to be shocked by the way this family eats?

[lotney]

A friend told me about a woman she knows who has 3 year old twins and a 2 year old. Her husband works away for long periods of time. She doesn't cook while he's away - the children eat freezer food like fish fingers, chicken nuggets etc and she has ready meals. When he's home he cooks, but when he's away they just eat things from the oven for convenience.

I can't begin to imagine what life is like with 3 under 3 but surely preparing fresh food at least occasionally is important for nutrition and learning about food? I find it really odd and a bit sad.

Glitter don't worry. Although, I do feel somewhat envious of your household management skills...

I agree that batch cooking is a good idea.

But this:

"Why is ready meals and frozen food deemed to be soooo expensive? I dont think it is. You can buy so many meals for a fiver and frozen things aren't that expensive. £1 a box."

So you only have time/money to feed your family £1 ready meals?

I think the people who think it isn't possible to cook from scratch with young children/twins are the ones with a blinkered view on life.

Now now funny one must buy flour and eggs and make one's own pasta one handed while holding a 100% content and perfectly behaved young child otherwise one is a stupid and incompetent mother sending shockwaves across the nation . Also remember to sprinkle shaved truffle over the finished dish, one must do things properly it's so cheap and easy after all

Jessie, DH does most of the cooking as he loves doing it to unwind.

Salmotrutta

My Cousin would eat anything, he was a fantastic eater ...however until he was 7 my Aunty had to sprinkle everything with food sparkles to get him to do so.

Have you seen what happens to mashed potato and chicken curry when you sprinkle hundreds and thousands on?

surely it isn't so hard to mix a bit of pasta and tomatoes together

not hard at all... but if you dont like it, then what is the point?

I had a fishfinger sandwich yesterday... it was lovely.

I love the way these threads inevitably turn into a stealth boast of "well it only takes 30 seconds to whip up an organic hummous dip with some carrot batons and only yesterday my 8 month old asked me to make him a lentil bake with alfalfa shoots"

I find it hard to chop veg one handed and dd2 won't be put down and won't go in the sling, I do sometimes cook from scratch but it takes me longer than it used to so shoot me. I've already told you marianne call SS, they won't mind investigating me again I'm sure.

Hahaha {grin]- wonder what Gillian McKeith would have made of your Cousin's poo Honey!!

IS it too early for a fishfinger sandwich?

even!

oh you see you U Op sorry i didnt read on . I do think we should think before we judge families we dont really know that well ,

and squeakytoy im not sure what alfafa shoots are

It is NEVER too early for a fishfinger sarnie!!

Erm, what's with the dichotomy, here? Why is it necessarily either cooking from scratch or "£1 in a box" ready meals?

There's an intermediate option of [frozen product] + salad in a bag, you know!

Exactly bigjessie, I add salad and steamed veggies all the time to frozen products for dinners - DS2 will eat them, DS1 and DS3 wont, so I often just have to give them beans .

It's me. Sorry everyone. We eat nothing but raw vegetables all day so at dinner we eat things from the freezer. But will re-visit given the number of police, social workers etc en route.

Eek scary thread now! Linerunner and Jessie have made me laugh though.

I obviously ABU which is fine.

May I defend myself a little? Some things have been said about me that feel unfair.

I don't have a huge budget for food, we manage on £45 a week just now for me, DH and 2 DC. So it feels harsh that some comments have been made suggesting I think she should be feeding her children what I would regard as expensive luxuries.

We eat frozen main meals once or twice a week, usually fish or pizza. All the veg we eat apart from carrots and salad things are frozen. I have no problem with frozen convenience food, my only issue was that for small children eating processed food for weeks at a time it can't be great nutritionally and it's a time when simple cooking interests them so they miss out on that.
I have said I have no idea what life is like with 3 tiny DC. I find it a faff to cook with my 2 but I manage with a small selection of easy meals and some slow cooker things. Maybe I'd find that impossible in her shoes, I don't know. I'm sure I'd struggle to afford convenience food all week though.

Anyway, it's obviously not a problem and my ideas are clearly way off. Which is good because I can stop giving myself a hard time about the spaghetti hoops :)

Marianne if you think you can get DS1 to eat anything not on The List, please be my guest. He had several bouts of illness over 4 weeks, and afterwards would only eat white foods; bread, potatoes, bananas, porridge, cheese, pasta. Nothing else. In 18 months I've managed to get him to start eating chicken, baked beans, fish fingers, spaghetti hoops, soup (homemade, the only way I can get any veggies into him), homemade meatballs, potato gnocchi with green pesto, sausages & occasionally egg. I've tried every single technique under the sun & even seen a nutritionist specialising in child nutrition & eating habits. This was at a considerable expense I might add given that the NHS felt there was nothing actually wrong with him to warrant a referral - within healthy weight range and as I could get him to eat one thing from each food group they palmed me off with "it's a phase". He helps me make the dinner, I make homemade versions of the things he will eat (chicken dippers, fish fingers, sausages etc), I try unsuccessfully to hide vegetables in things. As you can probably tell I get impossibly defensive about it all; I don't like people assuming this is the way I choose to feed my child.

Eating and cooking is supposed to be be balanced nobody gets brownie points from making fresh pasta and killing and cooking your own corn fed hugged every day chicken , as long as meals are balanced tbh there is sod all wrong with frozen food , its not all junk ,

So you only have time/money to feed your family £1 ready meals?

And the problem is? some people simply dont have any more than that anyway and really do have to count every single penny. All I was saying is that ready meals and frozen food isnt THAT expensive as some people seem to think it is.

Lots of families struggle to even get to big supermarkets that have a range of fresh products etc. It might involve bus journeys and carting home big bags so I can absolutely see why people might stock up on frozen basics like fish fingers and vegetables etc.
And not everyone even has access to a good bus service if they have no car.