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I’m standing outside my local cafe in west London, looking bedraggled as I’ve been up since 6.45am making the dreaded school packed lunch. It’s nothing exotic – margherita pizza for Lola, who is a fussy eater, and plain pasta with cheddar cheese and corn on the cob for Liberty. There were all the snacks to pack, too – sadly, no chunks of carrot, just Pom-Bears and breadsticks. I am buying a croissant to add to one of the lunch boxes when I bump into the mum of one of my daughter’s friends. “Oh darling,” she tells me, “it’s all ‘white food’. Not good.” I shrug my shoulders knowingly, then stupidly ask her what’s in her kids’ packed lunches. “Sushi bento box,” comes her instant reply. “Crudites and organic hummus. Japanese panda crackers. Seaweed crackers. Dim sum. Oh, and sandwiches cut into little shapes – I do hearts and stars.” Right. That’s a good start to my morning; I now feel totally inadequate. When it comes to my children, I am a slave to the packed lunch. But gone are the days of stuffing a hard-boiled egg, a jam sandwich or processed cheese triangles into a box – as was the case when I was a child. Even apples have been voted a prehistoric lunchbox item by 17 per cent of parents. Instead, packed lunches are now a status symbol. The actor Hilary Duff, for instance, gives her son caviar for a snack – and it’s not that unusual. One in 10 parents (9 per cent) choose sushi and, according to a recent survey by Amazon Fresh, 26 per cent of parents take a photo of their children’s packed lunch for Instagram. A third (33 per cent) have also admitted they’ve taken a sneak peek inside another child’s lunchbox – and believe me, it’s often to silently snack-shame another parent. I can’t help but wonder if food and snacks are a kind of modern litmus test of parenting. But does it really make you a better parent if you give your child home-cooked wild keta salmon and wholemeal rice in a thermal container for lunch? The playground politics of packed lunches are complex. Parents are constantly criticised for sending inappropriate lunches to school. The TV chef Jamie Oliver once said unhealthy packed lunches are tantamount to child abuse. At the other extreme, parents are finding the time to stamp cucumbers with flowers and dice dried herbs into them for their kid’s bento boxes – then post them online. There seems to be no middle ground. Christina (not her real name) is a 40-year-old PA and tablescaping specialist whose child attends a prep school in west London’s Notting Hill. She makes all of her daughter’s packed lunches from scratch, and it’s always organic produce. “I always wanted to go that extra mile,” she tells me. “My motivation to do this was never to be ‘Queen Bee mum’ – it was to make my daughter happy and proud of me.” The “presentation” and “the taste” of the packed lunches, she says, is “super important” – to such an extent that it needs to be “Instagram-worthy” and “fun” in order to encourage her daughter to eat healthily. One of her lunch box specialities, she adds, is mini American hot dogs “decorated with a little flag and a drizzle of ketchup”. “I know it is always going to be flagged by other mothers because the school is very competitive,” she continues. “This dish goes around the mums like wildfire because mums always want to outdo other mums.” If I put out a post saying how much fibre children should be having, I get people replying saying that ‘it’s unrealistic’ and ‘we can’t do that as well as everything else’ when it comes to kids’ foods. It ends up with parents pitting themselves off against one another with food Charlotte Stirling-Reed, child and baby nutrionist While school playground rivalry among parents used to be about pigtails and bows in your children’s hair, Christina says, now it’s about lunch and snacks. “Kids have a much more sophisticated palate,” she explains. “They’re exposed to a lot more than a ham and cheese sandwich. The playing field has widened, and the bar has been set higher due to social media, and Deliveroo and Uber Eats – everything has become more instantaneous.” For other parents, it’s about making a packed lunch as wholesome as possible – something my children would scoff at. Ella Mills, the founder of the plant-based food brand Deliciously Ella, tells me she has found “batch cooking” easiest for her daughter’s packed lunches at nursery. “It’s a real rush getting everyone dressed, ready and out of the door each morning,” she says. “Plus, thinking of something to cook at 7am that’s got no nuts, no sesame in it [due to possible nut allergies], that I’ll know they’ll eat, and that doesn’t take a little while to make. So I make huge batches of veggie bolognese, bean chilli or sweet potato and chickpea stews plus big batches of grains, then simply heat a portion up and pop it in a thermos. Something that’s pre-made makes a world of difference.” Other parents call in the professionals. Chef Meryem Korkut Avci of Mary’s Mobile Chef Services does “meal preps” for elite customers in west and north London. She sends over an ingredients list and will then come to your home once a week and cook for the whole family – a two-hour session is £120 for six dishes (on the seventh day, her clients usually get a takeaway). For packed lunches, she says gluten-free muffins are popular. “Also egg or chicken fried rice, chilli con carne with tortilla, little mini puff pastry rolls with cheese – or sausage rolls.” She’ll even wash up – and says clients use her because “they don’t have time” or are “bored of their own food”. Dr Megan Rossi, a gut health scientist, bestselling author and founder of the website The Gut Health Doctor and The Gut Health Clinic in London, says an ideal packed lunch would contain something from each of the super-six plant groups: “Legumes (such as chickpeas), vegetables, whole grains (such as oats and barley), fruit, nuts and seeds and herbs and spices. Hitting all these is a tricky one but for optimal health, the goal is for them to have at least one from each of these most days. It’s a great target to have in mind!” She advises “hiding legumes and whole grains in sweet treats like black bean brownies with porridge oats,” and says that “while not a long-term strategy to keep plants a secret, it can help build some confidence and comfort with those plants (as well as training childrens’ taste buds) for you to reveal when the time is right.” For chocolate lovers – like my daughter, Lola – Dr Rossi also suggests “making your own chocolate bars with dried fruits, popcorn, seeds and nuts included for extra dietary fibres and a more satiating treat”. I personally can’t see how I would fit that into my schedule. But for many parents healthy eating is a full-time job. Children may need to be offered a specific food “around 10 times” before they accept it, according to research, while Dr Rossi adds that it means nothing to a child if you merely tell them food is healthy or unhealthy. “Try explaining to them from a young age about the importance of their gut microbes,” she says. “Tell them they need to feed the little pet bugs in their tummy with broccoli, for instance, to help keep them strong.” I often feel ashamed that Lola is a fussy eater – though I find solace in the fact that her younger sister isn’t. Dr Rossi claims that what mums-to-be eat during pregnancy may also affect the kind of food your child will have a taste for. “That could play a part with fussing eating,” she says, but adds that she’s not keen on “mum guilt”: “Pregnancy is hard enough without the added pressure of nutrition.” Charlotte Sterling-Reed, “The Baby and Child Nutritionist”, runs a fussy eater course, and assures me that “parents are not bad parents if they are struggling with a fussy eater at home”. She says she is currently witnessing a backlash from “defensive parents” who are fed up with being told to live up to the “ideal” of being a perfect parent. “If I put out a post saying how much fibre children should be having, I get people replying saying that ‘it’s unrealistic’ and ‘we can’t do that as well as everything else’ when it comes to kids’ foods,” she says. “It ends up with parents pitting themselves off against one another with food.” An extravagant lunchbox is also not realistic for the majority of parents, she adds, “whether working or not, and nor should it be – there is a way to find a balance”. She says that a middle ground is possible. “As parents, [we can] pick something that is balanced but that also works for the family situation. This constant comparison between two extremes on social media makes us feel like we are failing in multiple aspects of parenting.” I don’t think I’m ever going to be posting my kids packed lunches on Instagram. I also know that sliced pepper fingers won’t get eaten even if I arrange them in the shape of a smiley face. More than anything though, I won’t feel guilty about my kids’ food habits any more, or the lengths I sometimes go to to get them to eat healthy – I once told my daughters that if they didn’t drink their freshly squeezed orange juice, their legs would fall off. And, you know what, it worked! Read More Keir Starmer is keeping his children out of the public eye – but that won’t stop them being privileged I’m a jellyfish parent – my run-in with a tiger mum was terrifying Kate Moss credits her stress-free life to ‘moonbathing’ – can eccentric wellness regimes help me too? Vasectomy and British men in their twenties: ‘Young, none and done’ Why taking a mental health day could be bad… for your mental health What the world’s happiest children tell us about where Britain is going wrong

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Gen Z has entered the workforce in recent years, and with that, the generation has brought its own phrases, expressions and ways of working that differ from their older predecessors. While fed up with the different jargon needed to navigate the workplace, over half of younger employees (54 per cent) admit to changing the way they speak to fit in, according to research from LinkedIn and Duolingo. But Gen Z is putting their own stamp on professional tasks, such as signing off an email where young workers are using their creativity to end their emails - and a lot of them have gone viral on TikTok. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Babbel, the online language learning platform, has gathered some of the most unusual ways Gen Z employees have decided to sign off their emails, and there is plenty of creativity on show. See if you can sort the genuine Gen Z pleasantries from the red herrings. Question 1 - Spot the culinary Gen Z sign-off: “Hasta la pasta” “Bone apple teeth” “*Chef’s kiss*” Question 2 - Pick the ultimate Gen Z regards: “Blessed Regards” “Lukewarm regards” “Mean Regards” Question 3- Which beverage related phrase is the real Gen Z way to say farewell? “Stay Hydrated, Queens” “More espresso, less depresso” “Let’s go for coffee soon” Question 4 - It’s all about alliteration. Which has actually been used as a Gen Z sign-off? “Slay, serve, survive” “alright alright alright” “Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica” Question 5- How would your Gen Z colleague wish you a happy weekend? “Speak soon - enjoy your weekend.” “Slay, serve, survive” “Have a good one!” Question 6 - The social media generation isn’t always feeling social, which of these is the real misanthropic Gen Z sign-off? “Regards.” “Don’t cross me” “Sorry, I can’t talk right now but will get back to you ASAP!” (Scroll down to find the correct answers!) Esteban Touma, Language Expert at Babbel, has noted how the "rules of the game have changed" since Gen Z has arrived, making workspaces "informal and welcoming. "Your Gen Z colleagues have grown up in an era of instant messaging, social media, and texting, which have influenced their communication style," he said. "They naturally gravitate towards more casual sign-offs as a reflection of their overall digital communication habits and a shift in language across society as a whole. The formal etiquette of the workplace has taken a step back in recent years - with a recent study by Deloitte surveying 1,500 Gen Z workers finding that the younger generation expects “more personalisation in how they want to be treated by their employer”. Informal sign-offs and even out-of-office replies now allow for self-expression - “Another day, another slay”, “Please enjoy your break from me”. Here are the answers to the questions: Question 1 - Hasta la pasta was the correct answer and was mentioned as an example of a Gen Z email sign-off in a viral TikTok by the CEO of Fox & Robin, an activewear company which claims to “hire only Gen Z." Question 2 - Lukewarm regards was the right answer, as it has been quoted as being one of Gen Z's snarky sign-offs. Question 3 - "Stay hydrated queens" is a Gen Z sign-off - The phrase 'yas queen' originated in the ballrooms of NYC by the Black trans and queer community as a way to celebrate, Gen Z has incorporated this phrase into most of their language. Meanwhile, “More espresso less depresso” is Millennial, where they often joke about the need for coffee is a common millennial trait, though one derided by Gen Z counterparts. Let’s go for coffee soon” is literal and collegial, leaving no room for confusion - it could only be a Boomer. Question 4 - There are Gen Z sign-off answer is "alright, alright, alright," and "slay serve survive" could also be used by this age group. Question 5 - "Slay, serve, survive" is the correct answer and a humorous sign-off informed by meme culture. "Have a good one!" is Millennial - an informal tone without being jovial, and Speak soon - enjoy your weekend is a boomer sign-off, more factual and formally written, as you’d expect of the letter-writing generation. Question 6 - The correct Gen Z answer is "Don't cross me," since the new generation is finding a way to get straight to the point in the workplace while maintaining some humour. For Millennials, “Sorry, I can’t talk right now but will get back to you ASAP!” sums up this generation's politeness in online communication, so you can expect to see exclamation marks and effusive apologies. Finally, Boomers are simple, and to the point, the older generation is happy to cut through the pleasantries with just a "Regards" sign-off. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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