's not the worse thing that DD could eat by any means and it's certainly not going to harm her if it's a one-off and it's balanced with more nutritional meals during the week ... but still, where are the veggies, where is the fruit?

So ... my question is what sort of meals does your child care center offer and do you have the option of supplying your own food?

i am the cook in a 85 place centre we have a 6 week rotating menu.
snags come up once in that 6 weeks always served with salad or veg
they are required to provide 1/2 the daily requirements
so 1 serve of fruit and 2.5 serves of veg etc.
ask them to see the rest of the menu.

today's lunch was tuna & corn bake with fruit & icecream for dessert

Our lunch menus are available to view for the week, so it makes it easy to menu plan at home too. Occaisionally they'll have something like chicken nuggets or fish fingers for lunch, but that's balanced with mashed veg and fresh fruit.

They also like "multinational" food, so there's nachos, curries, (vego & meat!), bolognese, stirfries etc. We have a brill chef ...

Sausage inna bun for a daycare lunch? That is dreadful. What snacks are the children given?

DS's daycare has "healthy" cereal and toast for breakfast, fruit as a mid-morning snack, cooked lunch (meat, potatoes and two veg sort of thing, sometimes a casserole or pasta but a basic full meal - yes, the odd fish fingers, but DS has those at home every now and then too), then sandwiches, veggie sticks (ie raw carrot and cucumber and also cheese) and jam tarts or something similar. They provide all of that. I'd be most upset if they were giving DS sausage inna bun for lunch! For one thing he'd be starving, forget a nutrition lapse for the moment!

DS has his FULL complement of fruit and veg at nursery, he has enough food for the day there and sometimes hardly touches his dinner. But I'd expect fruit and veg at every meal from a nursery. Yes, sometimes I'm so tired that DH does pizza and garlic bread for us all, but nursery have paid caterers/ccoks (or should have).

Is that a CMOT Dubbler reference there Ryn?! It's what i thought of immediately :)

Is the menu for the parents to read or the kids to have read to them? I wondered if maybe there will be veggies on the plate that they don't mention on the board as kids can be so picky and might have convinced themselves by lunchtime that it's all yukky because they don't like salad/peas/carrots and thus they don't put it up so it's a surprise instead?

I'd be annoyed if that represented the usual standard, but snags once in a while wouldn't be a problem ( i gave DD pizza tonight too! I circumnavigated guilt and scurvy by putting peas, sugarsnaps and brocolli on the side...) LOL.

Bx

hmmmm eeek. At FDC sometimes they have one item lunchs, last week Jovie had:

Monday: Corn cobs Day
Tuesday: Pea and Ham soup

So they aren't necessarily balanced. Lizzie has heaps of kids with allergies, so wheat is one and my girls are allergic to dairy so they have another one. It makes things hard, but the kids love corn cob days.

ours has fruit for morning tea, sandwiches for afternoon tea (unless there is a special homemade slice or muffin or birthday cake). they have had the odd "sausage sizzle day "which my 4 yr old informs me they have salad stuff to go on your bread as well on those days - its usually when they are celebrating something. (most days are things that either have veges in them or veges with them eg quiche, sheperds pie, sausages mash and veges, spaghetti and occasionally chicken nuggets and veges, stirfry etc)

I agree with ellibugs that this would be an infrequent meal andwould most likely be served with some veg that hasn't been written up. The children would then most likely have fresh fruit afterwards or for afternoon tea. Ask to see the whole menu if you're concerned.

At our centre, we can provide food for DD at any time (but don't get anything off the fee). We do send food for her on the days they have something for lunch she can't have (they always adjust the meal for her but if it is something like a pasta sauce with tomato as the base, we just send a replacement meal otherwise it is too hard to amend for her - did that make sense?). There is never a problem with us sending food for her.

Also, at our centre, there is always veggies available. Even when the meal is something like tuna pasta bake, there are veggies on the side. I think this is because they have to do veggies for the babies anyway...

HTH

MG