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School dinners

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N

NI-Bookworm

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Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi

Well we are trying to carb count for our son. He has asked about going to school dinners. We have the menu in advance, but has anyone any experience of getting portion sizes etc from the school, to assist with accurate carb counting?

Thanks
 
I had to fill in a "special diet request form" and send it to the council (yes I know they don't actually need a special diet, but there is no other relevant form for school dinners). Then a lady came from the council and we sat down with the kitchen staff to discuss what was required. The kitchen staff weighed out portions of pasta, rice and potatoes for me and the council people now email me the nutritional breakdown of the food. I have the advantage of being a school dinner lady so at first I was checking out the food and comparing carbs &cals with the council's info to see if it looked realistic; and I have to say they are fairly accurate most of the time, I have found one or two mistakes though.

I also find that sometimes they swap the puddings around, and if there is a special themed menu one day, the rest of the week seems to go out of sync (not necessarily the school's fault, they can only serve up what they have been delivered). I find this a bit irritating and several times have debated whether I should make a fuss and ask someone to let either me or daughter know if the meal is not as advertised. But daughter doesn't want me to make a big fuss, and to be quite honest if there is a difference it usually isn't enough to have any noticeable effect on her blood sugar. A lot of the puddings are fairly similar carb count anyway. So have told daughter that if she's expecting treacle sponge and custard but only gets a biscuit she should take extra bread or something to make up the difference.

Make sure you ask your school staff about problems like this. The portion sizes are pretty standard, it's just making sure that they get the same food that's advertised that goes wrong occasionally!

I now put a post it note with that day's meal details and carb count on it in my daughter's test kit case and she does her bolus by herself. It works pretty well; very occasionally we have had a hypo in the afternoon that *might* have been caused by the dinner not being as advertised; this is very rare though and we'd have a hard time proving it, hypos happen sometimes even when the dinner has been exactly what we were expecting!

So your first step is to ask at the school whether it's necessary to fill any forms in and what you need to do - good luck!
 
The thing is every plate will be different, it won't just be one set portion as it'll change slightly for each kid. It's not like something manufactured in a packet which even in that case you'll get a variable. With it changing daily that'll also throw in a possible unknown. Simple answer is good ol' Carbs'n'Cals book (available off your DSN or dietitian) and it has nice pics of different foods so you can learn to eyeball the food and put a number to it. It's also available on a phone so makes it very easy to just look at a plate, assign a number and roll on. Other option is packed lunches but I really loathed those at school, and the carb counting training was always good through school...think it really helped my maths in primary school also 😛
 
Nyadach said:
The thing is every plate will be different, it won't just be one set portion as it'll change slightly for each kid. It's not like something manufactured in a packet which even in that case you'll get a variable. With it changing daily that'll also throw in a possible unknown. Simple answer is good ol' Carbs'n'Cals book (available off your DSN or dietitian) and it has nice pics of different foods so you can learn to eyeball the food and put a number to it. It's also available on a phone so makes it very easy to just look at a plate, assign a number and roll on. Other option is packed lunches but I really loathed those at school, and the carb counting training was always good through school...think it really helped my maths in primary school also 😛
Click to expand...

Depends on the dinner lady. 2 spoons of ----- or one ?
 
Thanks so much to you all. My son loved taking dinners, but even if I get the portion sizes he will always be the front of the queue for seconds, and it has been know for thirds as well 😛
The other day the teacher spotted him chucking his sandwiches in the bin, he says he is bored with sarnies every day. That afternoon his bloods were all over the place.

He is on 4 injections a day, and even though he is only diagnosed 3 weeks ago, I can already see how that routine restricts him, we have started carb counting and out our names down for consideration of a pump. Sure the length of time we will spend on a waiting list will give us plenty of time to consider whether a pump is for our son.
 
A pump is so much more adaptable, so good luck getting one. I sometimes don't get time to have dinner & just adj pump to suit- temp basals in working hard or being quite. 🙂 There is a lot to take in 🙂
 
Is your son eating a certain amount of carbohydrate for each meal to match insulin dose or is dose dependent on what his meal is planned to be? Basal bolus can be pretty adaptable, although not quite as adaptable as insulin pump. If there's doubt about what he will be given to eat or choose to eat, then it is possible to inject after food has been eaten or not eaten in the case of boring sarnies ending up in bin. Obviously, assessing carbohydrate content and calculating insulin dose could be considered more complicated than injecting a pre planned dose, then eating to match dose. It's far too early for your son to do that right now, but as a teenager, he will gradually be able to take responsibility for some aspects of his care.
 
Went through school with injections. Never really hid it but had a school reunion a couple of months back and one of the lasses noticed me tested and finally twigged after all these years I was T1. Very few noticed at school which surprised me. Never did anything special though.

Pump is fantastic. The freedom to just decide to go with your mates and have a pizza after work (or school) and just press some buttons is hugely empowering. Yes it means we are chained to a box 24hrs a day. But box v needles and loss of freedom hmm, personally the box wins but it is a very personal decision and some can find it like some kind of ball and chain around them.

I must admit I was pretty unsure on the pump at first, Hobie can vouch for that for all the questions I threw at him about it hehe. But you couldn't ever get me to go back now. It's part of me!

Good luck on getting a pump. You might find with being so newly diagnosed they'll wait till your son is out of the honeymoon period and the levels have settled down first. Usually takes a bit of time for funding to get authorised but they are pretty good these days at giving pumps to kids. If you get stuck or fancy trying to see what they need http://www.inputdiabetes.org.uk/ is a handy site which gives all the NHS rules on getting hold of kit and also a nice section of getting kids pumps.
 
I work at my girls' old primary school as a kitchen assistant. I serve out the food to the infants.
I have to say, that the food portions are supposed to be equal, but they never are. I serve pasta, chips, roast potatoes with a spoon. The portions are not always the same. Roast potatoes, we have to give each child 3 roasties, but they are not all of equal size. Try serving chunky chips with a spoon! Even the pizza pieces are not always the same size. When cook makes a cake, we cut them into 16 "equal" sizes, but with all cakes the middle has usually risen a bit higher than the sides, so they are not equal at all. And yes, if we have leftovers the children can have seconds (not pudding though)

I was "lucky" in a sense that Carol didn't like school dinners, especially as she was still on 2 mixed injections a day at primary. I did have to go in and see the canteen staff at secondary school, as she was always high on the days she had a pannini. Found out that Carol severely underguesstimated the carb count
 
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