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 would be perfectly fine to feed my kids fish fingers, beans and sweet corn if they were visiting. It would be a treat as they only have eat that sort of thing a couple of times a year at home.

So people that think it's a very unhealthy meal: what would make this meal healthy, homemade fish fingers or steamed fish? And what carb portion would be?

I can't quite get my head around the angst re fish fingers. The ones I buy are just whole bits of fish in breadcrumbs. OK so not quite quinoa but equally hardly poisonous either. Nutritionally, there's also absolutely nothing wrong with frozen veg.

My kids eat what we have most of the time and are fairly adventurous but ime visiting children are often quite fussy and it's hard to predict what they will and won't eat. I really cba so they either get sausages/pizza/fish fingers, often with chips. (I usually try and sneak some broccoli or veg sticks in on the side to make it healthier )

I would consider a meal to be "super healthy" if it was made up entirely of lean meat or fish, wholemeal pasta/brown rice and lots of leafy veg.

I'd say your meal was ok and well done on the 5 a day (although I really think baked beans is pushing it) but definitely not super healthy.

Sound - i would personally bake some fish. However the fishfingers wouldn't bother me too much, it's the sides more I think aren't great.

The closest comparison version here would be baked salmon with pesto and breadcrumb crust, with x3 veg, poss some garlic bread or baked sweet potato depending on what else they had eaten that day

Absolutely fine, reasonably healthy play date food. The sort of thing I give kids who come to ours.

I'm quite interested in your banana ice cream, (a few lactose intolerant people in our house). Is it just a question of bunging some frozen bananas in the magimix?

I would live to see a week's meals from those who look down their nose at this sort of meal.

I really would.

Is it ratatouille 7 ways?

Chaos - and I would love to see a weeks meals of someone who things bean, corn and peas are a good combo..

And its not looking down anyone's nose. I grew up in huge poverty, but my mother would still call above 'party food'

Ratatouille on it's own isn't a healthy meal

Imo there's nothing wrong with the food but I wouldn't call it super healthy.

I wouldn't put beans peas and sweet corn altogether I'd choose either beans or peas and sweetcorn and I'd put some mash or a jacket potato with it or even some waffles.

I'd class it as a freezer food meal so not as good as homemade but not as bad as a takeaway.

Better than slaving over a load of home cooked food for them to pull a face and not eat it.

It's healthy. 3 types of veg and fish fingers which are prob the thing your friend thought was junky but aren't really that different to just frozen fish.
The dessert was 2 types of fruit.
If kids ate and enjoyed it that's great and very nutritious.

I am the least healthy-food-obsessive person in the world, but surely no one could really consider a meal like that "super healthy." Many children would be perfectly happy to eat it (and I wouldn't say no myself ), but let's not kid ourselves. It's mostly processed and packaged, high in sodium and sugar (even if the beans are of the "low salt low sugar" variety).

Frozen veg has got to be more healthy than veg that has been sat in a box for weeks on end, then ends up on a supermarket.

Most frozen veg is frozen within hours of picking.

there isn't anything wrong with the meal but you touted it as super healthy and I don't think it is that either

I love these threads, they are hilarious.

I'd serve this as a treat, but sorry, I'd term it junk food too.

A healthy meal would be grilled or steamed fresh oily fish, potatoes and assorted vegetables.
Fruit salad for afters.

No harm in a treat every so often though, every meal doesn't have to be healthy.

Junk food? Really??

Can't vouch for it but I've heard that most supermarket fish is defrosted before being sold on fresh counter. Does anybody know? I buy ready made fish fingers and a mother called them posh. Apparently because they have more fish than crust.

I've heard that too about "fresh" supermarket fish. It makes perfect sense, as you aren't going to get proper fresh fish delivered to every supermarket in the country, every couple of days.

In Waitrose it does say at the "fresh" fish counter, "previously frozen" on most of the fish price labels.

I'd love to see DS's face if I offered him a 'treat dinner' and handed him fish fingers and peas!

Kato - totally agree .

Yep, here too, that's a quick and easy cheap tea, a treat is generally something expensive here!

I have fisgingers coming in my Asda delivery tomorrow now though, I could right go some with chips and mushy peas

You can't beat a fish finger sandwich, as a lunch. Yumm

I think this has just shown how much snobbery there is with frozen.

To the person that called my meal junk and said she would make pesto encrusted fish and fresh veg...I hope you made the pesto yourself, if not will have lots of nasty heat treated oil. And your fresh fish was probably caught, frozen, defrosted at the supermarket and left there for a few days, then a few days in your fridge. My fish and frozen vegetables are probably much more nutritional.

I'm confused about the frozen veg snobbery - surely for much of the year, most veg isn't available fresh? Unless you're getting glass-house tasteless flown-in from god-knows-where stuff?