to think fruit and vegetables are a bit of a con

[mariej2]

Me and the hubby have both never been a big fan of fruit and veg. We don't worry about having 5 a day and probably rarely do. We are both healthy late 30s, not overweight and hardly ever get ill.

Now dd is at school we are having her friends round for dinner. One was horrified that we fed her daughter fish fingers, baked beans with diet cola. To be fair we would usually have sweet corn with this meal simply because we like it but we had ran out.

It feels like kids are being punished by feeding them kale and broccoli and nothing nice.

Apparently a glass of orange juice has as much sugar as a Mars bar. If you give your child the orange juice that's not much of a treat and once they become a teenager they will gorge on all the forbidden foods!

I think this whole eat fruit and veg is a conspiracy to make the supermarkets more money and make people miserable.

Not a fan of kale on its own but have you tried colcannon? Pop a steamer-basket-full of finely chopped kale on top of a pan of potatoes while you boil them. When the potatoes are nearly done, set off some chopped leek to fry, and then once the potatoes are finished add the steamed kale to the leeks to fry a little while you mash the potatoes, then stir in the veg with the mash and a bit of grated cheese or dollop of mayo. A bit of fat with veg helps the vitamins to be absorbed so isn't that bad for you and makes them much nicer.

Going straight from hardly any veg to kale is a bit hardcore though. Try doing a mix of peas, sweetcorn and chopped fine french beans (I cut them to be approx the size of a pea so they work in the mix)

Ditch the diet coke for water. Add a few vegetables , skip the kale, and then it's fine. Your dc do need to eat vegetables.

I find that tossing veg in a bit of extra virgin olive oil and a little seasoning makes them far more palatable for vegetable haters.

Go and buy a bag of carrots.

Boil them then add a bit of butter, salt and pepper and if you really don't like the look of them, wizz them up in a food processor to make them into mashed carrot.

I bet your dc will love them.

Or go and buy some Tesco carrot and swede mash. I defy you not to like that.

Even lovely med veg tossed in olive oil and herbs, drizzle some balsamic glaze and bung in oven is lovely

Baked beans count as one of your a day!

Lol at 'a bit of a con'

It doesn't have to be kale. My dc eat 8 or 9 portions a day and no kale in sight. We had fishfingers last night too but with new potatoes, peas and sweetcorn and then banana and custard for pudding. They have avocado on toast for breakfast etc. simple things.

Do people really get hysterical about a glass of coke?

I know adults who don't bother eating veg themselves but to never bother giving any to one's child is inexcusable IMO.

As for this:

Apparently a glass of orange juice has as much sugar as a Mars bar. If you give your child the orange juice that's not much of a treat and once they become a teenager they will gorge on all the forbidden foods!

Well I agree with the last bit - banning food isn't helpful. But FFS why would eating vegetables mean you never had any chocolate - perfectly possible to eat both

Only the fact that it is diet coke. DD is 14 and I allow her to drink coke when we are out. I don't keep it in the house though.

Coke is probably the only 'banned' thing for 4 year old DS. Thankfully he genuinely doesn't like fizz at the moment anyway but coke will be avoided for as long as possible

You and your children are missing out on so much.

Sweet juicy strawberries and watermelon and nectarines, creamy avocadoes turned into guacamole, biting into corn on the cob dripping with butter, crunchy carrots and cucumber sticks dipped in garlicky yogurt, onions cooked until they are soft and caramelized, hot and sour soup with mushrooms and pak choi, crunchy radishes dipped in cold butter and salt, asparagus tips that melt in your mouth, sweet juicy tomatoes, sesme seed flatbread dipped into baba ghanoush,a bowl of tomato soup on a chilly autumn day, roast parsnips that are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside...

Fruit and vegetables are delicious.

I'd be worried about the artificial sweeteners in "Diet" drinks. dS is nearly 6 and recently had started to try fizzy drinks. He didn't like Coke or Appletiser, ok with ginger ale and fave was San Pelligrino!

at Molly

We found some early blackberries yesterday. DS was very exited "free sweets" he exclaimed.

Well, you'll knock 5-10 years off your life and risk having strokes etc on that diet if that's all you eat, but hey, at least it's cheap and cheerful.

YABU.

I'm not a big fruit eater as it so often disappoints, I have biting into tart/sour under-ripe fruit so I'll only eat bananas and melon.

The DDs are not big on fruit either so I do end up chucking stuff away but I still try to offer them just so they can see them as part of their diet. same with veg, though at the moment, peas, sweetcorn and carrots are as far as we have got.

Plenty of evidence that a diet rich in fruit and veg is better for you. You need to incorporate it into you and your children's diets.

Cola and fizzy drinks teeth rots teeth too, even the non sugary stuff.

Stop it MollyBdenum (fab name) you're making me hungry! :o

I hate most vegetables and tolerate the rest. I've spent the best part of 30 years only eating peas and carrots. Only now do I eat butternut squash, broccoli etc with a forced smile on my face to try and be a good influence on DS. Turns out I do like sweet corn though...

Fish fingers and beans seems standard quick kid food to me!

I wouldn't let them drink diet coke, carbonated drinks are bad for your bones, esp in children.

I'll bring the wine then Molly

There is not a veg I don't like so I simply can't understand how people discount them. But if you fed my child diet coke, I'd be pretty unimpressed and a bit disgusted. I would put up with the fish fingers and beans as on occasion its fine to eat stuff like that and I know plenty of people think thats a healthy meal (which its not). But not my house and if someone is willing to look after my kid for the afternoon and feed him/her, I would appreciate it so wouldn't comment on that diet.

Fish fingers and baked beans aren't unhealthy.

Steak and peppercorn sauce goes very well with onions, asparagus, or perhaps mixed green veg - green beans, petit pois, etc. All full if goodness, all yummy.

And not all fruit and veg are expensive. Other than asparagus, the above is available cheaply.

I don't understand the 'they'll gorge on it as teens' argument. You don't want them to eat lots of sweets later so you give them lots now? That doesn't work either! Unhealthy children almost always turn into unhealthy adults.