What is really stopping us from eating healthy?

[LilMissRe]

Hi mums
I’m trying to balance full time mummy-hood and completing my degree and after what felt like an eternity, I am edging towards the finish line. The only thing left is to finish my research project. I say “only” but this has been a huge struggle and I am asking for help. My project is about promoting healthy eating in cities. I’m comparing what the government thinks needs to be done, to what families, and those particularly struggling to access healthy food, think is hindering their access to healthy food. So I am writing here, in the hope that you could share with me your opinions.

Most “experts” say that healthy food access is difficult because of price, location or income. (I’d add time too- but think there is more to it than that). We all relate to and value food differently so I am keen to find out how you think healthy food access is an issue.

My parents grew up very very poor in the Mediterranean; but they both insist that their diets were much healthier then than they are now and have always been surprised as to how diets have worsened, and obesity risen despite there being relatively more availability of food. My parents are from a different time however, and so I am asking you for your opinion on why you think diets are getting worse.

The answer is habit. On the whole we learn our food habits from our parents. Eg I don't buy sweets but do buy biscuits. Just like my parents.

Not always true, though. I didn't like many meals growing up. I loved it when we did actually get stuff from the freezer shop! However, as a student I learnt to cook the things that I liked from scratch because it was cheaper and I wanted to know how to cook my favourite dishes. Fruit and veg shops and markets sold cheap stuff, especially towards the end of the day. Lots of veg to bulk most meals out! Curries, pasta sauce, stir fries, chillies, stews. I froze everything and still do.

I cannot eat a salad, lettuce cucumber and tomatoes all make me heave (I know, and I've tried) so it was a chicken sandwich slathered in mayonnaise,

So what do you like? There will be an easy way to make it in advance with a bit of forethought.

The food was terribly dull during rationing I was told and note that the UK had rationing until 1954!. That's why they went bonkers for biscuits, cakes (and bananas) afterwards.

chopping onions and peppers and chicken breasts and dirying three pans and an oven tray

Cook it all in one pan.

the benefits don't outweigh the output

They really can do.

We've got the 'local' versions of large supermarkets since they've put the independents out of business. It's about an hour's trip to the nearest Aldi once you take into account walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, the bus getting within walking distance and then walking to the place. And it's three quid to get there.

I don't fancy spending out on fresh chicken breasts, as they are stupid money (and they don't sell frozen meat unless it's in breadcrumbs). We had a slow cooker chicken yesterday and DP made the leftovers into a noodle soup with some lemon and herbs from the garden. Tasted great, but probably not enough calories when all I've had today is two boiled eggs and a black coffee.

I eat a stupid amount of olives. They're one of my favourite things, as they make tinned tuna (in brine, not fancy oils or 'spring' water with salt added, never mind even more expensive 'no drain' tins) taste great, along with lemon and red onion (they don't sell bags of red onions, either). Nuts cost a fortune, IMO, and aren't particularly fresh - I could easily eat loads of them if they were worth the outlay. I do like sundried tomatoes, but again, they aren't on sale at the three nearest (except if you buy deli/plastic tubs of 2-3 pieces of sundried tomatoes with scraps of poor quality mozzarella - not great when you can't have dairy).

What we actually need, IMO, is a Turkish Food Centre every 2 miles. I love the one on the other side of town from my work and our home - proper, ripe tomatoes, herbs, different grains, olives, spices, cucumbers, firm courgettes, pumpkins of varying types, peppers that have ripened in the sun, loads of different fruits, nuts, freshly baked bread every 2 hours, tins of tomatoes, puree, etc. Massive tubs of ewes milk yoghurts, cheese made from goats' or ewes' milk. preserved vegetables, artichokes, etc. Frozen veggies that cost over seven quid in an online order for just £3. And so many different pastas, oils and tiny portioned sweet things - you could have watermelon, feta and mint salad for a week for about £3, or ewes' yoghurt, a tiny drizzle of honey/with comb and some dates & walnuts for a fortnight for about £4.

I think that their attitude is that Turkish/Greek/Levantine/Eastern Mediterranean customers will not tolerate the crapness and prices we're lumbered with.

Mitzi I'd go to that shop!

I can cook from scratch
I can afford fresh ingredients
I do have time
I am well educated in nutrition.

To be honest I just like eating - especially chocolate, crisps, cheese. In fact anything sugary and fattening.

I comfort eat, I boredom eat.

I also hate being judged as uneducated, lazy and incompetent because I enjoy eating the wrong things too much.

I love the one on the other side of town from my work and our home - proper, ripe tomatoes, herbs, different grains, olives, spices, cucumbers, firm courgettes, pumpkins of varying types, peppers that have ripened in the sun, loads of different fruits, nuts, freshly baked bread every 2 hours, tins of tomatoes, puree, etc. Massive tubs of ewes milk yoghurts, cheese made from goats' or ewes' milk. preserved vegetables, artichokes, etc. Frozen veggies that cost over seven quid in an online order for just £3. And so many different pastas, oils and tiny portioned sweet things - you could have watermelon, feta and mint salad for a week for about £3, or ewes' yoghurt, a tiny drizzle of honey/with comb and some dates & walnuts for a fortnight for about £4.

Well, when you do make the trip, stock up. Then cook with it all and freeze the results.

@RosemaryRemember it's my favourite food shop of all. Because the ingredients actually taste of -something-.

My favourite Sunday morning breakfast is onion, tinned tomatoes, a huge amount of tomato puree and some Harissa + coriander, cumin and cinnamon, all bubbled up and then crack a couple of eggs in the top, bung a lid on for ten minutes before eating with Pide bread topped with Nigella or Sesame seeds. It's lovely.

But the shop is the other side of town - if it were as close as the supermarkets round the corner, I'd have no trouble persuading DP to shop there.

In some ways, I'm almost looking forward to being out of work (I'm being made redundant in a month), as then I can go there regularly - by the time I've staggered/limped home from work, there's no way I am able to go back out and wait for buses and weekends are spent physically recovering from the week, even when I'm not on the compulsory unpaid overtime (definitely not going to miss that).

Sorry, I forgot to mention - I'm disabled. It knackers me out to walk for ten minutes and carrying stuff is incredibly painful.

I'll use some of my redundancy to get an old lady type shopping trolley, I think, as carrying things is a bit beyond me as is opening my front door, flushing the bog or turning on a tap without acute pain at the moment.

Because unhealthy food tastes amazing and is full of addictive sugar. That was my reason for choosing it even though I know how to eat heathily.

Time and cost. Even if not fancy stuff. Fresh ingredients may be cheaper but they perish quick and there is more waste, unless you are home all day to prep and cook from scratch for multiple people. i remember my grandma did growing up... you know, like killing her own
chickens, plucking feathers, scaling fish and filleting it, grinding herbs with pestle and mortar, pastry from scratch, even using a wood stove blah. She grew up rural and poor but not impoverished, but to do that sorta shit today with rapid urbanisation you need to be rich enough to live the country life. The economics and lifestyle is different in working parent urban households.

I work full time and sometimes gulp a Macdonalds on the train on the way home. We are too exhausted on weekends to cook. So much for progress.

However personally i never grew an interest in enjoying food nor cooking... i can see how it's entirely possible to made an effort if you wish. To me eating is a chore. I eat to live, in order to work to feed my kids. So i just want the quickest solution. That would be fresh cooked food i can buy at less than the cost of a Primark eco cotton top.

Finally, i cannot tolerate salads. It's just not real food. Im sure humans evolved beyond that.

Most people are aware of whats healthy these days. It's on the tv, primary children are drip fed until some worry about eating too much or diabetes (I've known some parents tell me their dcs have not eaten as much for a while althou this didn't last) I'm split on this I sometines ctually think it sometimes does more than harm than good. Nutrition used to always be something you would learn informally at home although I realise some isnt always the case. I agree that time is a major factor. Thats why so many of these companies are springing up offering a delivery of food with a recipe. Having said all of that, I do cook a mix of cooking from scratch and frozen. My downfall is emotional eating-boredom or being upset. Anxiety however causes me to be unable to eat. Unhealthy eating is down to many factors imo so hard to pinpoint one cause.

I can cook from scratch
I can afford fresh ingredients
I do have time
I am well educated in nutrition.

To be honest I just like eating - especially chocolate, crisps, cheese. In fact anything sugary and fattening. I comfort eat, I boredom eat.

This is me too. I think it's most people tbh. But people don't like to admit it, so instead say things like "well I wanted to eat healthy, but strawberries were expensive and once went off when I did buy them - guess I have no choice but to be obese".

Sorry OP but I think all the research in to the "reasons" people eat the wrong foods is pointless because of this. You'll get a whole bunch of reasons but if you made a policy based on them (such as free veg for all, or mandatory cooking classes in school), it wouldn't help.

The only way to stop people eating processed foods is if those foods were either banned from sale, or so expensive only the 1% could afford them. A chocolate bar would have to be about £30.

The only way to stop people eating processed foods is if those foods were either banned from sale, or so expensive only the 1% could afford them. A chocolate bar would have to be about £30.

Or have a nationally subsidised take away outlet. One that was affordable that cooked all the things people liked but healthily! People on low incomes could have further discounts for the national outlet.

@tinylittlebird I agree- I know in some countries they have public canteens that cook delicious healthy meals all day everyday- opens o the public and if I remember correctly they are either free, as subsidised by the govt- or very very low priced. I think it was in Brazil- they made it a constitutional right that all citizens have access to healthy and affordable food. I think they managed to eradicate child hunger.

Thank you so so much for your responses so far- I really do appreciate it. It has helped me beyond what you can imagine.

You're welcome, OP. Pleased to help. it's an interesting subject. There obviously are some barriers to eating healthily, poverty, disability, the availability and affordability of good food have all come up in this thread. Time and skills, as well, however I think that is more solvable with a bit of planning and research.

I worked full time when my kid's were at school finished i finished at 4.30 got home around 5.20pm, there was alway's a meal at dinner time, a lot of the thing's were prepared the night before or taken out the freezer, the kid's alway's had packed lunches to, people just can't be bothered to cook from scratch, if you feed kids junk food that's all they will eat, kid's nowaday's wont eat veg because they've decided they don't like it when they haven't even tasted it.

Has there been a thread on here about the usefulness of healthy start vouchers? I can't seem to find it and wanted to know whether those make any real difference to families in terms of eating more healthily?

Has anyone here had any experience of them?

Or can maybe direct me to a thread?

I grew up in the UK but live in continental Europe now - not the Med but a country I would definitely describe as having a "better" food culture than the UK in the sense that there is very little convenience food, nearly everyone cooks from scratch and buying local/seasonal food is very important.

I do think that time is probably a big factor. Over here, nearly all workplaces and schools have proper canteens and people sit down with their colleagues for a good hour and enjoy a hot meal together. The main meal is eaten at lunchtime so evening meals tend to be something much lighter like bread, cold cuts and crudites, soups or a light salad. It makes it easier to enjoy cooking when you're really only doing it at the weekend.

@butteredghost

I don't eat chocolate. I don't like it. Or crisps, cakes or ding dinners.

It's a fucking pain in the arse trying to get stuff that's healthy (as it's not as big a moneymaker for the supermarkets), never mind the exorbitant prices for shit quality and poor selections.

That doesn't mean I eat crap, it means I have little interest in what I have to eat and it isn't as varied in micronutrients as if there were more interesting/higher quality things sold, rather than more expensive things of essentially utter crap. Whilst you might expect that I have three doughnuts for breakfast, what it actually means is that I don't have anything (ran out of oats and the shops nearby only sell the instant, full of milk powder and sugar instant oat dust from the floor).

If I had the time to spend shopping in a good place (I mention the TfCs earlier in the thread), my already fairly good diet would be much, much healthier, though, as having access to decent quality ingredients is the problem.

Don’t underestimate the power and cleverness of food scientists and food marketers. They have worked very hard and very successfully to break our relationship with ‘normal’ food - vegetables, fruit, grains, small amounts of protein etc - and replace them in our daily lives with highly manufactured products that trip all our bodies «wow» sensors by delivering a high dose of sugar, fat and taste which comes in an easy-to-prepare-and-shovel-in format. No boring chopping, no picking out bones, no yucky stuff to deal with. And a taste / mouthfeel that makes your brains pleasure-centres sparkle!

It starts early too: sugary formula that tastes the same every day rather than breast milk which changes daily depending on what mum has eaten. industrial baby food jars rather than whatever food the family is eating, bashed up a bit. It’s all part of the same trajectory to get people eating industrial food.

And definitely time. My MIL didn’t work, she shopped daily, bought fresh meat / fish / veg each day and never did a big shop. My mum did work full time - and we ate out of Asda’s frozen food aisle.

@shoesandwine

I live in France, and yes I’d say they are still miles better than the UK. Much more conservative re.food but probably healthier for it. Eg i work in a high school, which isn’t very close to any shops. Lunch is served daily for all students and staff.

Starter eg beetroot salad, pate en croute
Main eg beef stew, with carrots or baked fish with leeks and rice
Dairy - yoghurt or cheese
Dessert - baked fruit, mousse, fruit, blancmange

And that’s it. No sandwiches, no muffins, no biscuits, nothing that can be eaten on the run. No snacks. No packed lunches allowed. No vending machines either.

The food industry is driven by selling us cheap food, that we buy a lot of. Much of this has sugar in it. Even the reduce sugar movement focusses on how we should replace sugar rather than how we should reduce it.

We are surrounded by a push to consume that incurs significant resistance. When I try to challenge the parent group at my son's school, I am told that children love cake sales, it is part of the celebration of birthdays that we bring in cakes for the whole class, that the magic of the Christmas Fair is embodied by the candy floss machine, the selection box and the sweets handed out at the game stalls and what harm does a few fizzy drinks do.

Historically, sugar has been part of a celebration but we have incorporated this into every celebration as well as into our daily lives.

I was explaining to someone that my son should have no more than 2 pieces of fruit per day and his consumption of sugar is very limited. This is on medical advice. This person is responsible for his food for one week on a school camp. I had already sent suggested menus and additional food. He asked what my son has for a treat, the point is that my son does not need to have a treat during the time that he is at camp. Treats should not be daily or even weekly occurrences, they should be exceptional. In the weeks before, we have had to say no to the icecream treat for winning a poetry competition at school, the fizzy drinks and bags of haribo at sports day, the candy floss and cake stall at the summer fair.

Even when I push very hard against it, I am constantly trying to explain that this amount of sugar is not necessary and then providing alternatives with fruit sugar instead. Despite the amount of information we are bombarded with which tells us to reduce sugar, we still reach for the alternatives, what to replace sugar with and for the most part, these continue to include the same basic chemical components and make little difference. My favourite was a cake mix packet that professed to be sugar-free, the first line of instructions said add 200g of sugar!!

We need to learn that we should eat vegetables and protein and yes, on occasion, we can celebrate with some sugar, but this does not mean we include every sugar based tradition in the world in our celebration of Christmas and that we start it on 5th December and continue until 6th January on top of our usual daily deserts and 3 times daily snacks that are also sugar laden.