The case is strange, but it is possible that the school was still guided by the principles of common sense.
There are always many different stories on parenting forums on the Internet. One of them literally shocked us: the child was forbidden to eat in the dining room the food he brought with him from home. Ridiculous, isn’t it? After all, food in school canteens does not always awaken the appetite. It often happens that the other way around: you can’t look at porridge without tears, and the casserole is more like a dirty sponge for washing dishes.
“They said it was forbidden, and literally pushed out of the dining room,” writes the boy’s mother. It turned out that this was not an isolated case. In some educational institutions, children with lunch boxes are generally deployed at the entrance. What is the problem here?
In accordance with current legislation, there is no direct prohibition on home-cooked meals at school. But the headmaster of the school, where the boy was forbidden to eat his own food, referred to the SanPin norms. The organization of catering in educational institutions really has its own requirements. To date, SanPiN 2.4.5.2409−08 has been established, which contains a whole list of foods and dishes that cannot be fed to students at school. It’s not just that, but so that children do not get poisoned and do not catch infections. If you look at this list, then it includes, among other things, food prepared the day before, and any food products of home (non-industrial) production.
If we strictly interpret this standard, it turns out that schools do not have the right to sell homemade products in the canteen and canteen. And they cannot forbid a child to eat what he brought with him. But the schools seem to be just playing it safe.
“If a child gets poisoned by something, the school will be tortured with checks. And go and prove that this is not the fault of the canteen, but homemade food, – explained to healthy-food-near-me.com in one of the schools. – We are responsible for the child while he is within the walls of the educational institution. If something happens to him, then we are to blame. “
Guided by this logic, some schools are adding food prohibition clauses to the charter – the same as on dyed hair and makeup. On the one hand, this approach is understandable. On the other hand, there are vending machines with chocolates, chips and other rubbish in schools. It has been said more than once that children cannot eat such things. And no one is afraid that the child will get health problems by regularly buying food waste.
But at the same time, many believe that both machines and food to go are superfluous. The dining rooms have a decent menu.
“Most of our children eat in the canteen,” says Natalya Pobedinskaya, director of school No. 125 in Volgograd. – Many not only have breakfast, but also have dinner. You can always choose what you like best from the menu. Someone is ready to eat two servings of porridge, and someone is happy to gobble up soup from the school cafeteria. There is no ban on eating from home, but we warn both parents and children to take only healthy and fresh food for snacks. Everything should be for the good and for the health of children. “
In the United States, it’s common to come to school with a lunch box. In the UK, too.
Italian parents defended the right to independently provide schoolchildren with lunches, breakfasts and afternoon snacks. Until that moment, only students studying in Catholic or private schools and kindergartens could take food with them. There, parents fill their backpacks with only the food they deem necessary.
This year, on September 1, new recommendations for organizing children’s meals came into force in Lithuania. It is now possible to bring only healthy products to the school and avoid those that are prohibited from being sold in the school canteen and buffet. But foods containing a lot of sugar, saturated fat, trans fats, salt, carcinogens, caffeine, some food additives harmful to children are prohibited.
But in Japan, children themselves participate in providing the school with meals: they help grow vegetables for the canteen, set the table and clean up after themselves. They know where the foods they eat come from. And be sure to brush your teeth after dinner.