you can't possibly call a meal junk food if it had all of your 5 a day!

[bonded]

So a few weeks ago we had a play date that went well. Friend just what's capped me asking for advice for a meal tonight. I said recently that this went down well and is super healthy:

Baked beans, one of your 5 a day
Fish fingers, good source of ohmega and protein
Frozen sweet corn and peas, frozen has more nutrients.

Pudding frozen bananas whipped up into ice cream with a little chcoclate sauce and chopped dates.

Said friend called meal a bit to junky. I thought it was really healthy...

It's not super unhealthy either - it's in the middle. Even though it's not something I'd serve every day, I'd have no qualms with anyone serving it to my kids on a playdate.
I'd just be glad they got a proper meal for their tea.

The type of carbs found in a chocolate bar are 'highly dangerous??!!*

I wouldn't ever want to eat baked beans alongside peas and corn. Eurrrgghh.

Also banana PLUS dates PLUS chocolate sauce?! Ragingly ott sweet!

Wondering if OP is a troll.

Baked beans are full of sugar,and corn is sweet, so the teeth hurtingly sweet mish mash of a dessert was really piling it on, no?

Andy - the carbs in a bar of ORDINARY chocolate (like dairy milk, hersheys) are from SUGAR. Cocoa or cacao found in higher amounts in expensive chocolate is quite low in carbohydrates. Best is the cacao (raw, unprocessed) or cocoa nibs. The processing of cacao causes it to lose the majority of its antioxidants. The form of chocolate used in the recent Columbia University regarding memory was from cacao.

I didn't think it was really necessary to dissect the contents of a chocolate bar to decide whether it was healthy or not.

Blimey - Mumsnet food threads. Long may they continue. marking place

Toad - it shouldn't, but the comments of some people make it clear that it is not clear to some people the difference between bad carbs and good carbs and also the fact that something which is good (cacao) can be changed (processed) into something bad (ordinary chocolate bar which has only a very small percentage of chocolate in it).

Mominatrix And the point of that lecture was? I was making the point that describing any food as 'highly dangerous' is utterly ridiculous. 'Highly dangerous' in my book is pouring petrol on a barbeque or riding a motorbike at 100mph on a country road. Eating the odd bar of dairy milk - not so much.

It's a lifetime of bad diet that is dangerous though I guess rather than one random meal.

Mominatrix as long as you don't eat too much chocolate whether or not it is "ordinary" chocolate or expensive chocolate with lots of cocoa really won't make any difference to your chances of diabetes, cardiovascular disease or overall health.

Well, Andy, the beginning of the conversation regarding the chocolate bar was that a poster said that carbs from chocolate = carbs from rice, "carbs are carbs". I don't disagree that moderation in the key, bet the attitude that all carbs are the same and the lack of understanding that there is a difference in the nutritional value of the gunk put into processed food versus whole foods is a problem. The stuff in a commercial chocolate bar is not even plain table sugar, but a highly refined substance which really has no nutritionAl good, and biochemically is metabolised I a way which does promote damage.

Mominatrix, I'm not disputing any of that. I'm addressing your assertion that eating cheap chocolate is 'highly dangerous'. Consistently eating a lot of sugar over a prolonged period can be detrimental to long term health. The way you've worded it makes it sound like a single Milky Way can kill you. If eating sweets and chocolate in moderation was 'highly dangerous', most people my age would be dead.

I did not say imminently toxic, but that the kind of sugar in processed foods and cheap chocolate confectionary (I love chocolate and a Milky Way is not chocolate in my eyes) is dangerous. Just as one puff of a cigarette won't kill you, neither will one bar. A diet based on highly processed junk and sugar, just like chain smoking, will most likely be problematic.

You're back tracking a bit there Moomin, people were just picking you up, quite rightly on your comment about "highly dangerous" sugars in chocolate.

Of course everyone agrees that a diet based on processed junk and sugar is problematic, however a chocolate bar, even everyday isnt necessarily "highly dangerous" as it depends on the rest of your diet.

No I am not. The sugars in junk are highly dangerous - they cause cellular damage which is scientifically proven. Does that mean one exposure will kill you? No.

Jeepers. Everyone knows a chocolate bar is unhealthy. Anyone who says otherwise is in denial. Equally, the occasional chocolate bar does no harm. Everyone knows that too, despite the probable existence of highly technical arguments for claiming it as one of the five a day, or however many it is now, along with fruit flavoured shite.

I remember reading on another of these threads that spuds were bad as they contained sugar, but chocolate was OK because it was carbohydrate.

Bizarre.

sugar is a carbohydrate so that's a silly thing to say. Potatoes are counted as a starchy food and isn't counted as a fruit/veg portion.

Ooh toad that sounds good. What do you make? any links? or do you make up as you go along?

This thread is hilarious. If you can eat something fairly regularly (perhaps even daily depending on the rest of your diet) without ill effect, then it is not "highly dangerous".

According to this thread My DC, my OH and me should be dead after eating my dinner. Full roast chicken dinner,roast parsnip and potato, paxo stuffing, carrot and swede, sprouts, yorkshire pudding, gravy- followedbya home baked chocolate sherry brownie and icecream. It was bloody lovely and I couldn't give a shit about the fat. carbs, sugar. processed stuffing mix salt etc etc.
The chicken was free range and all veg and ingredients were Aldi. The OP's meal sounds fine to me. It has a good place in a BALANCED diet. Chocolate has a place in a balanced diet too. A Bar in each hand.

I hate you, Dixie. I now have a desperate desire for a bottle of coke, but am currently in sole charge of two sleeping children. I shall have to make do with fizzy water instead. Or possibly wine.

I don't think anyone said lethal, dangerous.

Hi Recovering

Sometimes I cook to standard recipes, and sometimes I just make it up. Mostly I adapt recipes according to what ingredients I have available.

This is what I bought from the butcher last week. We are a family of 4.

12 sausages
4 lamb shoulder chops
4 pork loin chops
1.5 kg chicken thigh meat
2 kg beef shin
1 kg beef mince
1 kg rump steak
1 kg pork shoulder in bits
fillet end of mutton
500g belly pork

I froze the sausages, chops and chicken in family portions (made 7)

I casseroled the mutton slowly in red wine, and added lentils when cooked (3 portions). The beef mince became Bolognase sauce (3 portions - Delia Smith's recipe - the kids love it). I casseroled 1 kg of the beef shin with preserved lemons (homemade) and added black beans (4 portions). This is based on a Claudia Roden recipe. At the same time I made the other 1 kg I made into a sort of general casserole with artichokes and tomatoes (4 portions). I also squeezed in the belly pork (cold Sunday lunch), which became rilletes. I haven't cooked the pork shoulder yet, but I will probably use a Spanish recipe with olives (Delia again).

The kids will eat all the above without any fuss. I used to make curries but the kids complained.

Probably the above can be criticised because there isn't that much white meat or fish. I live in NZ and fish has become ^mahoosively expensive. I've never bought fish fingers, tinned baked beans or things like that. Please don't anyone think I'm being holier than thou! I've nothing much against fish fingers once in a while, and the kids obviously get tonnes of legumes. I was just a bit nervous that if the kids got used to things like that, they'd get fussy about the things I make. Haven't got a good solution to the fish problem. I used to make kedgeree and fish cakes, but they've not been well received in the last little while. Will probably just steam and serve plain.