School meals in Poland

Really jon, who is "we" ?


I thought you said we were talking about Poland ?


Nothing is free jon.
Didn't you just say in your above quote that "they need to be very well funded ?"
Where do those FREE FUNDS come from jon ?
Do you even know what you post or do you really think you can bamboozle people with your baffling b.s. ?

Just to make it clear to anyone who doesn't have a clue about life in Poland: social welfare finances school dinners if necessary.

I will say Poles in general need to eat more fish. You have the Baltic sea and rivers, yet you haven't tapped much into pescetarian food.

School meals are.

As Kaprys pointed out, society provides them.

Kaprys dear, did you say that school meals are free?

Being a Socialist I can understand why you are so adamant about denying that "Nothing is free" besides the air you breath.
kapry pointed out that social welfare pays for those lunches so they are not free.
I don't have to live in Poland to understand that ms. so proud to be Polish.


So you are now claiming that "society' pays for the school lunches ?
Who is society jon ?
Nothing is free and neither are the school lunches as society pays for them just as you claimed.

It seems we have two issues here now. One is the support for kids that don't have proper food at home and the other the quality of food served in schools.



As far as I'm aware the school dinners in Poland are subsided for those who are in need too. Would have to look into the particulars. If you want to look at it from a poor family point of view I would 100% chose Polish menu. I know one for sure-if I were a hungry kid that didn't have breakfast and possibly won't have dinner I would prefer a warm two course meal to a sandwich. And in such situation meat meal beats vegetarian hands down- one wants to make sure such kid gets enough calories, fats etc. for almost the whole day. If the parent can't make jam on toast or a bowl of cereal it's doubtful they will make beef stew for dinner.

But let's admit it- UK and I assume Ireland have great support for struggling families and in that respect hats off.


Sorry but even milk was too much it seems from the menu you posted... I was even tempted to take the p*as that one has to sign up to get a glass of water but stopped myself. :)

Of course the meal is better than nothing but the same things week in and week out? In the Polish manu you have much more variety and that is just one week as it's not repetitive like in yours.


Probably the same as with his lazy ass father...


For the ones in need, yes. Applications are done through MOPS.

Healthy eating doesn't start so late so I managed to get my hands on genuine meals for nurseries.

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Everybody.


School meals are free to those in need.

In Poland, despite severe budgetary constraints, society does its best to alleviate poverty. Good school meals are a basic, especially as the duty of every school is to give every child in that school the best start in life that they can.

The milk isn't mentioned but they get it.

The cost of the lunches provided is ten euros per child per week btw, just as a matter of interest.


Yes I agree. In winter definitely. But it needs to pay attention to the amount of fat and salt and not rely too heavily on red meat. That's the problem with the Polish menu, way too fatty and salty, way too much pork.


In this case it was a single mother. Nice girl, got pregnant in her teens then lost her mother to breast cancer when she was nineteen and simply couldn't cope and was still grieving for her mother. Had no contact with her father who left when she was a kid, no relations to help. We managed to help her though and she got herself together. The kid was a lovely little boy, very well behaved and loved school.

Yes, a wise society invests in young people and does things like provide meals for children of poorer (or less functional) parents.

A foolish society declares it's the parents' responsibility to feed their kids and lets children from vulnerable backgrounds to their own devices (and then pays for that dearly later on with overflowing jails).

The way the US treats vulnerable people is almost unimaginably cruel - they're left on their own as they try to figure out the rules and if they make a mistake it's straight tot the most brutal prison system in the developed world....

The real fools are those who are proud of this cruelty...


Kids need lots of fat for their brains to develop properly. The brain, I repeat, is a _very_ expensive organ that needs lots of fuel.

Children need adequate fat certainly but they don't need fried foods five days a week. And there are a growing number of obese children all over the developed world.

If parents pay for the meals, are they free to children?


Eating fat is not so dangerous at all given that fat does not dominate your diet. As soon as the propaganda on reducing fat to the extreme or eliminating it completely - succeded in the US, the number of overweight or obese people started to rise sharply after people decided to replace fat with carbohydrates. Fat isn't the culprit at all and cutting on it in the diet actually makes things worse.


They consume more carbohydrates (sugar in all forms including bread) and move around less.

With a kid that doesn't eat properly the rest of the time that wouldn't be my priority. Groving body needs the energy


Oh I know things happen. It was more a response to the perception that it's always the mother, never the father.


Not even later on . Quite often it costs more to remove the child not to mention the later consequences. The court, social workers, payments to the foster parents...While quite often half of those money would sort the situation out without causing life long trauma for the kids.

Some people just don't see a difference between poor, unlucky family and a dysfunctional one.


? If they qualify for help the parents don't have to pay so I don't know what you mean

Well now Ziemowit, quite a few cardiologists would disagree with you. And I mentioned before about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If a fatty liver is ignored it gets worse and eventually kills you. If you cut down on fat, the liver actually becomes less fatty and can recover. I agree that if people move and use up the fat they consume, it's not so dangerous. But the traditional Polish diet was eaten at a time when most people worked on the land and were physically active. Nowadays people are largely sedentary and don't need so much fat.


But as an educator, you need to try to lay down healthy eating habits early for the sake of the adult that the child will become.

Exactly jon, "everybody" pays for those free meals so in essence they are only free to the beneficiary.


I want to push your button here Lenka and say that the father is the bread winner who buys the food so it is the lazy ass mother's job to prepare it.

I won't though as this is not a laughing matter as in your next remark a light bulb went on from my youth.


It was no secret that here in the U.S. that the Polish look at children different then other countries.
It seemed that with the Polish, children just happened and aren't really planned.
Children should be seen but not heard and have a job by the time they are twelve to support themselves.
As long as you have a society that accepts alcoholism as a norm nothing is going to change anytime soon.
I personally could not deprive an animal from food that was hungry and will never understand how a father or mother could abuse their own child with such neglect.

Vitamin D is so important in a child's development.


Tradition carried over from the days of war when the food supply was scarce.
How did my Polish grandfather live into his late 80's and my Polish grandmother live into her late 90's when all they ate was potato pancakes with bacon grease smeared on them.

That's the whole point. That they are free.


It's both really. Firefighting, where the need is immediate, together with fostering good eating habits for the future.

Your point about trauma to the kids is an essential one. No child should suffer because of the perceived failings of the parents, and a lot of hard work is needed to truly break the vicious circle of deprivation.

@Atch
I don't think that would apply to Polish schools only.
I'm sorry but I just can't believe schools around the world everywhere but Poland offer superhealthy menus.
Is fried food really served on everyday basis in Polish schools? Frying hundreds of pieces of meat seems quite inconvienient.
As for sandwiches, keep in mind what they'll put in bread, cheese or ham. And I somehow doubt sandwiches served at schools don't contain salt or sugar.

True but not at the cost of a kid getting hungry and risking malnutrition. How long will a sandwich with just veggies last you? Assuming you didn't have a breakfast and won't have a warm meal later?

Generally I would be all for a bit lighter meals for kids that have some other nutritional meal but for some...

Btw to everybody - any thoughts on the nursery menu?

Not true jon, the point was that nothing is free just like those free meals you speak of.
Someone has to pay for them so they are not free as a meal in itself.
They only become free after they have been paid for by society.
You seem to having a horrible time perceiving that fact.


Poland is notorious for always being twenty to thirty years behind times in these priority areas jon.

School meals are, for those who need that.


Who?

jon stop your trolling as you have answered your own question repeatedly in this thread.

So I guess the correct answer to your Baiting question is, SOCIETY pays for the free meals jon.
No please stop with your non stop trolling and baiting.

Normal people understand that. It's only misanthropic freaks that need to shout it every 34 seconds....

To get a troll to understand that sometimes requires repeating it several times until the abnormal people that Bait get it.
Being the muckraker freak that you are you should understand that maffy.
Now get back on topic.

Yes, EVERYBODY knows that (caps specially for you as you seem to love them). And most developed societies agree to help the kids in need.

No one pays any attention to you in real life, do they? Why do you think that is?

Of course they do.
Just look how popular I am here and how unpopular you are here.
You are just being jealous again.
Now get back on topic before I cuff you one.

Of course. The well-being and future growth of children is something that can never be skimped on, can never be compromised and can never be left to chancE.

The school meals programme in Poland is a good one, as it is in the U.K. too. Some of the measures (like 'forbidden foods' for packed lunches in the U.K). can seem draconian however ensuring good health in children, inculcating good eating habits, tackling childhood obesity, prolonging life-expectancy and encouraging a good relation to food tat the kids will practise and pass on to their own kids is invaluable.

I'm arguing (and I believe Maf too) that it's not as much draconian as ineffective. Convincing, not forcing is the way I believe.

That takes a lot of work and a lot of time; we're looking at generational issues. The generation who grew up in the U.K. with rationing during and after WWII are probably the healthiest generation ever. We want to replicate this, and it isn't easy.

It depends. If it's part of education, rather than just saying 'don't eat that, it's not good for you', it can be quite effective.

For anyone who's interested, I found this report on school meals in Europe, produced by the Polish Eurydice unit (Education Information Network in Europe). Unfortunately they don't discuss Poland! But it's otherwise very interesting. They actually mention what I was talking about above, that is the importance of discussing food and nuitrition with kids from the earliest age as part of the school food policy. I'm accustomed to that from the Irish system, so I can tell you first hand that even quite young children are quite happy to cut down on junk food and enjoy it as a 'treat' while choosing the healthier options when they can. In two of the schools where I taught, there were cookery classes for parents, run by the more capable cooks amongst the parents themselves, where they taught their peers how to make nourishing meals for their kids. It was a big success. And some of the younger mothers really got on board with it and started making proper dinners a couple of times a week instead of just grabbing a frozen pizza.

Anyway, here's the report.

//eurydice.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/meals_raport_ENG.pdf