Healthy packed lunches 45pc more expensive than less nutritious versions, research finds

Even the “healthy” stuff seems to be expensive pre packaged junk (proper corn wtf)

Could definitely get those costs down

>four portions of fruit and vegetables incorporated into the healthy lunch.

This makes me feel like a bad parent. 4 portions just in lunch?

The first nursery we went our son to were utter Nazi’s on this.

He is autistic (which we knew about by this time but were still waiting for a diagnosis) and would only eat certain things, luckily when he was this age most of them were healthy – he is a teenager now and this is no longer the case…

Anyway, he used to love these organic “school bars” (if anyone remember those?) they were way better than normal school bars, not nearly as processed, basically fruit puree which is left to dry in the sun. We used to send him in with one of those along with a couple other forms of fruit, usually grapes and strawberries, and then the rest of a healthy lunch (no crisps, chocolate or Mr Kiplings style baked goods).

The nursery refused to let him eat them because it “wasn’t healthy enough”, even though:

1) It was the only “unhealthy” thing in his packed lunch

2) It was still a healthy food.

Apparently their policy forbade such an item *but they did allow boxes of raisins* as a “dried fruit” style option. Which oddly enough were massively more unhealthy than the fruit bars we were sending him in with!

I printed off 6 double sided sheets of food research showing how nutritionally crap raisins are compared to the organic low processed fruit bars we were sending him in with and they still wouldn’t budge.

There were other issues at this nursery where they were overstepping their authority and we ended up changing nursery within a couple months of starting there, but this part of the debacle always stuck with me for some reason.

> Unhealthy lunches for the research were made up of white bread with chocolate spread instead of wholemeal with cheese; flavoured yoghurt rather than a plain, unsweetened version; and snacks such as crisps as opposed to the four portions of fruit and vegetables incorporated into the healthy lunch.

Well 4 portions of fruit and veg vs 1 packet of crisps isn’t a like-for-like comparison at all. What happens to the comparison if you do something more realistic like subbing in 1 banana for the crisps?

Oh and my work lunch today is homemade lentil soup. It doesn’t get much cheaper than that, and quite healthy too.

Most people don’t know what ‘Healthy’ means, and that includes Public Health England, NHS, Dietitian’s, and Nutritionists. Healthy food would be food that gives us vitality, and is a species appropriate, species specific diet. We are designed by positive and negative selection pressures to feed on animal fat and protein. Vegetables and fruit are not human food, they are not healthy.

The human body needs complete protein and fat, the form we need it comes from animals. For proper brain function we need EPA and DHA Omega 3, not ALA that comes from plants. We need Vitamin A in the animal form retinol, not the plan form carotene. There are 16 essential minerals and 13 essential vitamins. You will find everything you need in an animal based diet, in the correct form, in high quantities. Gram for gram, liver contains 4x the vitamin C of an apple, plus if you are eating an animal based diet carbohydrate intake will be extremely low, so Vitamin C won’t be competing with the glucose to get into the cell on the GLUT4 receptor so vitamin C requirement goes down considerably.

Feels most people are sick now, and it’s because we are not longer eating a species appropriate diet. Kids who cannot concentrate anymore because we put them on a sugar rollercoaster all day long with bread, cereal, grains, fruit instead of eggs fro breakfast in butter. All the ALA instead of EPA and DHA for their brains to form correctly.

Most can get away with some of this non food as a compliment, but not in the quantities and frequency we do now.

If they want cheaper healthier lunches they should provide fridges. Mostly I got shelf-stable stuff like crisps, dried fruit and chocolate for lunch because meat, yogurt and vegetables would have been minging by lunchtime. I know you can get ice packs and insulated lunchboxes but that’s more expensive stuff you have to buy and another thing you have to remember to do consistently (freeze the pack).

It’s only more expensive because people charge that much……the government gets subsidised food, and alchol in parliament….most factories have subsidised cafeterias, the military and police get subsidised food….so why not schools…..or better yet, free…..stop the freebies for politicians like expenses and grace and favour houses, lower thier wages and spend more on schools…..

I get it costs more.
Though does it really cost more to make an existing meal look appetising. I keep hearing from my kids their lunch looks like vomit and the staffs attitude is awful when challenged.