Our Nutritional Commitment

At Poiana we believe it is important to learn to make healthy eating choices from a young age.

We make mealtimes a social and educational experience for the children. They eat together around large tables as a family. This promotes good eating habits and table manners. Our younger children learn from adults and from older children feeding themselves and our older children learn to share and pass things around the table, with a real emphasis on good manners. Staff join the children at the table, helping to feed the babies and talking to the older children about what’s on the menu that day. For morning snack we serve a selection of porridge, muesli, cereal, yogurt, toast, eggs together with slices of fruit or vegetable depending on the season. Our afternoon snacks are healthy and appetizing and designed to fill the gap between main meals. They include fruit or crudité alongside healthy sandwiches, muffins or sponge cakes usually made with the children.  Our older children learn to help prepare their own snack and to serve themselves and the younger children.

Lunch is a substantial meal offering a varied and balanced diet.

Our meals are prepared by a specialist catering company who deliver freshly cooked hot food to us daily. The menus are put together following daily nutritional guidelines for under 6’s and represent a healthy, balanced, age appropriate diet.

We try to source locally or in season as much as possible.

The menus rotate on a two weeks basis and change seasonally for summer and winter.

Fresh drinking water is always available in the rooms and the children have their own named cups. At snack time children have a choice, depending on the day, of water, tea, milk, lemonade or fresh apple, orange and carrot juice.