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.

I'm another one baffled by the "don't like veg" thing.

When dd1 reached the age of starting to have friends for dinner, I would check ?ith parents about what the visiting child would eat and I have had this conversation several times...

-so is there anything little jemima doesn't eat?
-oh no, she's not fussy she will eat anything

-oh great...
-except vegetables. She doesn't like vegetables

-oh ok. Which ones?
-any of them...

WTF! Ok, dd1 does not like courgettes and dd2 does not like mushrooms. Thats fine, that's a genuine dislike. But not liking a courgette doesn't mean you don't like squash or peas or asparagus...which are nothing like courgettes.

How can you just not like vegetables! I bet most people who say that haven't even tried half of the things they are just dismissing.

Molly, I fry garlic, chilli and anchovy for a minute. Add a pack of kale and a splash of water. Cook for 7-8 minutes with the lid on. Stir in some Parmesan and the juice of half a lemon and serve with pasta. It's delicious. The recipe is on the bbc good food website.

I wouldn't survive without veg. him indoors likes his meat and gets all huffy when we have veggie meals twice a week.

Veg is so fab, tasty and versatile.

Veg plate vs meat plate

Veg plate wins hands down!

I don't see how any adults can dislike fruit and vegetables and pretend that they don't understand the benefits. Odd.

Mmm, runner beans

Where is the OP? I think this is goady fucker of a thread

There's a whole website here devoted to kale.

Strangely there's no info on who runs the site. It's clearly a huge conspiracy

plentyofpube I assume Andy is a completely unbiased source.

Those saying 'five a day is a con' and there's no evidence - this is not true.

read this

One a day is better than none, but seven is best for preventing premature death from all causes.

I read a poster on MN saying that the "Change for Life" campaign was terrible, though. Why is that? Why would anyone say that?

Change4life advises low fat yoghurts and margarine etc and sugar free drinks.

Those things are bad Spotty so I would agree re change for life isnt great in that sense. BUT overall they are better recommends than a lot of other things, slightly healthier substitutes than other stuff - I think they were trying to go for more realistic improvements rather than 'the best'

We are trying to eat clean but find somethings end up being eaten out of habit, but on the whole were are cooking from scratch and have slowly cut our half of white carby stuff and Im learning new lentil containing recipes!

So it's just the current MN mania for high fat diets & real-tooth-rotting-sweeteners-or-no-sweetener that folk don't like about Ch-4-Life?

I agree it's generally good. It's only those two things in it that I disagree with. There's been a fair bit in the media about full fat as opposed to low fat recently it's not just mn. Eg muller lights have more sugar in than the full fat ones. Margarine is grey before the add all the colourings yuck! I'm diabetic so give me all the artificial sweeteners you can

and good luck

I don't understand the hysteria around diet coke/ sweeteners. There is far more evidence that the ones with sugar are worse. agreed that drinking only water would be the best but tbh you only live once don't you? re change for Life no way of eating is perfect.

OP I love veg and find Kale hard going. I eat spring greens instead much nicer

yabu though fruit and veg are nice.

This made me smile...
DD now aged 22 messaged me..conversation went like this:
'mum..do I like Kale ? I can't remember!'
'You did..we often had it when you were little.'
Ok..saw it in supermarket and fancied it but couldn't remember'

later
'mum ..I lurve Kale'

As for the diet coke..I avoided it for years, didn't like the sweeteners etc they put in it, on the rare occasions they had it we had full coke until DD was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 14 years old. Then we had to switch to 'diet'!

we have tears over broccoli, usually because they are not allowed any more. oh and corn on the cob...

the children are still talking abouit the sweetcorn, raspberries and strawberries from the pyo farm last year.

I do think dd is an exception to the rule though as she was the only one eating the tomatoes from the plants at nursery. maybe ds too as I have to stop him eating all the veggies in gran's garden too.

veggies for a non veggie eater? try putting in stuff like bolognaise? cauliflower, broccoli cheese? peas are supposed to be very good for you. petis pois are the best flavour.

Yabu, broccoli is the best thing to grow from the earth bar coffee beans.

I would like to nominate the juniper berry, the hop and the humble potato for that award and DH's amazing cucumber wot he harvested today

In no way am I boasting, but my kids really do put me to shame on the fruit and veg front - esp DT2. He will eat all of his veg on a roast dinner first in case he fills up, leaving the meat, yorkshires, roasties and stuffing last in that order. Swede and brussels/savoy cabbage with green (mint) sauce on are his bestest.
I have to rein them in when the soft fruit comes into season and a few years ago I wondered why my dwarf apple tree was missing fruit until DT2 'fessed up.

Ooh yes Plenty - I forgot about potatoes! I've never had a juniper berry. Are they nice?

I wish my DC would eat more vegetables and fruit. When they were tiny we fed them loads but from about 3 onwards they both started refusing more and more foods. Incredibly frustrating, as I have always cooked from scratch, and DH and I eat loads of fresh fruit and veg. I have tried everything I can think of to get them into them, but DC1 will only eat baked beans, and occasionally peas, DC2 eats those and carrots. Have tried so many different ways of cooking them to no avail. Desperate to avoid the same road with DC3 (only 5 months) They both seem to have an aversion to sauces which makes it difficult to hide veg in a bolognese. I have resorted to sneaking pureed butternut squash into chocolate chip muffins, but it's getting ridiculous!

Sugar have you tried cauliflower in cheesy mash?

We've just had a roast dinner, not huge, pork, broccoli, carrots and new pots. We have a lot more dinners like this tbh, less pasta and rice meals.

The kids had some fruit earlier. Prob could of done with some sort of veg with plain omelette at lunchtime.

OP do you not even like a good toby carver?

We still have cakes an biscuits but once or twice a week and we make our own bars - we not perfect but we are getting there. Definately back on clean eating wagon after being on holiday for a week. We ate fish and chips, ice cream, sweets, BBQ burgers ans sausages (dont normally have these) with veg accompaniments. I dont think my kids will suddenly gorge on chips etc when they are more independent as they experience these are foods that ok to eat occasionally.