Hora Hora Primary School students Porsha Martin, Tumakara Kaka and Madi Naera prepare the veges under the supervision of Paraprofessional Barbara Mahon. Photo / John Stone
Northland principal Pat Newman says there are still children who come to school with little lunch - particularly when a bill hits.
But it's not as noticeable now, he says, as his school - Hora Hora Primary - has food available for all pupils.
And that's not uncommon for schools in Te Tai Tokerau.
With the Government trialling its free lunch in schools programme in other regions, the Northern Advocate takes a look at school lunches in Northland.
In three schools across Northland, tamariki are benefiting from healthy cooked meals for lunch.
A programme at Te Hapua School and Ngataki School in the Far North ensures students' stomachs are filled five days a week with meals like vegetable soup, beef stew and lasagne.
While in Whangārei, Hora Hora Primary School pupils cook their own food; and items like bread, peanut butter and toasted sandwich makers in the classroom kitchenettes mean children with no lunch don't go hungry.
Both schools also supply breakfast for those who need it.
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Tracey Ashby, principal of both Te Hapua and Ngataki School, and Hora Hora Primary School principal Pat Newman have noticed a difference.
"Students seem more settled in class and they seem to be fuller over the school day," Ashby said.
Newman saw similar results at his school.
"The number of lunches we get flogged has dropped off to almost zilch," he said.
The Northern Advocate visited Hora Hora Primary School while the kids were cooking.
We arrived to a group of four kids eagerly huddled around a table of cucumber, courgette, tomatoes and parsley fresh from the school garden; along with onions, canned pineapple, beans and a jar of tomato pasta sauce.
"We're making pasta," pupil Porsha Martin said proudly - she chose the meal.
Every day a different group of pupils get to cook.
On this day, the 10-year-olds were supervised by Paraprofessional Barbara Mahon, but were largely independent when it came to preparing the meal.
Waata Maihi chopped the courgettes, Porsha peeled the onion, Tumakara Kaka peeled the cucumber and chopped the onion, and Madi Naera chopped up the beans.
"I cook a lot at home," Madi said.
Awesome, amazing and fun were some of the words the kids used to describe cooking.
When asked what their favourite thing about it was, Madi and Waata both said eating, while Porsha said it was fun being able to make whatever she liked.
When the meal was ready the kids sat at a table they had set themselves - salt, pepper, forks and the side of sliced cucumber in the centre.
Their conclusion?
"It's hot," Porsha said eating her first mouthful
"But yum," Madi added.
Meanwhile, the lunch programme at Te Hapua and Ngataki School, which is supported by Ka Uri (an organisation in Awanui which supplies the lunches) and the Ngati Kuri Trust Board, was introduced in Term 3 last year as part of the schools' focus on wellbeing.
"They have breakfast, morning tea and lunch and the stress and focus on whether students have had enough to eat, and if they have eaten healthy food, is eliminated from the school day and we can focus our energy on other learning areas," Ashby said.
For morning tea the kids can choose from fruit, scroggin, nut bars, smoothies, quiche made with eggs from the school hens or baking provided by parents and a cup of milk.
Lunch options include vegetable soups, cottage pie, lasagne, spinach pasta, and curried sausages.
The pasta dishes were also served with a salad or coleslaw from the school garden, Ashby said.
"When we first started the majority of students did not want to eat the food with vegetables. However now there is only one or two that may not want to try any food with vegetables in," she said.
This term 7000 children from 31 Hawke's Bay and Bay of Plenty schools have been receiving a free lunch every day of the school week as part of the Government's $45 million Free and Healthy School Lunches pilot.
The programme will be extended to up to 21,000 students in around 120 schools, including Otago/Southland, by the start of 2021.
Northland is not part of the pilot.
When asked why, Damian Edwards, Ministry of Education associate deputy secretary education system policy, said a number of factors were considered when choosing schools for the programme.
"There are several regions, including Northland, facing particular socio-economic barriers where children would have benefited from the Free and Healthy School Lunches pilot.
"Because this is a pilot programme, we were not able to include them all," he said.
Edwards said the 20 per cent of schools with the highest concentration of socio-economic disadvantage across New Zealand were identified, schools were then grouped by region.
He said the ministry wanted to ensure there was a national distribution and a mix of schools in both rural and urban areas. It also considered the relationships with existing food programmes.
There were practical considerations too, including proximity of schools to each other and the schools' ability to maximise any economies of scale offered by their geography and local community.
Buddhi Wilcox knows how to feed a large number of children a nutritious lunch at a small cost.
The charity he founded - Food for Life - has been running a school lunch programme since 2012; providing hot healthy vegetarian lunches to Northland children and teenagers in low decile schools.
The number of children fed each week by the charity, run by Whangārei's Hare Krishna community, depends on how many schools are signed up, but it can be about 1000.
"I'd heard from people that children were going to school with no breakfast or lunch. We thought we can certainly do something to help that situation," he said.
Each meal costs about $2 per child to prepare and deliver. The schools are asked to contribute $1 per meal, per student and Food for Life Northland covers the other half.
Wilcox said the meals have to be tasty, nutritious and practical - pasta, roast vegetables, homemade bread and sweets like baked cookies, cakes and apple crumble were popular.
"For some of them it's the highlight of their week. You know how well it's gone by how much is in the scrap bucket and these days it's pretty minimal."
Wilcox said the programme is in three schools at the moment - Whangarei Adventist Christian School, Tikipunga High School and Kaikohe West School - but he is hoping to expand next term and include Far North schools.
He said he was happy the Government was piloting a school lunch programme but was "frustrated" because he had earlier pitched his own idea - a three-year pilot where Food for Life Northland would feed 6000 kids every day of the school year for a cost of $3.5m.
He said the programme was modelled off one in India where a central kitchen cooks in bulk and vans pick up and deliver the cooked meals to the school.
He said hundreds of thousands of kids are fed through this model.
"It makes a lot more sense to have one kitchen which is cooking in bulk rather than having so many separate because you can monitor the standards - food, value, cleanliness - a lot better," he said.
The Government's Free and Healthy School Lunches programme is costed at an average of $5 per child, per day to cover food, preparation, and delivery.
But Wilcox said his model is cheaper.
"That's almost $40m going into a programme we can do cheaper and is far better."
The Northern Advocate asked Education Minister Chris Hipkins to comment, a spokeswoman reiterated what the ministry said; emphasising that it was a pilot and there was an evaluation under way which will inform whether the programme will expand to other regions.
Whangārei mum Annalise Wood has seen first-hand the impact different lunchbox items have on her 9 and 11-year-old daughters.
When the lunchboxes were filled with lots of packet items - like chips and fruit snacks - they would come home from school starving.
But this year Wood has skipped the packet foods. Instead she opts for leftover dinners; bacon and egg cups; crackers with cottage cheese and olives; boiled eggs and more.
"I've just seen a massive difference. If anything now they've actually got some food left and they eat it when they get home and they seem to be able to last so much longer."
Wood said it was a family decision to eat healthier.
"It wasn't just about kids lunches, it was that we have to do this as an ongoing thing."
Wood said it hasn't cost her extra, particularly because the girls would go through a lot more of the packet items.
She said the first week of the change was hard because the girls were teased, but now they seem to be enjoying it.
"People say 'how do you get your kids to eat that stuff'? It's pretty simple when you haven't got the [crap] food in your house, they don't really have a choice. If they're hungry they'll eat it."
Whangārei mum Brittany Cox has two kids - one in primary school and one in daycare - and said with both parents working full time, it could be tricky to put together a healthy lunchbox every morning.
"The supermarkets are filled with single-serve convenience lunch items, but that's not particularly helpful if you're trying to avoid all of the extra sugar or additional packaging."
Her kids usually get a serving of yoghurt in a reusable pottle, two servings of fruit, sandwiches, a muesli bar, raisins, bliss balls, jelly, a biscuit and some carrot or celery sticks. Sometimes they will have a muffin too.
"It looks pretty much the same as the lunches I had as a kid so I personally do not see any problems," she said.
"I read stories about schools policing kids lunchboxes and I feel that they should be more concerned that every child has a lunch first."
There were mixed reactions to a Northern Advocate Facebook post asking parents about school lunches.
Some said it was hard to be 100 per cent healthy, and finding a balance between health and convenience was a challenge; others said it depended on how fussy the children were; and some said putting together a lunchbox was easy.
We asked Northland District Health Board paediatric dietitians Emily Lowe and Ingrid Saxton all about food and the impact it has on children.
How important is a child's diet?
Ingrid: It's huge. It's important for growth, for brain development, for keeping a healthy immune system, so they've got enough energy to play and explore.
There's the social side too - being able to eat together with your friends and enjoy all those social things about meal time is really important.
Is there such thing as an ideal lunch box?
Emily: Yes there is, but it doesn't need to be Instagram worthy. We think you should be aiming for mostly non-packet items.
You want some fruit and veges in there. You want some kind of good source of protein in there - egg, cheese, meat, leftovers - and a good source of carbohydrates like wholegrain bread or crackers.
But also overarching that, you want it to be easy to eat food that kids enjoy.
What impact does sugary and fatty foods have on a child?
Ingrid: They'll get a short sharp burst of energy and then they're kind of left with nothing, as opposed to lower sugar items which are digested a lot more slowly so it'll give them sustained energy across the course of a few hours.
I think looking at it in context of their whole daily diet is important too. For the child who eats a really good diet at home - heaps of fruit and vegetables, meat, a healthy snack after school - then having one packet of chippies in their lunch box as a treat, you wouldn't be worried about that.
What impact does no morning tea or lunch have on a child?
Ingrid: The same impact it has for us when we have no lunch and no morning tea. When you think about your mood and how uncomfortable you feel in your stomach and your concentration. By mid afternoon if I haven't eaten lunch I'm not the nicest person to be around and that's the same for our tamariki.
Emily: It impacts on their learning, their concentration in the classroom and their behaviour.
What should parents look out for when doing groceries?
Ingrid: That's such a minefield. It's so difficult for families to make good choices around that sort of thing.
Emily: I think look for foods that are wholefoods and plain foods - like plain popcorn and plain biscuits - and look for things that are high fibre or wholegrain.
Is it possible to put together a cheap, healthy lunch that children will eat?
Emily: Yes. Part of the healthy lifestyle programme we do, we do two different lunchboxes and we break it down in to sugar content, energy content, fat, fibre and cost and we've actually proven the healthy one can be cheaper.
What tips do you have for families
• Fresh is best
• Buy in bulk - for example buy a big carton of yoghurt and then place it into containers for lunchboxes
• Fewer packets
• Buy whatever is in season
• Use leftovers - even if it means planning ahead and making more so there's some for lunch the next day
• Look at the shopping guide on healthyfood.com
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