To think that the middle classes have an unhealthy obsession with fruit?

[FunnysInTheGarden]

DS1 won't eat so much as a grape. So many other parents (and schools) seem to be obsessed with getting their children to eat fruit. AFAIR we ate biscuits as children, as a rule, and not raisins.

BTW the acid in fruit rots a childers teeth faster than you can say 'coke'

belgo - How do you get through three meals every day with only 2 bits of fruit and veg a day?

I'm not saying they are not offered just one piece a day, I am saying I am happy when they eat one of each a day.

We do both - they have an after school snack, which can be humous and pitta or similar, but more often than not is a cake or cookie.

However we also have a huge fruit bowl, which my three dc's munch their way through. Oranges and apples are the most popular, but I get other fruit too depending on what's on offer etc. I have to top up the fruit bowl every couple of days, they go through so much.

No dodgy tummies, but lots of hidden orange peel under beds

What do children eat if they don't eat vegetables?

I presume you are not counting potatoes as a veg, but still, I can think of maybe five meals I could give my children that don't contain any veg at all.

Belgo - how do you manage to restrict them to only one portion?

I thought the 'five a day' was five portions of fruit and veg, with an emphasis on the veg. Ideally children should eat some veg with every meal, in a lot of countries like my husbands, they have salad, cucumber and tomatoes with breakfast (ok, with salami too!!!!)

I definitely go for veg at every meal, even if it is tinned sweetcorn or cucumber again (mine are addicted), but all kinds really. Fruit is sliced apple for breakfast and a fruit bar for a snack.

I have a friend who serves up large portions of fruit salad, so expensive berries and exotic fruits every mealtime. I personally don't consider this particularly healthy, as the children have no veg and lots of sugars, but she thinks it has to be 'five a day' and considers fruit the easy way to do this.

Brandybutter - what on earth are you on about? Where have I said I restrict my children's diets?

And all the literature on fruit and veg intake goes on and on about green veg in particular, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower inc leaves, peas and so on, for great bowel health (e.g. not getting bowel cancer) which I think a lot of us did eat in the 1970's. So, even if we had one manky satsuma a day or shrivelled apple, we were probably better off with that diet than the current fad for tonnes of very sweet fruit and hardly any veg on the side.

Fwiw In lots of other countries it's much higher than 5 - I believe that in Japan it's 17 and 9 should be vegetables.

agree with that onetoomanycornettos.

My Grandfather grew up on a farm, hadn't seen a cake until he joined the army, nothing but potatoes and veg for them growing up as they couldn't afford meat, certainly no junk.
Died of bowel cancer aged 55. They have not clue what causes it or prevents it.

I've kind of given up trying to get the DCs (and me, really) to eat much fruit. It doesn't have a great shelf life, it's expensive, and it doesn't easily form part of a meal in the way vegetables do. I'd rather give them a veg-packed soup or other veg-based dish than try and feed them pieces of fruit all day. I think it's generally easier to eat more fruit in the Summer too. During the winter it just feels a bit bland and unappealing.

I eat loads of fruit especially grapes

Mackeraloffact - I think it's important to look at a child's diet across a number of weeks or even months because like you say, fruit and salads are tastier in the summer.

Freshly made vegetable soups are fab in the winter.

Mackerel - Love the name btw. What about smoothies, get the dc's involved and they're more likely to eat it. My uber fussy DS has even eaten smoothie with spinach in it because he 'made' it.

In most developed countries they recommend 7-10 a day. The 5 a day rule is for the UK where somebody has decided the nation would eat less fruit and veg if it was higher.

Personally I don't see fruit as necessarily the best snack for kids but I approve of the fruit and veg snack rule. If my child sees yours eating banana cake they will ask me for it and while I could bake one, I would probably send them to school with a Jaffa cake and tell the teacher that Jaffa cakes contain oranges so should be allowed. ;)

I am as middle class as they come yet I am deeply suspicious of fruit.

Bananas only ever taste nice for 30 seconds in their life - they are either too green or too brown either side of that 30 seconds, and that 30 seconds is usually overnight as they always are too green before bed and too brown in the morning.

Apples are frequently powdery and bruised rather than crunchy and perfect

Strawberries rarely taste of strawberry

The only fruit worth eating is too bloody expensive and/or only has a season of a week and a half, viz raspberries, cherries, plums, mango, passionfruit.

They're fussy things are fruit.

By my god, I love veg. You can't go wrong with veg. They hang around for ages and always taste delicious. They're neither too sweet nor too acidic; they're Just Right.

I can't walk past a perfect cauliflower without buying it, I eat corn on the cob twice a day in September, and I think I might turn orange from eating raw carrots.

DS loves fruit though, the traitor .

Mamatomany, sorry about your grandfather, that's very young. It's true no one understands why one individual gets bowel cancer, and it's not a simple relationship, but I'm pretty sure that eating lots of processed meat and having a diet low in vegetables is associated with a higher risk, although of course, it might be a small thing compared with something like a family history or if you already have some type of bowel disease like colitis.

But, in general, people are overweight in this country (myself included). It's not crazy to think that eating lots of carbs and fruit only, and very few green veg is not a good idea, for all types of cancer and other reasons such as keeping the bowel healthy. The 1950's wartime diet was very low in bought fruit but people grew a lot of veg in their back gardens and they have turned out to be a very long-lived generation.

mamatomany - you do know that the eighty a day smokers who live to 100 and your grandfather are outliers yes?

Lifestyle affects your chances of getting ill. There are no guarantees - it's not that simple. But a smaller percentage of those who eat a balanced diet, don't smoke and take exercise get ill than those who don't do those things.

YANBU it is ridiculous. Yes a bit of fruit as part of a balanced diet = great. Vitamins and fibre. Piles and piles of it - not so great - very sweet and some is very acidic.

People go overboard because it's something their children will eat that is "good". Especially with the list of "good" foods getting smaller and smaller - I notice that bread is now often vilified

In all seriousness, I was talking to a personal trainer/nutritionist type person the other day and she was saying they (i.e. people she knows professionally) are starting to wonder if the emphasis on fruit isn't so great given the sugars, and that perhaps they should emphasise that veg is at least as important and perhaps start to shift the balance to being a couple of pieces of fruit and the rest from veg, rather than all 5 being fruit being ok IYSWIM.

AIBU to think the lower classes have an unhealthy obsession with burgers?

I had a fair bit of fruit as a child as far as I remember:

An orange with the middle taken out and filled with sugar

Delicious, but no wonder I have fillings now!

Saw a nutritionist reecently.

She said fruit was fine but that it was better if your 5-a-day (and she reckoned it should be nearer to 10 a day) came from veggies rather than fruit.

Personal choice really.
Dcs all eat fruit(too bloody much sometimes)and they all have good teeth.
I only get annoyed when i buy it and there's none left for lunchboxes two days later.

DD and DS2 eat tomatoes like apples.
I rarely buy bisciuts,mainly because I'LL eat them.but when i do they eat them too.
We also rarely eat puddings,occasionally Carte d'or ice cream.Fresh fruit salad is lovely and is pudding of choice.
Ds's won't eat sprouts but DD has eaten them like maltesers since she was a baby.
Ds1 used to put them in his trouser pockets then flush them down the loo,they FLOAT.

Dd is 5 and the only fruit she'll eat is grapes or strawberries and she is disgusted if you dare proffer her a vegetable with her main meal.

I make a "hidden" veg pasta sauce by blending it smooth so she has no idea what's in it, but she always wolfs it down lol.

The one thing dd will eat loads of is cucumber though, I don't really understand as it doesn't taste of anything! But then she does prefer water to ANY other drink, so maybe she likes watery stuff lol.