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 :(

to pretend calpol being a way of getting fruit in!!

By the way, baby led weaning is bollocks. It just means baby chooses whether or not to put the food in their mouth (sometimes), plaster it up the wall (often), rub it into their hair (regularly), chuck it onto the floor (regularly) etc. Nothing new or modern about it.

meh. I'd just add more veg.

I agree it's a lot better than the diet of many children I know

Today DD2 (3) had:
Scrambled eggs and a satsuma and milk
Grapes
Cheese sandwich, apple slices, handful of crisps, two party rings and watered down orange juice
Shepherds pie with carrot, green beans, peas, courgette and potato, and borccoli on the side, followed by home made banana bread
And a handful of cat food at the pet shop before I could stop her...
DD1 (16)
Had a cheese string and chocolate corner yoghurt for breakfast, before going down into town for McDonalds with a friend for lunch, and then a load of shepherds pie for tea followed by half a loaf of banana bread and most of a box of malteasers, plus at least 17 cups of tea and a can of coke.
DD1 is a stick insect and DD2 identical build- OP, if DS isn't eating KFC three times a day and adding Whiskas samples into his diet he'll be fine.

Aww .Salty

The thing is not to panic, children's tastes change quite quickly. My DS ate anything you put in front of him until he was three. He then became extremely fussy for a few years and now prefers to eat really quite 'adult' foods including a recent preference for seafood.

I've always tried to stay quite relaxed about it and try to avoid food becoming a battleground.

All toddlers are fussy. It's nature's way of ensuring they don't die of poisoning once they're big enough to wander off and see shiny shiny (poisony) things growing on the bushes.

Once you know this there's no point in stressing about their fussy appetites.

I genuinely believe sugar is v bad, carbs not good, saturated fat fine.

Can I get the kids to eat like that? Can I buggery. My children would rather dance on nails that eat a carrot stick.

What's with the current wheat obsession, it never did me any harm, I've no allergies, slim and never had an upset stomach in my life. Unless you've got a genuine allergy it's just the latest food fashion.

What?! No artisan breadsticks and veg heated by the breath of unicorns and served with a glass of Angel pee? Shame on you.

White toast n jam for brekkie.
Chicken n veg pasties with beans for lunch.
Grapes.
Bag of squares.
Crackers and spread.
Satay chicken noodles.
Jubbly ice lolly.

Five foot five 7 stone size 6. Never. Stops. Dancing. The child not me...

Oh and mini martian mushroom sweeties from asda.

I am amazed reading MN what people consider a healthy diet - as in how much disapproval they can reserve for normal foods (when did wheat become the new devil food?)

I grew up eating a pretty healthy organic (no choice), locally sourced (no choice) diet. It wasn't varied at all. Organic locally sourced diets aren't which is why when the people who eat them finally encounter something non local like pesto sauce (I can still remember my first taste), they are entranced.

This obsession with food reminds me of the middle ages obsession with religion. Middle Ages people believed if you said a certain type and number of prayers you would be guaranteed a place in heaven. 21st century people believe if you eat a certain type and number of foods you will live to a ripe old age.

It is all about the illusion of control.

I think that people have lost the plot entirely.
A healthy diet for a child is not the same as a healthy diet for an adult who is trying to lose weight.
You are best to ignore a lot of it and just get a balance. It comes in fads. When mind were little some people were so sniffy about squash and it had to be fruit juice. I could never understand why it was better than a tiny drop of squash that coloured the 99% water and wouldn't often have given mine the fruit juice, even watered down. Now it is the new evil, full of sugar!

You have a good point there, Canyouforgiveher.

Your child's diet is fine, assuming they get plenty of exercise to burn it off. Just give them as much variety as possible,limit the 'treats' and keep an eye on their weight.
There really is no need for this obsession with diet. As for the 'wheat is evil' brigade - some people just fall for pseudoscience. Let them get on with it, if it makes them feel better.

Yesterday my three ate -

Rice crispies and semi skimmed milk
Macaroni cheese
Two fromage Frais
Fish bites, oven chips and carrots
2 slice of takeaway pizza

Little one had three pieces of fruit
Big two had one each

Er, bolognese sauce should contain carrots, onions, celery and possibly mushrooms as part of the recipe. It's not 'hiding veg' or 'padding it out', it's how it should be made.

The MN food obsesives seem to be overly worried about protein consumption and that meals must be 'balanced' Every meal needs to contain lots of protein and veg, and snacks are blueberries by the kilo. If you don't have your seven/nine or ten a day, because five is nowhere near enough, plus high protein consumption you will die, or something.

In the real world, the closest a lot of people get to a vegetable is the tomato in their pizza sauce, and most of their protein comes with a healthy dose of breadcrumbs round it, and they appear to function quite normally.

Registered Dietitian here. Not RTWT but there is nothing wrong with wheat 3 times a day unless your child is coeliac. Your children's diet looks pretty good to me compared to what I see in RL x

DS (nearly 2) had

porridge with a banana for breakfast

soup (tinned!) and whole meal bread with fruit purée pot and some dried mango

Fish fingers, oven chips, half a pear.

Definitely not enough veg yesterday but some days he'll eat a lot more veg and a lot less fruit.

Your menu sounds fine to me!

I'm 39weeks pregnant so standards have definitely slipped recently!

Ah looks fine to me, I don't let mine have raisins because of the problems they can cause teeth.
But.
What people say and what they do are very differ things ;)
There's a reason why supermarkets have aisles of crisps and kiddie sugary cereal and squash and frozen meals. They react to demand and that is obviously what people want.

I love a competitive ' what my kids eat' thread.

OP, I think your dc's diet is fine, they're not going to get scurvy, rickets or suffer ibs because of a deficiency of one thing or the other.

As said, carry on and take what you read here with a pinch of salt ( pink Himalayan obviously )

Op there is nothing wrong with your DCs diet.
All these people that claim their children eat this amazingly well rounded fab diet, they may cook it but their children probably don't eat it when it's put in front of them.
We vary, yesterday my DCs hadPizza for lunch, marshmallows and biscuits at the park, then chips from the chip shop and Fishfingers (in fairness I have not done a food shop in yonks so am scrapping the barrel in the freezer now)
What I love is the mums you meet in RL (school mums for example) that invite you round for play dates and produce this amazing home cooked meal followed by a plate of fruit and veg for snack (my children looked very confused probably wondering where is the chocolate)
When this child came to my house she very quickly managed to grass her mother up by informing me that this only ever happens when guests are round and in fact the day before they had cut up Fishfingers with baked beans and cakes for Desert

I'm ancient and my 'boys' are now mid twenties. Both are very tall and slim and cook their own ('healthy' meals). I don't remember this angst about children's diets when they were little. DS1 was a very skinny baby and I remember being worried about that. I worried about him getting enough calories rather than restricting food groups. A balance of food types is surely the key. Rice cakes, bread sticks and hummus ...yuck!

Yesterday we had peanut butter on toast, egg sandwich, bowl of berries, chicken fillets with herby breadcrumbs, chips, carrots, broccoli and green beans, tomato ketchup, followed by a cornetto. (lotttts of wheat - sorry) To drink - 2 glasses of water and 4 cups of tea.

But my kids are teens now, never had all this angst about toddler food when they were little either. (porridge, meat and veg, bread, milk, water, banana - seemed the sum total most days)

Food is much more heavily messed around with now. Oven chips are battered (added wheat to something that doesn't need it), whippy ice cream (more unneeded wheat) etc.