Warning over packed lunch

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090817/tuk-parent...-ham-6323e80.html

I have just read this and wondered what you all htought about?
My children don't have packed lunches except when going on trips as I pay for them to have a hot dinner at school well I make and freeze my daughter's foods as the school don't have the time to cater for her dietary needs so I only pay towards the things that she is able to eat that they make on the school premises. But I think if we stop our children eating everythign they say we shouldn't give them then our chilren will starve or have a very limited diet that could lead to other health issues like low iron levels and problems with their digestion system. I will continue givin gmy children ham as the only way I buy ham is from the butchers straight off the bone yes it is more expensive but at least I know that there are no additives or preservatives in them as they don't list everything on the packets in the supermarkets as they don't have too

I can't afford school meals and I can't afford ham off the bone as my daughter eats it everyday in her pack up during school. Some deli ham is actually still processed so beware. I only give her one slice a time because I'm a tight wad.

She doesn't like any other filling than ham, to her credit she has tried her best to eat other fillings but she just doesn't like the taste. Occasionally she will have a slight sprinkle of grated cheese if we've run out of ham.

It bothers me I'm feeding her something that could harm her health, but everything you eat nowadays is going to kill you!!

I go to my local butcher, he cooks cooks his own ham and he can tell you were the product came from how the animal was feed and the reputation of the farm they came from. I will find out if it is OK with admin to recomend the butcher I go to as he is resunable priced I only pay 10p more per 100g than tesco's sell their cooked ham at.

I never try to look too much into these sorts of warnings and lookout messages. I have done what I have always done and nothing has really went wrong, so I am not going to change that. My kids took lunch with them, sometimes they ate school lunch, and it was the same for me. They are alive, so am I, and we are okay. I am okay with that so I just will not worry about it.

I can't see the article, but the science is there when it comes to meat.. especially processed meat. It doesn't matter if it's "free range", "organic" or whatever, meat is meat and some are just worse than others. Not "everything will give you cancer" these days.. the science says a diet of highly processed foods is extremely unhealthy.. that meat is a risk.. not plants lol. Meat is more likely to lend to colon cancer, especially if it's processed. There is no fiber in it at all.. no real health benefits at all, so by definition is terrible for your gut and digestion. Some people will be fine, some people won't.. just like smoking, or eating junk etc etc.. you just never know. What we do know is that over time bad habits accumulate.. illness and disease don't just pop up out of nowhere, they build and then give you a warning to allow you to make changes, or their first sign is death. So being fine today in no way means what we're doing now is healthful. It's shown that much of the heart disease out there started in childhood.. it just took those couple of decades to build up enough to cause the heart attack. Today matters. I'd rather not risk it. No food is worth a life.

There are so many health warnings against almost everything that sometimes I wonder exactly what is safe to eat. As much as it is good to be cautious, we have to do it in a way that allows our kids to make healthy choices while living a full fun life. Nowadays it is all about fear and our choices are becoming more and more limited. As long as my kids are healthy and eating well, I will not shun away from packing ham for their lunches when I decide to stop paying for school lunches. I trust my ham source so I know that my children are not eating junk too often.

me neither! Thank for sharing.

A simple lunch prepared by parents is important to keep kids full and have energy throughout their day at school. Buying at school is bit more expensive and we're not even sure if the kids will like them.