Do people really not know what to eat?

Yes I was agreeing with you

I like your style!

For me it's the opposite. I generally see food as fuel so care more about it. I always add flavour to what I add and make sure it's appetising, but I always consider macro and micronutrient content. I've learnt to be this way over time through endurance and weight training. I think people who exercise regularly do tend to care more about their diet.

So true. MN is not the place to discuss healthy diets.

My wider point was that there are barriers to people cooking fresh food or buying some convenience foods that might seem an obvious course of action to some of us.

Don't know - but they do💁

Screenshots from the Yuka app

Wasnt there another thread recently where OP was complaining that her kids eat her out of house and home and just happened to mention that they like eating frozen peas. My god, you would have thought she was abusing her kids!

Apparently not buying them enough crisps and snacks and forcing them to eat frozen uncooked food!!!

I don't think it takes a huge amount of imagination to think about what the barriers might be to eating a healthy diet, especially if on a low income.

If you don't have much money, you might not actually live very near shops selling much healthy food (food deserts are a thing). The bus to get to a bigger shop might feel expensive and it'll take longer/be more awkward than going by car.

Not everyone grew up with home cooking. If you don't know anyone who cooks, it's not necessarily going to come easily.

Not everyone has a well equipped kitchen or well stocked food cupboard. Building that stuff up is expensive. Batch cooking is of limited use if you don't have much/any freezer space.

Research shows that families on very low incomes worry about trying new foods because they will go hungry if they don't like it: they can't afford to waste food.

Cheaper food often needs cooking for a longer time - it's pointless buying lentils if you then can't afford the gas or electricity to cook them.

People have all sorts of struggles that take up headspace and might leave less capacity for meal planning, shopping and cooking.

Quite often I make a very simple soup, it is literally a dollop of my saved chicken juices, a new potato for thickening and handfuls of soffrito, with herbs/spices, whatever I fancy

Potato and veg. Very nice.

I hope no-one is feeding their kids from the freezer.. have the grace to cook it first please.

Frozen sofrito is a game changer, I only discovered it recently. There’s nothing wrong with frozen veg.

BagaChips
If you posted on here saying you feed your children bananas, porridge and jacket potato, everyone would be telling you that it's too many carbs anyway

Definitely!!!

Oh yes my soffrito is frozen, its like a massive pillow of soffrito in the freezer. I cant get a chopper I am officially decluttering. Dont tempt me.

You can make gluten free UPF free pasta. I'm a coeliac and make it regularly.

It absolutely takes time, but if we know pasta is on the menu then either my DH or I make it in advance. If we don't have time then we just don't have pasta; we have the sauce with something else like baked potatoes or rice. My DS is also a coeliac, and had milk, peanut, and legume allergies as a baby/toddler. We still didn't use UPFs.

People talk about time like it's truly a preventative to things. It can make things more tricky, absolutely, but there are other ways around things. Swaps can be made, recipes adjusted. When something is cooking you don't need to stand there and stare at it until it's done. I've got soup cooking on the hob right now and I've been sat down for half an hour reading with the DC, DH was cleaning the living room.

It can cost far less, 17p for an apple from Aldi to be factual correct

@soupyspoon getting a small chopper or one of the box choppers makes preparing it easier. Celery freezes really well, as does onions, carrots, peppers and loads more.

Celery I try to buy once every few months and then process the lot in the food processor and then freeze it in recipe size portions.

I don’t think that’s true these days. And even when I was at school in the early nineties, Home Ec consisted of a terms lessons (unless you went on to select it for GCSE). In that term I remember making a cake or two and a homemade pizza. Which was fun, but hardly a thorough grounding in cooking skills or nutrition.

Most of what I know about cooking came from watching my Mum. I then built on that by buying cookbooks, watching cooking shows etc - but if I hadn’t had that initial grounding at home it would have been much harder to know where to start.

This sounds like the devils work.

How have chicken nuggets and hoops have more fibre than the casserole.

Im not frightened of fat however I dont count that as a baddie in the sausages.

Oh I’m not saying that. Just that the brown sugar I occasionally buy says it’s unrefined, not that it’s had molasses added. There may just be different types.

I have an issue with this, I make my own soffrito, but it is cheaper to make your own but you cant buy just a stick of celery and quite often you cant just buy one carrot (well you cant at Lidl and Aldi) or one onion.

I dont get through celery in any other form, I dont eat it at all unless its part of a base of stock or soup/casserole. So it just sits there getting slimy. So I have to chop th whole head up with the onion, leek and carrot for my sofrito. So the bag is enormous

I prefer to do that, but its a faff and hard work and takes a while. I can see why peeople want to buy frozen but it is more money.

To be honest OP, you are RIGHT!

I think it’s a generational thing as well. I am 35 (I don’t have kids yet), but I really care about nutrition. I was reflecting on my grandparents today, they’re late 80s and early 90s. Neither of them eat processed food! They’re in fantastic health - I am in awe of them!! I’m trying to live by their principles. UPFs are a very big problem. Nothing wrong with a packet of crisps, or tin of spaghetti hoops or whatever from time to time.. but proper home cooked food is the best!

No time isn’t an excuse either. Each morning lately I’ve been chopping up veg and sticking it in a slow cooker with some meat… fruit and kefir yoghurt for brekkie… sandwich or soup for lunch… job done!!! I barely snack as I am full from the 3 meals I eat

Did you see the snacks the kids were having after school? And that at least one or two of them were following the dad and eating pot noodles. Plus the bit where one meal a week would be McDonald's?
I'm not sure they were committed to making a meaningful change (I hope so) or just loved being on the telly.
It would be interesting to go back to them in a year's time.

YANBU. I do judge people who bring children into this world and are downright lazy as fuck to feed them properly and educate them on a healthy balanced diet and help them to form healthy habits.

I also judge parents who complain about fussy eaters and give their kids nuggets and biscuits and other crap.

I agree it isn't about money, it's about effort and education.

Fortunately I was taught to cook by 2 generations of good cooks, I'm not struggling in poverty and the DC (now adult) in question was willing to try things but try feeding a coeliac with additional allergies to tomatoes, apples, pears, peaches, apricots, tree nuts and parsnips.

Sometimes upf has to be the way to go because of cross contamination risks or just time constraints. I can make pasta sauce from pretty much anything but that gluten free pasta is always going to be upf.

factually incorrect, unfortunately. pink ladies (obviously expensive but what my eldest DC likes, example 50p+, walkers £3.19 for 12 bags at tesco)