To have thought my dcs diet was ok until I joined mumsnet?

[Meandmygirls2009]

I have always thought my dc ate ok, but since joining mumsnet and reading lots of posts I am worried that I do not feed my dc a healthy diet! Typical day consists of:
Breakfast: bagel and orange juice
Snack: grapes
Lunch: cheese sandwich, mini cheddars, raisons
Snack: 2 chocolate digestives
Dinner: home made spag Bol, strawberries

Does this sound ok? I am worried the daily mini cheddars and digestives are too much after reading what other children eat :(

My two have had

French toast
sandwich with roast beef and salad
hula hoops
cream soda
steak, chips, carrots and green beans.
Magnum ice lollies.
They are both a normal weight, rarely get ill, sleep well, are happy and have plenty of energy.

I am baffled by the attitudes to food on here.

Oh! And nursery seem to feed them all day (I suspect it is a control mechanism!) so she had a morning snack of something (I can't remember but it is often mixed veg and toast or similar and her afternoon snack was vegetable pasta.

As tea is about 4pm she also has dinner with us which was Turkey meatballs and salad.

I often wonder what would happen if she was at nursery every day - she gets so much to eat.

At the child minder the rest of the week her morning snack tends to be fruit and in place of a tea/afternoon snack she gets something like a crumpet.

I normally give her a yogurt at some point in the day as well

In comparison my 5 year old today had:

Strawberries, glass of milk
Toast at holiday club
Fruit mid morning
Ham sandwich, some cheese and onion crisps, pepper sticks, an apple and a slice of home made banana cake
Satay chicken, noodles, baby corn and broccoli, some chocolate eggs.

It's not bad. However, since you ask, there are potential areas for improvement.

Bagel/juice - high GI, could you replace with slower release energy? Would they eat porridge for example? Or wholewheat/rye bread with peanut butter?

Digestives/mini cheddars - I'd be happy with one but not both. Can you replace with another snack? Hummus/rice cakes/raw veg?

Spag Bol - excellent opportunity to cram in extra veg, which I've no reason to suppose you aren't doing.

Before I get flamed, the OP has invited comment. It's not a bad diet by any means.

DisappointedOne , the study you link to concerns people with IBS. Neither me, nor my children have any kind of digestive problems. Wheat 17 times a day will not do us any harm. It really won't.

You're feeding them, it's healthy (and not KFC three times a day), yeah couldn't even do a slight tug of the mn judgey pants.

I bought corn cakes today - does hat make me an über mumsnetter?

It sounds ok. Honestly, some of the food type threads on here are so bloody worthy!

To make you feel better we've had a croissant, a toasted cheese and ham sandwich, bolognsise with roasted veg and are now eating maltesers! Other days we are pretty healthy!

*Wheat 3+ times a day isn't a great idea for anyone, wheat intolerant or not.

www.dietdoctor.com/new-study-todays-wheat-bad*

Oh please, thats one person, promoting their book, using a very tiny study of a particular group,that proves absolutely nothing. Don't bandy it around as any kind of fact.

Only twice? Amateur.

Op - this sounds like what my kids eat.

They haven't turned into frogs yet. Nor do they have fillings or fat tums

It is fine. Really, it's fine. Stick a few veg sticks on the lunch and vary the sandwich filling and you're fine. Your kids eat like all the kids I know.

I've seen heated threads on here about how feeding a child a homemade pizza - with base made in the bread maker, homemade tomato sauce and toppings was a junky meal.

Honest to god, I think half the people who post are Deliciously Ella in disguise. My kids don't eat kale and sprouted alfafa salad for lunch, sue me.

It's a full moon tonight by the way

It's NORMAL and fine. Not perfect but fine. It's better than a lot of children's diets I can assure you.
You'll always get saints that tell you what idealistically they should eat and what their dcs eat but when push comes to shove - their kids will grow up going from kid's parties to McD and KFC etc just like they all do. Just teach them respect for food

Have another one then.

news.discovery.com/human/why-you-should-probably-stop-eating-wheat-121214.htm

I'm glad most people think it's ok, I eat the same and am a size 10 and I imagine healthy. My dc hate porridge, salads, soups so I feel I am stuck with bagels/crumpets and sandwiches. Good idea to change mini cheddars for veg sticks though. They get there 5 a day but maybe we eat too much wheat? I grew up on helping myself to 10 slices of toast as a teenager so maybe that's why I have never thought of us eating too much wheat.

I thought fruit and veg intake was ok; orange juice, grapes, raisons, strawberrys and carrots/ celery/ tomatoes in the spag Bol

I dout think it's great, no.
My LO's diet is worse but I know that. He's only two but refuses ALL veg (unless it's homemade pasta sauce) and eats crap because he literally won't eat much else. He's getting better with fruit but I worry for the sugar/his teeth but veg he just won't have. But I know this is bad and I'm trying.

There are something like 2 million overweight/obese school children in the UK

Yet only 4 or 5 of them have parents who post on Mumsnet

Oh fgs, it's fine!!! Honest! And one thing I have found since being a parent is everyone has different food rules. As long as there's some carbs, protein, fruit and veg in there, it's all ok in my humble opinion.

For example, I have a friend staying at the moment, all our kids are aged 4-8. She won't let her DC eat pasta (too many carbs), and frowned at my offering them a penguin biscuit for a snack (after a very healthy picnic lunch and a long hike up a hill) yet she lets them eat what I consider to be a mind boggling amount of cheesestrings and frubes for snacks. Horses for courses... All our kids are pretty healthy.

Doesn't look bad to me [she said shoveling in another Jaffa cake organic rice cake] .

Every day is different presumably, so some days there'll be more dairy, some white meat, some more veggies, etc - so you probably need to look more at what they eat over a week to really assess it properly anyway.

DisappointedOne

Thats another article based on the same dude, same book, same tiny study. No dice. Badly written too.
Humans have been eating wheat for millenia. Just because a few people have suddenly decided its toxic doesn't make it true.

I am trying to vary our breakfast op - more to do with me trying to lose a few pounds really. I hate porridge but quite like porridge oats with Greek yogurt and fruit with almonds.

I am trying to alternate bread/wheat for either breakfast or lunch. Just to be a bit more varied really.

Dd has taken a liking to a boiled egg in the morning which is good.