AIBU playgroup snacktime

[boursin]

The playgroup (stay and play) we usually go to with my 2yr old was closed so we went to one in a nearby town.
In my usual one each parent brings a piece of fruit and we cut it up and dish it out. I thought this was normal....
Yesterday for 11am snack my child was offered bread, wotsits, cheese crackers, biscuits and chocolate cake and cheese.
Children of course loved it and I was slightly AIBU as it wasn't a party but happens every week apparently.
Is this what happens at other mum run play groups?

just need to say that choceyes is talking nonsense. Refined sugar is not automatically stored as fat in the liver.

Instead any carbohydrates we don't use are stored as subcutaneous fat, the sort of fat that makes us look fat. This is everything from fructose to refined sugar to pasta.

If the capacity to store fat in that fat is exceeded, the body needs to find somewhere else to store it, so will store it in the liver or muscle (the overflow hypothesis). This then, for a number of reasons, causes insulin resistance, the precursor to diabetes.

The body doesn't make a difference between sugars. It really is just a matter of too many calories in.

Sugar is sugar. And I have no idea what someone down thread meant by "natural sugar" as if the sugar in a biscuit is somehow artificial. And fruit sugar is just sugar by another name.

I'm amazed that people at toddler groups have the time or the energy to prepare all this food!

Personally, the less intervention of food by people whose hygiene habits are unknown to me, the better. That's why opening a packet of Wotsits or biscuits is preferable because they were produced and packaged in an environment that should be clean. The parents/prep area at toddler groups fiddling with the cheese, carrot sticks et al - not necessarily!

Fructose (the sugar found in fruits) is the sweetest naturally occuring sugar approx. twice as sweet as sucrose (sugar usually found in cakes and biscuits - still natural but refined). Sucrose is broken down in the body to guess what - fructose!

By eating fruit your body gets a sugar hit with a lot less calories so with regards to weight control it is a healthier choice. Dried fruit obviously has concentrated sugar and is sweeter and more calorific. Fruit also has many other nutritional benefits but as a snack many fruits can be unhealthy for teeth (dried fruit, banana and oranges). Apples, pears and grapes are better choices for snacks.

My idea of a healthy toddler snack would be cheese, crackers or breadsticks, grapes and sliced apple.

I don't keep biscuits in the house so I'm quite happy for my toddler to have one or two biscuity treats as well. As long as they realise it is a 'treat' - a treat being something that you have occasionally but not all the time.

Is this a two hour playgroup? Why on earth have snacktime at all? Surely parents can bring something if their children can't survive from breakfast to lunch without a snack?

I don't understand why so many children HAVE to have a snack every morning.

amazing what people will find to argue about!

Morloth Wine? How do I get an invite to your playgroup??

All sugars are not the same.

This from a website:
If complex carbohydrates are broken down to monosaccharides in the intestines before they are absorbed into the bloodstream, why are they better than refined sugar or other di- or mono-saccharides? To a great extent it has to do with the processes of digestion and absorption. Simple sugars require little digestion, and when a child eats a sweet food, such as a candy bar or a can of soda, the glucose level of the blood rises rapidly. In response, the pancreas secretes a large amount of insulin to keep blood glucose levels from rising too high. This large insulin response in turn tends to make the blood sugar fall to levels that are too low 3 to 5 hours after the candy bar or can of soda has been consumed. This tendency of blood glucose levels to fall may then lead to an adrenaline surge, which in turn can cause nervousness and irritability... The same roller-coaster ride of glucose and hormone levels is not experienced after eating complex carbohydrates or after eating a balanced meal because the digestion and absorption processes are much slower.

and this
answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/751591.html

choceyes that passage you have quoted is comparing complex carbohydrates (which are broken down into sugars in the body) with sugars. It is not comparing different types of sugars. It is asking - why are complex carbohydrates better for you than sugar if they are eventually broken down by the body into sugar? Then saying that complex carbohydrates are better for you as they maintain a more balanced blood sugar level rather than the ups and downs experienced when eating sugar.

choceyes the link shows that fructose may be healthier choice for people with diabetes and that there is a large debate amongst scientists as to whether fructose IS an healthier than sucrose.

nolembit -
then the link goes on to say....

Eaten in moderation, fructose is not harmful and the natural foods it
is contained in (fruits) are some of the healthiest foods humans can
eat. However, the problems are caused by eating too much fructose at a
time, such as with the advent of high fructose corn syrup. A gram of
fructose from an apple is healthier compared to a gram of table sugar
because the fructose comes with an apple, whereas the table sugar
probably comes from a cookie or slice of cake. Because the fructose
is contained within the fruit, it doesn't coat the teeth and cause
damage on the level that something like cake icing or sodas do.

which is what this thread is all about.

Frucrose in it's pure form might now actually be an healthier than sucrose (they are both simple sugars), but fructose is contained in fruits which ARE healthy and sucrose is found in confectionary, like the article states.

the previous passage I quoted if in response to somebody who said that even pasta is sugary.

is in response

When my DD was little and we went to playgroup there were never any snacks for the children apart from those their mothers brought for them (mostly just bottles if the children weren't breastfed).

Chocolate cake, crisps etc sounds a bit much, especially when we only have toast and biscuits at the one I go to.
I don't mind my DS having a biscuit or two on a Tuesday morning, he eats healthily otherwise and it's a treat for him. If I was really bothered about it I'd take him some fruit from home.

It's not really a big deal.

choceyes the passage you quoted is talking about the merits of the food that these sugars are in, suggesting that fruit is healthier than cakes and biscuits - which is of course true. It is not suggesting that fructose is healthier than sucrose. It is saying that although both contain sugar at least when you eat fruit you are getting other nutrients too.

Our playgroup rolls on until 12ish most days so we call it lunch rather than morning tea. DS2 has his nap as soon we as we get home from it, so it is great that he eats lunch there.

Usually get the food out at about 11ish.

We have a roster and it works out at about once a month, I don't mind at all.

It is a good playgroup, I feel that I have landed on my feet there!

also fructose has to be converted to glucose in the liver before it can be used. whereas sucrose is made up of a molecule of glucose and fructose, so the molecule of glucose is readily available without any digestion. So eating sugar as apposed to fruit will give you a sugar "high" .

I don't think it's worth worrying about! People are so precious about this stuff. A few crisps and bit of cake won't make your dc explode!

Was it a party? I lead a toddler group and have got fruit/veg on offer every week but on the last one before the holiday, each parents brings a food of their choice to eat, usually party ttype food such as crisps, fairy cakes,carrot sticks... usually there far less fruit than other things brought but it is a one off thing so not really objectionable to IMHO.

all this talk of sugar is really making me crave chocolate cake....mmmmmm

the toddler groups I go to never have anything to eat for mums. Only fruit for kids. My DS eats all the grapes, orange and strawbs and I eat up his pineapple and melon. so it's not too bad!

choceyes fructose, glucose and sucrose are simple carbohydrates. Pasta is a complex carbohydrate. As per one of your posts, complex carbohydrates like pasta are broken down into monosaccharides (fructose, glucose etc) in the body.

choceyes sucrose has first to be broken down by the body into simpler units - fructose and glucose. It cannot be absorbed immediately into the bloodstream as sucrose.

"Fructose exists in foods as either a monosaccharide (free fructose) or as a unit of a disaccharide (sucrose). Free fructose is absorbed directly by the intestine; however, when fructose is consumed in the form of sucrose, digestion occurs entirely in the upper small intestine."

I agree chocolate cake sounds very, very appealing just now.

yes, but even though fructose and sucrose are both simple sugars, fructose can't be used by the body unless it is converted into glucose by the liver.And most of the time there is enough glucose in the body already so fructose is converted to glycogen in the liver. Glycogen is an energy store, and it is SLOWLY released into the body when energy is needed.
NOT the case with sucrose, which is broken down quickly by the body into glucose and fructose.