for getting fed up of people using term "bad foods"

[mummyonvalium]

it seems to have become endemic to use the term bad foods to describe things like chocolate cake, crisps and good foods to describe fruit and vegetables. At our local playgroup, nursery and even the dietitian at our local toddler boost well educate friends use the term bad foods. It even seems to be endemic in schools that no biscuits / crisps allowed ever.

I was brought up with the belief that there is no such thing as bad foods just bad diets and it is a symptom of our nutrition obsessed / kooky society that causes eating disorders. I am trying to drill this in to my DCs as well but I think I may be the only mother in the UK that does this.

What happened to the message eat normally, exercise and let your weight take care of itself. Does anyone else agree? Please join my grumpy bandwagon.

I agree that MOST foods are not "bad" but in fairness we do seem to have f*** up with some of our processed food and although I do eat them (and so do my kids) I think "bad foods" probably sums them up quite nicely.

I have splinters in my arse. On the one hand, I agree that no foods should be referred to as bad. On the other hand, there is no reason for toddlers to be eating crisps and biscuits. DD doesn't in our house. If they are there at someone else's house, I don't stop her but there is really no reason for all that salt and refined sugar.

Yabu. Lard. Pork scratchings. Value brand sausages. To name but three.

I'm on the fence too. I don't think it's helpful to talk to children about food in that way (especially young ones who can't analyse and will take it at face value) but when you are talking amongst adults... apart from calories for fuel and the fact that they taste nice there's nothing good about some foods like crisps and sweets.

I think a lot of people who talk about a balanced diet know what it really is either.

It is the concept I was brought up with that no foods are bad. Back in the day it is true that there were far fewer sugary snacks but is a chocolate ice cream bad if you have it once a week? Ditto for home-made chocolate cake (which IMO is practically a health food) and crisps.

Sorry, I meant to say "I think a lot of people who talk about a balanced diet DON'T really know what it is either"

I started a thread a few days ago asking how much bad food is acceptable in a blanaced diet and didn't get very many responses.

yanbu! it winds me up no end!

i really didn't need my (then) 6 yr old worrying about what cereal and snacks he could eat and telling me they were "bad" because there was some red on the traffic light symbol.

not on at all imo

Please see my potato thread. Now that's bad food.

Yanbu. Bad diets but not much in the way of bad food. Though I don't see the need for toddlers and small children to have biscuits and crisps it's unhealthy to call it bad or naughty as it just encourages bad attitudes towards food.

I'd rather my kids were eating homemade cakes and biscuits than the vast majority of meat products on sale. Even some crisps are not too bad, but there is nothing good about foods containing loads of artifial anything and e - numbers because of course my kids have never eaten a haribo or drunk a fruit shoot in their lives

What happened to the message eat normally,

The problam is that 'normally' has become so skewed.

Tbh, i don't see the need for children to be introduced to the crap that we have allowed to inflitrate our western diet, on a daily basis.

I am usually the other way inclined, but our diets are killing us.

"Normal" where i live is allowing your child to eat a chocolate bar and a load of coloured sugar, for breakfast on the way to school.

'Normal' is an interesting concept. Normal for humans would not contain high fructose corn syrup or massive levels of salt. Normal would be hunter gather stuff. So, lots of roots, fruit, veg, nuts and meat occasionally. There was a study a while ago about how much salt small children were eating. Very sobering.

Where my daughter grew up, they (childcare, pre-school, primary) called it

anytime-everyday-sometime food

They also differentiated between homemade cookies and cake and cake bought somewhere, which has all sorts of 'not so healthy' ingredients etc.

I quite liked this approach.

I have some sympathy with what you're saying but then I think of foods that have next to no decent nutritional value, so highly processed that there are almost no micronutrients left in them apart from sodium and chloride, and filled with artificial additives to make them edible again and think "those are bad foods".

I don't think any "normal" foods should be demonised - I get angry when I see fat demonised, and low-fat artificially created stuff being heralded as "good" (nope) - I think sweets, chocolate, cake, crisps are fine in small amounts, and should be part of a "normal" diet, so that children learn to self-regulate and don't become obsessed with them, or consider them as "naughty foods".

mrsTerry thanks for bringing up high fructose corn syrup.

"there is no such thing as bad foods just bad diets"

Tis is pretty much the slogan of food industry lobbyists.

Yes, there are bad foods - they are the staples of bad diets: over-processed, low fibre, high salt, high in bad fats, mechanically recovered, gluten-manipulated, bulked up, water added etc.

I with you, OP. I have chocolate every day, usually just a square or two, as part of a varied diet including plenty of lean protein and a variety of fruit and veg. I rarely eat processed food and almost every dinner is homecooked from sratch with good ingredients. There is nothing bad about my chocolate munching (and a lot that is good ).

Some people seem horrified about my chocolate habit. Whilst eating all kids of processed cr@p. It is utterly, utterly daft.

For my 4yo I split it into food that makes you grow and food that doesn't. She knows that cakes etc are nice but they don't make you grow and we only have them sometimes and dinners with veg make you grow. She asks about it less than she used to though.

we have everyday foods and sometimes foods. I think the message about healthy eating has got confused a bit - encouraged quite a bit by fad diets and a general lack of understanding of a what a healthy diet constitutes. Practically every food group has been demonised at some point.

Added food manufacturers using deceptive labelling to sell 'low fat' 'diet' 'healthy' processed products as good for you. No wonder its all getting mixed up.

refined sugar is an addictive substance and should be considered 'bad' just like tobacco, caffeine, drugs and alcohol

I do think that schools should rethink their policy of allowing 'oaty' bars, now that all but three makes, have been shown as being worse than eating chocolate, health wise.

The one thing that i would agree with, is that some schools eating policies don't make sense.

I was at Tescos earlier when a sausage drove up and parked in the disabled bay. Bad food.

naughty sausage

It depends doesn't it.

Home made chocolate cake - good.

Shop bought shit chocolate flavoured cake with half a million crappy ingredients - bad.

Farm shop 90% meat sausages - good

Asda Smart Price 34% meat sausages - bad.

Coca cola/fizzy drinks - bad (no redeeming features)

Low fat spread - bleurgh and bad

Butter - good

My children have a 'good' diet. Which contains a balance of good foods. But they don't ever eat any of the shit that's out there.

Not on my watch anyway, I'm well aware of what my son eats when he's out!

And do you know what, you're right, McDonalds now and again ain't gonna kill you.