To believe we've forgotten how to eat healthily

[Yoruba]

I'm so completely fed up of the school serving up so much rubbish, with seemingly no understanding that its unhealthy. It is really really hard to find good evidenced advice about healthy eating for children. There seem to be contradictory reports coming out all the time, and I say that as someone who is really interested in this subject so it must be harder if you don't.

The school meals are utter rubbish. They have a sugary rubbishy pudding every day, sweets at every possible occasion and now they have seen fit to start selling ice creams after school to raise money.
Im not even THAT strict I don't think, I'm happy for her to have these foods but evidence shows that eating them regularly alters your taste buds and makes you crave them more. I think they should be occasional foods we eat as PART of a healthy diet, not every day.

But at the moment I'm feeling like a lone voice and I hate dd feeling like she's missing out in not having what her friends are. I don't want these things to be "forbidden" objects of desire.

It just seems as though there is very little knowledge now of what is actually healthy for children.

It's the nutritious side of things that bothers me! He is far from fussy except he doesn't like the normal nuggets and pizza type food and isn't keen on pies. Doesn't leave much option most days!

Nuggets and pizza can be very nutritious. It depends who makes them.

And the point is he might become keen on pies if you expose him to them outside the home context.

Not disputing that. (Although I would for mass produced stuff to an extent which is what is served in school) but he still wouldn't eat them!

Again not that bothered about him becoming keen on bulk made, gloopy school pies actually. Daft as that may sound.

By making his dinners myself I can make sure it is properly balanced over the week and I am quite happy to do that

Well they did healthy eating in Y5 in dc1 class.
Dc1 stated that a packed of crisps everyday was unhealthy. Teacher uneasy, says he is having a packet of crisps everyday. And then explains that as long as you still vegs ect and it's part of a balanced diet, then it's ok.

Said teacher also agrees that dc1 lunches are better than school dinners (but no other packed lunch) and better than his. (Lunch would probably be the garage B category explained above)
The thing is we don't do anything complex. And IMO could do with more vegs in our diet. But apparently to everyone else standard it's great.
Just shows how skewed our view of what is healthy eating.

Yes very true Lumieres An example is the list of a recent pp who states categorically that all 'real foods are healthy.Actually for me that's not the case i'm allergic to dairy foods and tomatoes also oranges!

We're all different.

I think I have to take issue, a bit,with the idea that lauriefairycake posed about schools in areas with a lot of poverty having to deal with making dinners for kids who only eat chicken nuggets and chips. (paraphrasing, sorry)
In a lot of places that have the worst poverty-many London boroughs for example, the population will be eating chick peas and lentils, or stews, as a there will be a lot of recent migrants from parts of the world where they don't eat chicken nuggets.
Also, I grew up with no money, but was raised on chick peas etc, as they were cheap and my Dad had lived in the middle East, and he cooked a lot of Middle Eastern type dishes-my favorite being this amazing lamb and lentil soup with lemon, which I wish I had the recipe for.
Also, recently, there was research into childhood obesity and postcode, and it was discovered that the more affluent postcodes actually had the fatter kids. I can well believe this, as the very middle class children I know actually seem to eat more convenience food. Ds's friend with the lecturer parents seems to always be having pizza, or eating flapjack, but the most working class family friends we have tend to make curries and stews. Our friends who live in a tiny rented flat and mum works in the bookies, have an allotment, and I was just round there and she was making something with her own courgettes. (I got given a couple-they are massive!)
I just think it is kind of taken as an unassailable truth that low income /working class people eat junk, and middle class people eat "Grade A/B"
I was a little the other day when ds and I stopped off at his friends very nice house on the way home from school, and his friends mum gave the kids a choc ice for their after school snack, and then a muller corner. Those things are pudding in our house, and an after school snack is a bit of wholemeal bread with unsweetened peanut butter and an apple!
I am clearly a no fun Mum, but am also a single parent, low income, public transport using Northern renter, so don't fit the middle class "type" at all!

Well said If. This idea that the lower-income groups eat "crap", while the lovely middle-to-uppers feed their children organic unicorn steak with freshly-picked angel salad, is a vicious form of social discrimination that has infected national health policies as well as everyday discussions.

There are loads of reasons why some families eat healthier food than others: cultural habits; knowledge; availability including cost; emotional & psychological issues; health issues; time; skill. A single parent working erratic shifts, cooking on a two-ring electric hob, isn't likely to create amazing meals from scratch but is just as likely to give her kids a balanced diet as any other parent. An anxious, rich parent is just as likely to try and keep the kids happy with nuggets & ice-cream as an anxious poor one.

The only part of the trope I think may be true is that poorer people eat more 'empty' calories, in general, because it's the cheapest & quickest way to answer real hunger. When I was a kid, this meant chip-shop chips but they aren't cheap any more. I find myself eating things like jam sandwiches, which I hadn't even thought of during my better-off days, and keeping biscuits in the house because they're about a thousand times cheaper than fruit for a sugar hit.

Re school dinners and pudding

That isn't new. When I went to school in the 70s and 80s there was a proper pudding and custard every day and everyone had it.

When my parents and grandparents grew up puddings with a meal were the norm once a day, and tea was normally quite sweet too - bread and jam, cake, etc

I don't think the pudding is the issue tbh. It's the lifestyle changes - everyone does less manual work and just general day to day exercise - and the increase in processed foods

True about the cheap, filling stuff Garlic, but what I do find is we tend to have fewer snack stuff in the house. When ds's friends are here after school I put out bread, peanut butter, jam and fruit because that's all we really get for snacking. Or cheese and crackers.
When he goes to friends houses they get what I used to call, enviously as a kid "bought" snacks .
I don't buy those thing because they are expensive, and because I am apparently very health conscious as far as ds goes, which surprises me actually, because I did expect his friends in the very nice area we live in to be all "pass the porcini mushrooms and quinoa" but, on the whole, they seem to live on fish fingers!

Yes, the middle class healthy eating is often a myth. Most middle class families talk the talk but they don't necessarily walk the walk.

I have been doing the school run this week and noticed a real cluster of chubby year six boys. They are all the spoilt/monied kids too.

IfNotNow If you look for Claudia Roden's book Middle Eastern Food. It has a lot of good recipes you may like

I agree with you BTW and Tinkly.

I was not suggesting the middle classes eat better (who knows), but rather expressing my dismay that lentils, quinoa, etc are summarily dismissed as "middle class food". Or the pervasive view that feeding your children this kind of thing is some kind of middle-class display that you put on to impress, rather than a straightforward food decision.

I'm guessing quinoa really is a middle-class thing £10+ a kilo!!!

I would think of lentils and chick peas more as 'peasant' food to use an Italian term I think. Definitely used a lot in Italian cooking.

We don't eat them as dh has ibs and pulses do not agree with him at all.

My Italian exs mum used to do a pasta and chick pea dish that was to die for though.

hmmmm lentils....

It's odd when you think how many hundreds of years have passed since everyone HAD to eat meat for status purposes, yet most celebrity chefs (there are exceptions of course) say 'vegetarians are all idiots" . If not overtly like the '2 Fat Ladies' but in more insidious ways by just always using meat.

In France it's worse