AIBU to tire of moral superiority around meals?

Haha what kind of things do they say lol?

smashed avo’ on sour dough with a poached egg, micro herbs and some angel tears dressing?
Shashuka with home made flat breads’ and some type of whipped bean dip ?

Frittata with side of Swiss chard , morning glory and something with a molasses drizzle

that sort of quick tea?

never just beans on toast is it. Or brown toast n marmite/peanut butter; boiled egg and soldiers - all delicious simple pleasures and very nutritious for an adults/ kids quick tea.

I only eat melted cheese, so crackers would just have butter on, and the 2 bags of cheese for.. however much, in Tesco, meets my cheese needs!

I have never encountered a hardened cheese, and I don’t eat in slices.

That’s probably enough cheese clarification 😂

What if you wanted it for a sandwich or crackers as well though, Sleepless?
Surely most of us can't afford to buy both normal and grated these days. Cheese is DEAR! 😬😆

Pre grated cheese has a weird texture… it’s hard and doesn’t melt properly!

I buy it pre-grated, assumed we all did now 😂

YANBU at all and don't get me started on the people who post fancy recipes in response to the "Ideas for a Lazy Tea" threads either! 🙄
You're talking to people who can't even be arsed to grate a bit of cheese over their pasta and I'm one of them!

OP where are you?
Bit pointless staring an AIBU ( esp one that’s been done to death ) if you are not going to participate in it no?

It is interesting that OP did not reply to any of the posts.

Completely agree with @frozendaisy - the book “Good Enough” by Dr Tara Porter covers this well. The obsession with being perfect (whether it be school grades, looks, or food) is a big factor in spiking mental health issues in young people. Parenting that strives to be good, but not “perfect”, provides more space for kids to make independent decisions in a world that really isn’t perfect.

Food is a big case in point - parents can’t shield kids from UPFs and Just Eat forever. What they can do is teach / show their kids what healthy choices are, and why they are important, but also that the odd beige meal won’t kill you. Setting groups of food as binary choices - good and bad - will not make for a healthy relationship with food in the long run. I say this as a parent who makes healthy meals from scratch most of the time, but refuses to flagellate myself over the times I don’t.

Im a home cook who cooks all the time , not so much for the love of cooking but the love of good food and a desire that the kids ate well growing up.

Your comment about takeaway makes me laugh tho as to being able cook the equivalents better lol
Always reminds me of going to a friends who announced instead of all pooling in for a huge Indian takeaway her ‘hubby’ was making his ‘famous authentic curry’ better than any restaurant/takeaway don’t you know
The men in the group were broken hearted - devastation in the WhatsApp group -lol!!

I think there’s just no comparison for a special treat dinner. Sure, who wants all that on a Tuesday night but at the weekend the convenience, the richness, ( the salt!) the variety and flavour and general moorishness just lands differently.

Even in Italy the teens love chain domino style pizzas over what mumma makes on occasion. Different experience.

I know I’m my own worst enemy with this as I get bored of foods very easily and am always on the hunt for new dinner ideas - other than my favourites like poached eggs that I would eat every night if I could. The rest of the family, less so 😂 (I’m autistic/ADHD so the pull between discovering new menus and wanting the same food is a nightmare 😂🫣).

I do menu plan but inevitably it goes wrong. The night I’d planned to do something that takes a lot of work is always the night when something happens and I don’t have time. And then I lack the capacity to figure out a quick and easy alternative that doesn’t rely on fishfingers etc 😂😂

In my defence, our home life can be quite challenging. DP is disabled with a neurological condition and is very limited, DM lives in the annexe and has cerebral palsy and dementia, DC are both autistic and home educated now. DC are 15 yrs old but have high needs - DS is still in nappies and neither will shower/wash without help, need all activities to be supported etc. I also work as a self-employed copywriter with publishing deadlines. There’s so much capacity for things to go wrong on a daily basis 🫣😂

I know I don’t live up to the high standards of MN but I’m quite proud that despite everything, my DC get meals cooked from scratch most of the time, including lunches. They eat tons of fruit and veg and weirdly, don’t snack. I can’t claim a moral victory there, no idea how that happened 😂🤷‍♀️

I’m not going to hang my head in shame about an occasional freezer food dinner despite what some on this thread might think.

I always remember when I first signed up for a parenting forum, reading a thread that was started explicitly about seeing a young child eating fast food and hammering the parents - well, the mum - for it. It always stuck in my mind because on that day my daughter who was about four at the time had just had popcorn chicken from KFC for the first time. It really made me realise how much of this is snap judgements made on pretty much no knowledge. At that time my daughter was eating five small meals a day, every day - so many, many meals, and it was the first time she'd ever had anything from KFC (prior to that she'd had the occasional fish fingers from McDonalds) - one meal out of hundreds, but some snooty arse passing by could make a ton of assumptions and think it was worth posting on a forum to denigrate me.

Maintenance Phase podcast debunking the concept of ‘UPFs’ is an interesting listen.

The conversation around UPFs is relatively recent. Certainly we’ve all known for a while that “convenience foods” weren’t ideal but UPFs weren’t seen as harmful as they are today.

We try and limit the intake of UPFs as much as possible but I don’t manage that all of the time. And I suspect that contrary to what’s being claimed on this thread, that many households with working parents are like ours: healthy most nights but with the occasional freezer dinner here and there.

The kids like baked beans - we probably use those once a fortnight or so. DS likes spaghetti hoops. He might have those instead of beans. I’ve just bought some chicken kievs from Ocado - they’re processed but I buy the best quality I can. Ditto lasagne etc.

I love cooking from scratch but I just can’t do it every single night, for multiple reasons.

I disagree that occasional UPFs are going to do them “serious harm”. If your diet is perfect then all credit to you - but it doesn’t reflect the reality for many households, for many reasons.

I love seeing threads where posters pass on tips for healthy meals that are super-speedy. That’s genuinely helpful. Threads that just slam people who don’t cook from scratch every night? Not so much.

Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m eating takeaways weekly though
I cook from scratch, I eat fruit and veg and salad, I make bloody béchamel for lasagne and cook more than any of my colleagues. I have a McDonald’s monthly maybe and an actual takeaway less often because I can’t afford it

I wholeheartedly agree!

I’m lucky in that most people I know are like me. Their food intake is a mixture of homemade and convenience food, so I don’t get raised eyebrows when I mention oven chips or chicken nuggets. I cooked most things from scratch up until two years ago (even the fecking fish fingers) and then my mum died. I fell apart and I’m still not anything like back to normal. So I muddle along as best I can. That’s why you should never judge anyone else. You don’t know what is going on in their lives - mental health issues, neurodivergence, bereavement, lack of confidence and loads of other stuff. Also, having a mentally ill child whose food intake is negligible, makes life much, much harder and you find yourself prioritising other things.

Its very easy to make decent quality healthy meals quickly and for not a lot of £ BUT you need to know how and have access to a proper kitchen and have some basics in.
We rarely eat takeaways because they are generally pretty awful and I can knock up a pizza or curry thats far better and cheaper in the time it would take one to arrive. Mc D .or KFC was a very rare treat for my kids, although DS does love a subway and I am sure when he starts college in September he will go much more often with his friends
I DO judge people like my brother and SIL who despite having a very nice and flash kitchen, plenty of money and enough time always fed their kids utter crap. After a couple of days of staying there DD (then around 3) actually asked for fruit!!!!

It bores me to death, I really couldn't care less what other people are feeding their kids. Whether it's organic, UPF, fairtrade or crispy pancakes. They're not my kids. If kids are being genuinely neglected, talk to the parents or call social services but otherwise just get on with your own business. Loudly fretting over other people's parenting choices just seems like a strange waste of time.

I'll never forget coming back from a whole day of swimming on the train with my then 5 year old. We'd grabbed McDonald's quickly and ate it on the train. The women and her two kids at the table to the left of us were clearly appalled at this clear child abuse 😂 So I let her enjoy some more indignation by getting out my phone and playing Minecraft with my son.

Once you learn to see what that kind of judgement is, it's easier to ignore it and have your peace.

OP hasn’t been back.

Who have you discussed this with or heard judgmental comments from? Or is this just online?

I’ve never really discussed family food with mum friends, other than complimenting the cooking if being hosted or exchanging the odd moan about drudgery or picky DC!

I think there's a difference between having an opinion on the optimum way to raise kids, and having an opinion on what other people do compared to your most excellent self.

Mumsnet is the worst place for food judgement and moral superiority. A huge number people are very weird about food.

Yes!

One of my favourite sayings.

I voted YABU because of this point and came on to say exactly this.

OP, are you a refugee from the 1970s? Why are you normalising it being just the woman's responsibility to feed a family? Especially if both parents are working.

DH and I are in our 60s, been married thick end of 40 years. We have always shared all cooking, housework and childcare. Most people we know were the same.

My eldest is 30 and there was judging back then too. You can call it having an opinion, which it was, but you bet some people judged others who made different decisions. Mothers did tend to make friendship groups with people who were like-minded, so it didn't matter so much.

Was it though?

Used to be it was having an opinion, but I suppose that doesn't sound as bitchy as using the word judgmental.

Which in my opinion is a word that's over used now a day's.