It`s not just school dinners thta need to be healthy.

I took my grandkids out the other day, and instead of going to MaccyDs, or Burgerking, we went into a proper restaurant.

And under kids meals were sausage, chips and beans. Fish fingers, chips and beans. etc etc.

When asked if they could do a small portion of the adult meal for the kids, they said no.

We left.

Closer inspection at most restaurants menu boards reveal that nearly everyone only offers unhealthy food as kids meals. Very few mention that they do "normal" food in kids sizes.

Truu, kids only wanna eat like burger and chips though and most restuarants cater for that.

quote:

Originally posted by Angelus the Vampire:
It`s not just school dinners thta need to be healthy.

I took my grandkids out the other day, and instead of going to MaccyDs, or Burgerking, we went into a proper restaurant.

And under kids meals were sausage, chips and beans. Fish fingers, chips and beans. etc etc.

When asked if they could do a small portion of the adult meal for the kids, they said no.

We left.

Closer inspection at most restaurants menu boards reveal that nearly everyone only offers unhealthy food as kids meals. Very few mention that they do "normal" food in kids sizes.

I find it very frustrating how slowly companies are willing to change. We went to a well known - Cuddly bear entertaining caravan park last week for a cheap weekend before the kids went back to school. Their menu was positively barbaric. They have never heard of a fresh ingredient I tell you.

Local pub/restaurant places seem to be getting better by mixing in carrots and swede with mash; grilled chicken and offering salad instead of the usual beans but they've a long way to go and we don't eat out half as often as we would if they had decent meals on the menu. My kids 'do' make healthy choices when they can have what they want. It's sad that their needs aren't being met by these places.

My two are now luckily old enough to choose from the adults menu. A lot of the kids menu stuff looks far from being quality items of food.

Tripe, Spam and Haggis

It's disgusting that restaurants still insist on serving unhealthy food to kids and are reluctant to offer small portions of adult meals.

When I took my kids to a restaurant, they were presented with kids menus but wanted adult meals. I had an idea to buy adult meals and break them apart and share them so they got the food they wanted in portions they wanted. The restaurants didn't seem to mind but one day when I was breaking apart meals and putting food onto my kid's plates, a customer walked over and had a right go at me about my table manners including references to pigs. I told him to sod off at the top of my voice and my kids told him to do the same. One of my kids pointed a steak knife at him which must have been deemed threatening behaviour because in 5 minutes time the police marched in and arrested me and my kids. I was cautioned but have never used a restaurant that doesn't specifically cater for my kids again.

A couple of years ago I read in a magazine that kids are increasingly wanting the "exotic" meals in preference to the burger chips and beans fare at restaurants. Hopefully the restaurants that realise this will succeed and those who impose junkfood on the kids will go out of business in a similar way that Berni did because tastes changed and fewer wanted steak and black forest cake when they dined out.

I don't even ask for a kids menu in a lot of places. If we go for a pub lunch in the summer i buy the kids an adult ploughmans lunch. Sundays a roast dinner, but last sunday i paid for 2 kids roast dinner and extortionate £8, bearing in mind my children are 4 and 2. The 4 yr old wont eat meat and the 2 yr old doesn't particularly like roast potatoes unless they are mine, i could have had one kids meal and split it. Not that i'm tight but i don't have much money and we don't get to eat out often.

quote:

Originally posted by Monteiro:
One of my kids pointed a steak knife at him which must have been deemed threatening behaviour because in 5 minutes time the police marched in and arrested me and my kids.

Lets get this straight, your kid who wasn't even big enough to finish an adult meal and happened to be holding a steak knife was 'threatening'?

Sounds to me like one person needed to act like an adult and it wasn't you or the kids, perhaps he wanted the kiddy menu himself and had been refused?

I'm assuming the knife wasn't loaded at the time....

Sorry Im sure it wasn't funny at the time but I sometimes wonder what the country is coming to.

Yeah, this is a pretty bad problem. The kids menu isn't any better than fast food. I may have been more adventurous than most kids, but past the age of 6, I always ordered off the adult menue. Most of the time, I would split a meal with someone else, but sometimes I would order and appetizer (since they were smaller than a whole meal). The person who said you had poor table manners for splitting your meal with your child is insane. Even to this day, I split meals with other people I'm eating with, and almost every restaurant I've been to allows this. Some restaurants even put it on two separate plates for you, if you ask. Others will put a little more food on (for an extra fee of course).