This forms part of the nursery Healthy Eating Policy
The nursery is committed to playing a key role in promoting healthy eating, following all current legislation and guidelines.
Children’s diet is central to their overall health and development and mealtimes provide valuable opportunities for social interaction and learning experiences.
At nursery, through our food children are exposed to a wide variety of tastes within a nutritionally balanced menu, avoiding the use of salt, additives, pre-packed and convenience foods, keeping the added sugar content to a minimum and ensuring that children can eat 5 portions of fresh fruit and vegetables every day.
Children are not served snack of sweets, high salt food such as crisps etc.
Children have access to drinking water all the time. We do not serve any juice, cordial or fizzy drinks. Nursery will provide all children with fresh drinking water throughout the day
Packed lunches brought from home for consumption at nursery should meet the nursery healthy eating policy and should not include the foods that are not served at nursery as listed above.
Parents must ensure that their child’s food is packed together in a lunch bag or box, clearly labelled with their child’s name which cannot be wiped off, is in secure packaging with no plastic bags or wrappers, is packed with a freezer block and that their child is able to open and eat the food easily. We do not have the facility to heat up food or store food from home in the fridge. Food must be suitable for keeping until needed. For children attending a full day two meals will be needed.
Parents MUST label lunch boxes that contain any of the following allergens clearly with all the ones they contain. These are: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, sesame seeds, soya and Sulphur dioxide.
Nuts and peanuts must not be included in packed lunches in any form. NURSERY WILL MONITOR THE CONTENT OF PACKED LUNCHES CAREFULLY TO PROTECT ALL CHILDREN IN THE SETTING. From time to time the list of foods excluded maybe be changed to accommodate individual allergies present at any time in the setting. All allergens in food must be clearly labelled on outside of any packaging.
In the rare instance a child with severe allergies is attending nursery we reserve the right not to allow pack lunches to be brought in if they may present a risk to this child. We also reserve the right to stop packed lunches being brought in if parents fail to label food correctly or provide foods that are not served in nursery or may present a risk to the safety of other children thorough potential allergic reaction, choking hazard etc.
Food prepared by parents at home cannot be served to other children in nursery e.g. birthday cakes etc. Children are not allowed to share their lunch with others. Parents must ensure they are aware of how to prepare food to reduce the risk of choking. For example, for food such as, grapes and cherry tomatoes should be cut in half, no popcorn or sultanas/dried fruit should be included. No sweets or chocolate are allowed to be included.
Each day packed lunches should include at a minimum:
- one portion of fruit and one portion of veg every day
- one portion of meat, fish or other source of non-dairy protein in each meal
- a starch/carbohydrate food such as bread, pasta, rice, cous-cous, noodles
- Dairy or dairy substitute food such as cheese, yoghurt, fromage frais etc
- Wholemeal food at least once per week
Children attending for a full day will need two packed meals one for lunchtime and one for teatime. The setting reserves the right to stop accepting packed lunches if they are unable to store them safely or need to protect children from allergens, choking hazards etc.
Any packed lunches not meeting the above will not be allowed to be left at nursery.
Details of the government guidelines can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67f8e61c04146682e61bc84c/Nutrition_guidance_for_early_years_providers.pdf
