To be shocked by this government dietary advice for babies and children?

There's nothing wrong with it. My DC wouldn't drink any water, juice was recommended by the HV because he was experiencing constipation due to only drinking milk. Some children will struggle with flavours when weaning and rice with milk can help with a gentle transition. Some parents will want a quick cheap breakfast, some children will want something bland, better that they are being given the suggestions of corn flakes and rice crispies rather than them thinking the list is unachievable so reaching for chocolate cereal.
It's an inclusive and achievable list that will do no harm to the children.

I hear this a lot and I find it so confusing.

Would you mind just explaining a little bit what you mean by cheaper, convenient alternatives?

And also who the people are that need them?

I feel like I sometimes underestimate the depth of poverty in this country (as you can see, I'm just an exasperated lay person...), but is it really possible that people can't afford to buy (and cook!) oats, onions, carrots, potatoes, lentils, cheap cuts of pork/beef?

And should this subset of the population not have their own tailored dietary advice from the NHS? Rather than the NHS giving the impression to the general population who really should be able to afford and do better that it is actually recommending rice crispies and diluting juice.

But you have to be able to make porridge, which takes time that people may not have, and it requires a lot of milk or it's unpalatable. Also something to sweeten it e.g. fruit, honey (both expensive).
A bag of satsumas is no better than a box of juice - the sugar in the satsumas does the same damage as that in the juice.
MN is full of people who tell the benighted that they could live better if they cooked from scratch every day, bought wholefood ingredients and organic produce. But us benighted folks don't necessarily have time for all the cooking involved, don't have a big freezer we can batch cook into and can't afford all these ingredients on a regular basis, because we are on the minimum wage, work shifts, and didn't learn how to cook at school or at home (because same reasons!). If you do not understand what a recipe book is saying you cannot cook the meal, even if you have time (you often don't).
The obesity crisis was fueled by a desire in the 80s to promote the food industry so that women could participate in the work force (ulterior aims were lowering wages by increasing the workforce, and profit from selling ready prepared food - ends helped by removing Domestic Science from schools and replacing it with Food Technology). Reverse the policy by not promoting ready prepared food and you have a chance of halting obesity. People have to learn to cook, how to follow a recipe, how to set out a nutritional menu, how to fit this in with a full-time job...it has to be taught (as we used to do).

Not to mention if your kids don't eat it, it goes to waste and money is wasted from your limited food budget when you know that they will eat rice krispies.

Yep. MN claims to be educated, aware and intelligent but many posters are just totally oblivious to the realities of life for many people.

It makes me laugh when people say nutritious food isn't expensive. It is when compared to the cheaper, convenient alternatives. And that's the only relevant comparison.

Maybe that's the advice they should be giving because no matter how I try to store fruit it goes off quickly. Not that I'm buying green bananas as I need to buy ones that are edible at the time.

My local supermarket is 3 miles away, which is fine for me to walk to, when I had two small children to wrangle, it was not at all fine especially if I’m coming back with a weeks food shop. And walking a 6 mile round trip with kids takes time in the day you simply don’t have especially if you’re juggling nursery, school and work.

If you have £30 for your weeks food budget you need things that’s kids will reliably eat because you don’t have money to replace uneaten meals. Parents will chose things that are shelf stable, and that they know their kids will eat, so fruit juice, canned and frozen fruit and vegetables. They may also not have money for cooking fuel so need things that’s can be cooked using minimum gas and electricity which excludes cheaper cuts of meat, mumsnet pulses etc.

If that has not been part of your experience you are privileged indeed.

I think it is also the carbs and the fortified vitamins from the cereal itself - which isn't unique to rice crispies, but isn't in all cereals, including some of the ones being suggested as healthier alternatives on this thread - both of which are also important for babies and toddlers.

I was also thinking this about including cereal because they are fortified with iron.

Fruit is no better than fruit juice - because the sugars contained in both (and all sugars) turn to acid in the mouth and weaken enamel. Advice my dentist gave is not to clean the teeth within an hour of eating any fruit or drinking fruit juice.

This feels very much like a stealth boast

The point of the cereal is the milk, I think, which (as long as it is whole milk or at least only semi-skimmed) contains calcium and Vit D which the body can access. What cereal is irrelevant (but better not to have ones with sugar all over them!).

This leaflet is giving honest and clear advice. It’s just aiming for a good and achievable diet for young children rather than an ideal but likely unachievable diet or seemingly unrealistic one.

And thank you for taking it on board - that's really rare on a chat thread like this so (I genuinely mean this, I know it sounds patronising/sarcastic!) I think you should be given credit for recognising your own bias and re-examining your thought processes.

People aren’t getting obese due to having Rice Krispies for breakfast and the odd glass of orange juice.

Useful fact sheet. It's the sugar that does the damage since it becomes acidic in the mouth (all sugars do this, so eating fruit is no better than drinking orange squash). Before the arrival of the spice sugar in Europe dental caries were a rarity.

Also, ham is a Group 1 Carcinogen - I actually think it's still ok to give to a child in moderation, but presumably people who wouldn't give Rice Crispies because of the alleged lack of nutrition wouldn't.

Advice says heavily diluted, which is fine. And eating fruit has the same effect on teeth (fructose turns to acid in the mouth), which means one should not clean teeth within an hour of eating any (that includes stuff like tomatoes).
Eating a cereal e.g. rice crispies is a way of getting a child to drink milk, which is necessary for bone development etc since it contains calcium and Vit D (at least it will as long as it is whole milk - skimmed milk does not contain enough fat for the body to utilise the Vit D in the milk, which is why tins of dried skimmed milk are labelled as not suitable for babies).
The other foods listed are fine. Nothing wrong with Irish stew, tuna fish, sweetcorn etc. We don't all live on sundried tomatoes and Mediterranean diets esp. in cold weather!

Agree with this.

I used to work in a role writing public health guidance (not dietary). In the UK, for most topics any national guidance for the public has to be suitable for an average reading/comprehension age of 8. That's going to make a proper explanation of macros etc and maximising nutrition pretty difficult.

This may help you to understand the pathological process:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sugars-and-dental-caries

I'm sure it means dilute pop which is fine and I dont see anything wrong with the advice tbh ! My kids are 15 and 11 and eat cereal with milk

Yes, that's actually a rather big deal. I'm surprised more hasn't been made of it in the thread, especially as multiple people have posted lower iron meals as allegedly health alternatives. The response to that will probably be that there are other ways to get iron in.. but we're not!

True. And Rice Krispies are more expensive than porridge or toast. Packaged (usually sugary) cereals with child-attracting cartoons and bright colours on the boxes are a prime example of how companies can make huge profits by selling a lie. If we didn't introduce added sugar to our kids, we'd do them a big favour.

I have never seen ham, cheese, tomato or cucumber in a schools breakfast club. I assume you’re on the continent where that’s more common.

I don’t think the advice is terrible when you look across the day/week - better that kids are fed and the advice is accessible for most parents.