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Healthy Lunches

Our School

Scoil Mhuire encourages parents and guardians to provide their children with healthy, nourishing snacks and lunches. Research suggests that the provision of nutritious school food enhances not only the child’s health but also allows the child to take full advantage of the education provided by improving attention levels and concentration spans.

Lunch should provide one third of your child's food requirements for the day. The most effective way to plan a healthy lunch is to include one food from each of the food groups of the food pyramid.

The following foods do not support a healthy lunch and should be excluded from your child’s lunch box; crisps, chewing gum, sweets, bars, lollypops, chocolate and fizzy drinks.

Chewing gum is not allowed in the school!

Healthy choices of drink include water, milk and unsweetened natural juice. Children should be encouraged to use re-useable containers for safety and litter reasons. Cans and glass bottles are not permitted.

Due to the incidence of severe allergy to nuts amongst some pupils, we ask you to be vigilant in the following:

Avoid peanuts or any other type of nut in school lunches.
Avoid giving peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate spreads containing nuts such as Nutella, nut based breads and cereal/health bars containing nuts or labelled “may contain nut traces” in school lunches.
Ask children not to share their lunches.
If your child has eaten peanuts/nuts before coming to school, please be sure your child’s hands and face have been thoroughly washed before entering the school.

Surveys have shown that children’s lunches are often very unhealthy and not adequate nutritionally because they tend to be low in fibre and high in sugar.

Please read the following brochures for more information on healthy lunches for your child.

Food & Nutrition Guidelines for Primary Schools

Healthy Lunchboxes

Healthy Eating for Children