To think this food tech teacher is wrong?

[MagentaSpunkTrumpet]

DS is yr7 and currently doing a block of food tech lessons. I've just found a list of ingredients for this week which includes "low fat soft cheese (low fat only!)"

AIBU to think that yr7 children should not be being steamrollered into using low fat options? As a family we are fortunate to have good health and metabolisms so we are able to eat well while avoiding all need for such things ie- we use full fat milk, real butter etc.

I therefore will need to specifically buy low fat soft cheese which, in itself is not a problem (I also have to buy bread mix when I would always make bread from scratch) but it sits uneasily with me that DS is being taught that low fat is inherently "better".

I may well be being unreasonable and will probably stick the regular stuff in a pot and trust that the teacher will be none the wiser but on the other hand, I'm wary of becoming "that mother"

I thought that the fat myths had long since been debunked. Refined carbohydrate and sugars are far worse.

And as for bread mix. Pffft.
Hardly a cookery lesson then is it?
I will not be buying my DS that crap and I will be THAT mother!

Sometimes packets/mixes etc are just quicker - kids often only have a double period for a cookery lesson and it just isn't enough time to let stuff properly prove/marinade/set etc. Packets and mixes are designed to be short cuts, and it means the child can take home a completed dish at the end of the day rather than a plastic bag full of 'cook at home'.

I once had a home ec teacher explicitly tell us that the only reason she was using a low salt butter was because the recipe had to stay within certain guidelines (e.g. no more than 2g of salt).
I don't know who enforced these guidelines, possibly the head master? But it may be something to do with that.

But pizza bases are just yeast (dried is easiest) olive oil (tiny amount) flour. Why would you need bread mix?
Or tinned tomatoes? Or soft cheese? (that's a boak!)

philadelpia on a pizza?

Ricotta seems like a better option as a soft cheese appropriate for a pizza.

Oh gosh what on earth are they having him cook?!

Did soft cheese tarts a few times and full fat made the base more soggier than low fat. But the full fat did taste better so just had to make the blind bake longer.

My friend has to do 'food tech' lessons when she is actually a textiles teacher. She really can't cook, and absolutely hates it, but is forced to do it as it's 'the same department'. Poor thing! Don' be too harsh. And I really wouldn't be 'that mother' about low fat/ full fat cheese. Save yourself, he's only in Y7. You want to be 'that mother' about bullying or bad teachers (I mean really bad ones that can't teach, not that prefer low fat to full fat).

Hmm chorizo and lowfat sift cheese..! Is that like an oxymoron when in the same recipe?

But full-fat cheese and butter are bad for you, aren't they? (Not saying that low fat versions are 'better' but that this seems like the equivalent of the question 'Who is more evil, Voldemort or Darth Vader?' I'd rather not meet either of em in a dark alley).

But I'm not a nutritionist, so maybe I am wrong?!

"Food tech" - drives me mad; total nonsense. It is COOKERY - it is learning how to take care of yourself and your family by feeding them well. Food bloody tech indeed!

This nonsense came in in the Thatcher era when everything was an "ology" and everything was about money. No doubt your DD will be asked to develop marketing strategies for this "product" - it's not a product, it's a blooming meal!

Sorry - bit of a hobby horse there!

YADNBU.
Low-fat anything is very high on sugar. As recent studies indicate, fat is no longer evil. In the right amounts it's quite good for us. Sugar is the real devil.
As a family we too eat full fat everything - especially diary. And definitely the DC have full fat food with organic options where possible. I never allow them to have fat-free or low-fat if they are aware of what they are having.
I'd not agree to what the school is asking. Am sure if parents start speaking up the school would have to take notice and offer options to the children.

The odd thing is that DS actually really likes to cook and normally has a reasonable grasp of what things go together. Where the combination of soft cheese, tinned tomatoes and chorizo came from I shudder to think

Artistic Low-fat anything is not very high in sugar, particularly not cheese, where you simply start with skimmed milk or similar to make the cheese (it will have slightly more sugar per 100g, but that's just because the 100g's doesn't have the weight of the fat in it, not because sugar is added or anything else, and the sugars are still very low.)

Some "low-fat" things, have extra sugar added, but it's very rarely low-fat ingredients that come in that, but low-fat meals / products might.

And sugar is certainly not a devil.

Maybe it is chorizo and tomato bread, with soft cheese spread on top? Let us know, OP, we are dying to find out.

(I once made strawberry jelly with murray mints in it as a special treat for my friend, but I was 8. The murray mints still had the wrappers on!)

I can't think why the low fat version would work better in anything.

Unless there is some 'guideline' reason (in which I'd suggest thinking through the recipe better in the first place), on this I would 'be that mum.' Just send in FF with a note saying 'that's what we had in the fridge.'

Low fat usually means 'stuffed with filler crap' and is not really fostering a healthy approach to food, I agree.

And bread mix? God, bread is flour, yeast and water. What kind of food technology is this?

Eating well and teaching kids how to approach food is really, really important. I'd be a bit about this teacher's approach, yes.

If it came from the teacher it will be from the departments scheme of work, this term that's what you're teaching. D&T departments have metalwork, woodwork, textile, and cookery teachers. For yr 7 most likely they will all be teaching all subjects, even if they can't boil an egg or hold a saw properly. It's so much fun to be support to this, not! I also briefly worked in a private school and there wasn't a single food teacher despite them teaching food and they couldn't tell me why Trex was the fat used in the cookies. It wouldn't surprise me if your teacher had no idea why low fat ether. And then probably bizarre Government interfering.

Missing the point massively, but well done for getting advance notice of needing ingredients. Every ruddy week we ask DS what he needs for cooking this week. Every day he says "nothing, not cooking this week" and then at 10pm (exact time local shop closes) the night before he says "Oh, yeah, I need five different types of vegetables and a pack of cous cous".

YABU. I feel sorry for teachers. They actually have enough work trying to cater for and include people with actual allergies or religious requirements without having a load of middle class mummies demanding their latest food fad is catered to. If you want to send the full fat stuff in just send it in, don't expect a teacher to change their lessons.

Re bread mix. They're teaching novice cooks how to make simple food within a limited time frame. There are plenty of logistical reasons why it might be necessary to use that.

Incidentally the lessons will have to be suitable for all children. Not just those weaned on Waitrose avocados and rosemary focaccia. AND be affordable for all parents who shock horror don't necessarily have yeast and olive oil hanging around the house and would rather send in a tin of value tomatoes than a bunch of organic vine ripened duchy originals.

Used to know a kid whose family had a Chinese on Fridays, Indian on Saturdays and fish 'n' chips on Sundays. She was the size of a garden shed and used low fat cheese in food tech.
Don't think cheddar was really the problem there, but I can see how schools feel they have to lay down the law regarding healthy eating.

I wouldn't worry too much it's unlikely that anything he makes will be eaten if our experience is anything to go by. The food is generally sweaty and undercooked and left festering in a warm classroom once it's been made. It's then shook up as they are jostled about on the bus. The chickpea and spinach curry dd made looked and smelled so bad dh took it on a walk with the dog to dump in a public bin as we couldn't face the smell for a few days whilst we waited for our bins to be collected.
I did ask if dd could dump all the food once cooked rather than bring it home so as to save her lugging it back but apparently eating it and reviewing it at home is important. All reviews so far have been done without so much as testing more than a morsel and we haven't touched anything containing meat, fish or poultry for fear of food poisoning. Seems such a waste of food and money tbh.

I'm desperate to know what he's making, please update us when you find out Magenta!