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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

beans mash and sausages is a healthy meal

898 replies

madhurjazz · 07/08/2016 22:02

Mother in law thinks its junk food. But the beans contain 1 of your 5 a day, mashed potatoes are just veg and a good source of carbs and the sausages are full of essential protein.

We often have ketchup, this has been shown to reduce many cancers like prostate, and a glass of juice.

Seems healthy to me and not junky.

OP posts:
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splendide · 16/08/2016 11:40

I don't really see the point in preservation methods - we all have freezers now. I like some preserved stuff for the taste though. Love smoked fish.

MrsKoala · 16/08/2016 11:45

Thanks, I may look at making turkey sausages. I've already changed from beef to turkey burgers to reduce red meat consumption. As long as they visually look the same and have the same texture he will eat anything Confused he seems unable to actually recognise taste.

Egosumquisum · 16/08/2016 11:46

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Egosumquisum · 16/08/2016 11:47

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Emmaroos · 16/08/2016 12:45

splendide
Firstly, if your child seems a healthy weight now and mealtimes are happy affairs you are probably doing fine Smile and you are obviously well informed on processed meat so you are I'm sure well ahead of most people!

A couple of practical suggestions:
Start with very small portions. He's more likely to eat some of everything if he doesn't have the chance to fill up with the bits he likes best or that he is most familiar with at the start of the meal. We work on the very simple principle that if a child wasn't hungry enough to eat what was on their plate then they definitely aren't hungry enough to need anything else. When the plate is clear he can always have more.

Remind yourself that despite the difficulty you had at the start, a child is far, far more likely to have health problems from being over fed or from being fed a limited diet of processed food than they are from occasionally turning up their nose at what's on offer at lunch and going without until dinner time. So for the sake of mealtimes being street free and your child eating the right things I propose no battles - if he doesn't want it he doesn't have it - but no cracking and giving him something else when he whinges he's "starving" an hour later.
If you are mostly feeding a wide variety of unprocessed foods, heavy on vegetables and including some oily fish and your child is a healthy weight then you are unlikely to be going wrong.

In simplest terms for portion size, I think about what is a reasonable portion for an adult of a particular food, and the size of an adult vs the size of the child and scale up or down accordingly. If you are 3 times bigger would you be OK with eating 3 times the portion of blueberries that your child wants to have or would it be totally OTT? If so say no and offer a carrot to gnaw on instead. My general principle is "you aren't hungry enough for a vegetable then you aren't really hungry".

Where fruit is concerned it does get complicated. I'm very sceptical of things like the food pyramid and '5 a day'...billions is spent by multinationals lobbying ational governments and the EU on these types of campaigns. I think all of the academic studies that persuaded the government to count smoothies and juice in '5 a day' were funded by cocoa-cola and other multinational selling smoothies and juice. Hmm Like him or loathe him, at least Jamie Oliver gives a voice to the other side that doesn't want to sell and serve highly profitable processed foods
Of course fruit is great because it is heavy in micro nutrients. However, unlike vegetables it is also high in sugar (kids are biologically programmed to seek out sugar to ensure they love milk as infants) so some kids, if allowed, will definitely eat far more fruit than is good for them. Some fruit is more sugary than others though and blueberries are on the better end of the scale but variety is also important as different fruits have different vitamins/minerals. I limit my kids generally to 2 portions of fruit a day with a portion of about half an 'adult' fruit, so half a banana (having 2 kids makes that easy!). I'd give them a whole 'fun sized' apple or tangerine. I also only really give them fruit at mealtimes. Eating fruit with other foods and also the fibre in whole fruit itself slows down how quickly your body can process the sugar (why drinking a juiced orange is different from eating that same orange whole) and get it into your blood, but sugar is still sugar and despite all the nonsense about 'natural' sugars, what's in fruit is basically the same as the granulated stuff which started in a vegetable (beet or cane) but has been separated out. We also now know that consuming fructose alone doesn't trigger the natural 'you are full' messages that the body sends the brain which is why some kids can get through vast quantities of calories worth of fresh or dried fruit and still not feel full. This is why it's not only what you eat, but how and when you eat it that matters. Eating a potato followed later by a chop followed later by a portion of cabbage is not the same for your body as eating them together in a single meal. As well as the speed in which the glucose is converted into into your blood, the second reason is that many micro nutrients work in combination and can only be used when the other necessary vitamins and minerals are also present.

We don't do snacking here for loads of reasons including that micronutrient benefit. It is also shockingly bad for teeth. The natural process is that after eating the mouth neutralises acids from the food that attack enamel and 'rebuild' the enamel. If children are eating (or drinking anything other than water - milk is high in sugars too so keep it for mealtimes and think of it as a food) between meals then the teeth are constantly under attack with no repair time. That is also why teeth should be brushed before breakfast and not immediately after when teeth are weakest (you probably know that but I had been doing it wrong for years!). Secondly, snacking doesn't give the body time to stabilise the blood sugar levels so the body becomes reliant on a steady stream of sugar spikes and when they stop you get the blood sugar crash effect. Most importantly, snacking means that your kids are less likely to be properly hungry at mealtimes and if they are not properly hungry they are more likely to be picky and refuse what's on offer.

And here ends the lecture

Egosumquisum · 16/08/2016 12:50

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Emmaroos · 16/08/2016 12:53

Koala even without a sausage attachment and the faff of trying to source skins you could make sausage shaped meatballs (like kofta). Give some minced pork a few pulses in a food processor (if you have one, no need if you don't) and maybe at the start stick to the types of seasoning he's used to in his sausages now so the transition isn't so stressful? Gradually they could get shorter and fatter (!) I find meatballs easier to shape than sausages. I make beef, pork, lamb and turkey versions and freeze them in batches. I find them handy to have in bags in the freezer because if they are kept smallish they are quick to cook, even from frozen and can go into casseroles, with pasta, or just on their own. Mince is also economical which is a bonus if you are trying to stick to decent quality meat.

Emmaroos · 16/08/2016 12:54

YES!! I love Robert Lustig.

splendide · 16/08/2016 12:56

Emmaroos

Thank you that's really given me some food for thought (a ha).

DS is now a healthy weight and he does eat quite well. The small bits of everything is a good idea. He snacks more than he should I think. It's all healthy but it is quite a lot over the day.

So he'll have breakfast at 8, a snack at 10 (usually half an apple or a pear or some cheese) then lunch at 12, a snack at 3 and dinner at 6.

Emmaroos · 16/08/2016 13:29

I don't know what age he is, but by the time my DS2 was 4 we had got rid of snacks altogether and we just work on 3 good meals a day. I'd suggest that if you are giving a fruit snack you combine it with some fat and protein at the same time...a few nuts or some cheese are obvious ones.

splendide · 16/08/2016 13:38

He's not quite 2 so still little. We usually give a cup of milk with his snack or full fat greek yoghurt.

Emmaroos · 16/08/2016 13:58

That sounds pretty sensible to me!
And at that age it's the easiest thing in the world to build good habits by just never offering the bad stuff as an option and not letting him get too used to always eating the same limited familiar foods but giving him a wide range. That was my biggest challenge at the start, especially when the children ate earlier than myself and my husband so I was cooking twice and we didnt always having the same thing. I found that I was overly relying on food that was healthy but a bit limited in range (pasta (brown) was always bolognese or pesto, always salmon for fish etc) but when they turned up their noses at a delicious plump fresh mackerel I saw the error of my ways and varied it more.
It makes life so much easier for everyone if he knows as he gets older that what's on offer is what's on offer, is happy to eat unfamiliar things and most critically that complaining is completely futile!!

MrsKoala · 16/08/2016 14:03

Thanks Emma, but sadly kofta type things are most definitely NOT sausages to ds1. I think we'd need the skins to convince him to try one.

Emmaroos · 16/08/2016 14:28

The problem with skins is because so few people make sausages at home they tend to sell in industrial amounts. My local butcher is kind and lets me have some of his in more reasonable quantities (i.e. one or two at a time...you get a lot of sausage in one long skin!) Good luck Koala!

Egosumquisum · 16/08/2016 14:32

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Egosumquisum · 17/08/2016 07:47

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MrsKoala · 17/08/2016 12:45

I think i saw a programme (was it jamie and jimmys?) where they made there own bacon by smoking it in a makeshift bbq smoker. It looked quite easy iirc.

I am genuinely excited about your sausages and bbq feedback Ego! Grin Please update (sorry OP - i know you didn't expect this thread to grow legs and run off).

Egosumquisum · 17/08/2016 18:56

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MrsKoala · 17/08/2016 18:57

oooh very rustic and artisan Ego. What did you put in them?

TroysMammy · 17/08/2016 19:00

I wouldn't say it was unhealthy but I prefer sausage, beans, chips and a runny fried egg too as eggs are good for you. Obviously you wouldn't be serving that every night.

Egosumquisum · 17/08/2016 19:04

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SarfEast1cated · 01/09/2016 21:49

"Dontyoulovecalpol Sun 07-Aug-16 23:44:46

Yes but that's not normal Gloria. That's the sort of diet someone has for a few months/years, gets all
virtuous about it, tells everyone else their diets are shit and you just LOVE kale, then eventually cracks and falls face first into a pile of chips. Give it time grin"

Just coming here from another thread and i have to say that Dontyoulovecalpol you are my hero.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 02/09/2016 07:59

I love sausages. But only in Australia. Because they're beef, not pork, and made with rice flour, not wheat-based rusk. And I tend to buy from our local butcher because they're the nicest.
They don't qualify as "processed meat" for me because they're minced bits of cow mixed with rice flour and seasoning and put into skins. They're not smoked, there are no nitrates/nitrites added (so no cancer-causing nitrosamines can be formed). No worse than buying butcher's mince and making your own, IMO (except I don't have the equipment or the skins).

I have real trouble buying sausages in the UK because getting all-beef ones is very hard in the SE, and even when I do find them, half the time they've been put in pork casings. (Can't eat pork). There is a lovely place in Wales that sells beef sausages, but the delivery costs are quite high, unless you buy over £50 worth, and that's a LOT of sausages! They do 100% meat sausages, but actually they're quite hard to eat! Too rich. Still no nitrates/nitrites though.

Processed meat for me is not minced stuff - it's stuff that has been cured in some way. And I rarely eat that, mostly because again a lot of it is pork based.

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