to think that having a packet of crisps a day is not healthy

[Badgerwife]

or am I being precious?

I was having this discussion after watching Britain's Favourite Supermarket Foods on tv with some friends yesterday, who all thought that having a packet a crisp a day was totally fine and clearly thought I was weird to think that it was totally unhealthy. I'll admit I was appalled surprised but this may be because I was brought up in France where you don't really eat crisps unless you're having a picnic, in fact, I'm not even sure you can buy individual packets. So it was a bit of a culture shock when I first moved to England when I realised it's a staple snack/lunch item.

Even now, I never have crisps in the house - unless I'm pregnant like now and I crave the salt content like crazy and they are moreish and delicious plus it's cheaper than my other craving which is McDonalds and way more shameful to admit to but then I worry about my cholesterol going up and clogged arteries with all the fat.

So AIBU?

Precious little fibre indeed.

I used to polish off 3 or 4 bags at a time too - which is a lot of salt by any stabdards.

I eat a bag of crisps most weekdays as part of not a bad diet. Other than my daily bag of crisps, I think I eat quite healthily and the crisps I find filling.

Breakfast - either a slice of toast with salami
Lunch - usually a sandwich or left over dinner the night before, a bag of crisps and a piece of cake
Dinner - tonight was oven baked fish and veg with rice, last night was a chicken stew with sweet potatoes.

I tend to eat a lt of veg with lunch/dinner and I don't like fruit that much.

What I'd like to know is does anyone have suggestions for what I could replace crisps with that is just as filling but healthier? I always struggle with this!

Damn it! This thread has just made me eat a second bag of crisps! think I missed the point!

YABU. It's all about moderation, IMO, and I eat crisps only rarely. But DD2 has a packet in her lunch, plus a piece of fruit and some sort of 'main' (sometimes a sandwich). She's sportive and an excellent weight.

1 bag of crisps per day is the equivalent of 5 litres of cooking oil a year, according to last nights episode of Fat families. (horrible program I know and I am ashamed I watched it)

Excessive?

The multi pack bags we have are too flippin' small - about 5 crisps in there

MORE crisps please! Crunchy, munchy, salty, fatty gorgeousness that they are :)

If ate salami, cake, toast, sandwiches, crisps and prepared fish every day, I'd be enormous. I'm strict with my diet because I used to be a size 18 / 14 stone and worked bloody hard to get to 10 stone. Buggered if I'm going through that again!

And strangely, when I cut some food out of my diet, I stopped enjoying them. Tastebuds changed. Much prefer veg etc now.

If I ate....

What is 'fat families'?

I'm a strict vegetarian who doesn't like cakes, chocolate, biscuits or cheese.

Crisps are my only vice and a very tasty one they are too :)

I don't eat sugar or wheat, very little meat, don't drink or smoke, exercise mightily, but I fucking love crisps and would give them up for no man.

Bacon McCoys

ifancyashandy - I'm quite 'fortunate' and don't put on weight very easily.I put fortunate in inverted commas because it didn't feel very lucky when I was desperately trying to put weight on for years. That's why I'm always reluctant to cut stuff out of my diet because I'm concerned that if I eat more healthy food/less then I'll lose weight again.

That said, a slice of toast with salami I consider quite a light breakfast and not particularly unhealhty. The cake is a small piece and is homemade when I'm not being lazy.

LOL! France - the country that's so health conscious that you can't buy single packets of crisps yet boasts some of the unhealthiest foods around as it's national dishes! Pate de foie gras, duck confit - a duck leg skinned, and then coated in salt for hours on end and later coated in duck fat (extremely high in cholesterol) and boiled in fat. Oh, and any leftovers are stored in jars covered in - what else - duck fat! Oh and don't forget all those fat-laden sauces, buttery, rich pastries, gateaux, crepes, chocolate croissants and high fat cheeses - oh, and the lashings of wine and Gauloises and Gitanes.

As it goes, OP, I wouldn't advocate eating a packet of crisps a day myself. I have a packet once in a blue moon and enjoy them but I know a lot of people who simply can't eat a sandwich at lunchtime without a packet.

Fair enough Green. Although I'd take slight issue with describing salami as healthy - it's full of saturated fat & salt. But take your point - we've all different metabolisms.

I just feel better now I eat a low fat, lean protein, high fibre diet.

DS has a packet of crisps in his packed lunch every day. He's on a restricted diet due to multiple food allergies and is underweight. I try to get as many calories in him as possible.

You're right - it does have a lot of saturated fat (it's probably not doing great things for my heart) but I do work to the 'everything in moderation' philosophy. A lot of the time I don't eat breakfast which is probably worse!

The baked fish is healthy...or at least I thought it was...am I wrong about that? I avoid frying it for the very reason that I cook it as a healthy meal.

I would still love to know what I could eat in place of crisps because anything else I add just doesn't fill me up.

And they mainly come back un/semi eaten much to my despair.

It's just empty calories though, isn't it? You can say that bread has sugar and salt in it as well, but it also has fibre and minerals. Crisps have nothing in them that are good for you.

YANBU.
One of my bugbears is when people go on about 'not demonising food' etc. but a packet of crisps a DAY is more than allowing them occasionally surely? More than not demonising them; rather actively encouraging them...

Perriwinkle I know what you mean about some ok lots of the national French dishes but to be fair to the general population, they are not exactly eaten every day. People don't cook at home quite like the chefs would have you believe.

greenplastictrees as for what you could replace crisps with, I guess you could have rice cakes but they really really don't taste half as nice!! I eat lots of grapes and satsumas as snacks instead, or ryvita with either a bit of cheddar or just some butter. That last option is not exactly super healthy either but I also don't binge on it like I would with crisps.

So Perriwinkle, how come the French are so much slimmer than the British? They are obviously not eating all those croissants and duck fat the way we are eating crisps.
fuzzpig, fat families is a reality show on some sky channel. Sort of in the style of You are what you eat, if you ever watched that, exploitative shite.

Food is food. The level of mumsnet obsession around the subject bewilders me. Balancing a diet should be a natural, uncontrived affair that should be considered over days and weeks, not minute by minute. I'm unconcerned about missing 'five a day' or overconsuming my quota of whatever others deem 'unhealthy' (as if a food can possess health). Over a period of time things will naturally balance out, I feel.

People love to chuck around nonsense phrases like "empty calories" and I frequently read flawed assumptions that we should all be avoiding or reducing fat, which is bonkers. some people could probably stand to increase their fat intake.

I'm pretty sure we've evolved as a species to be able to thrive on a widely varying diet. The reluctance to abandon a 20g portion daily of potato, oil and salt is unlikely to cause the extinction of humankind. I hope.

I think it's pretty poor to give children crisps and chocolate as a part of their packed lunch every day, and then say as well that there are "healthy" things too such as fruit and yogurt!

Crisps and chocolate should have no place in children's diets on a regular basis - and yogurt in my opinion is a treat!

When I was at school we ate school lunches which were healthy: no crisps, no chips, no pizzas or burgers, no desserts. The bread accompanying the meals was ryvita. I always enjoyed the food. There were no overweight children that I recall in my school.

Mmmmm cheese and onion walkers on a well fired scottish morning roll with lashing of butter

Anyway nowadays you get about 10 crisps in a normal sized packet now

GreenPlastic oat cakes? Fruit? Nuts?

I'm sure there'll be those that say all of the above have higher fat / sugar contents but these are a) naturally found (apart from oat cakes) and b) have other nutritional benefits (vitamins/fibre etc).

I'd go for a few Brazil nuts myself.