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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To give visiting child hotdogs for tea?

444 replies

EssieTregowan · 07/02/2017 09:05

With baked beans, so that counts as healthy, right? Wink

Just an idle ponder really as I know this particular 4yo's mum doesn't mind at all. But when ds2 starts widening his friendship group are the other mums going to judge if the fare on offer is quick stuff like pasta pesto, or nuggets, or plastic sausages?

Tuesdays are really the only day we can have his friends round, but it's also the day the shopping comes and it doesn't come until 4.30 so dinner is very often the quickest option .

Would you judge? Or would it not even cross your mind?

OP posts:
rogueantimatter · 07/02/2017 14:09

I taught my DC not to eat sausages, bacon or any other cured food - the nitrites in them are linked to bowel cancer. They weren't allowed to knowingly drink aspartame either. I know that probably makes me a pain in the neck but having read that the sodium nitrite in cured foods is the health equivalent of smoking cigarettes I couldn't bring myself to let my DC eat them. The incidence of bowel cancer is increasing and it's presenting in younger and younger people. I should know - I was diagnosed aged 43. Of all food to avoid - sodium nitrite is my number one.

My DC are young adults now, but I used to ask the parent if there was anything their DC wouldn't eat then give them whatever we would have had anyway. According to friends, DS used to ask if there was aspartame in drinks he was offered and have water if there was. He drinks 'diet' stuff know sometimes but at least he didn't have it when he was little.

I honestly don't care if people think I'm snooty, precious, difficult or whatever - I hate the thought of my DC eating nitrites and smoked food.

VeryBitchyRestingFace · 07/02/2017 14:09

As long as the hotdogs are washed down by FULL FUCKING FAT coke, I'd say it was A-okay.

Star
Willow2016 · 07/02/2017 14:11

Why if YOU give your kids hotdogs as a 'treat' is it NOT ok for another mum to give them with beans and toast once when they come to tea ?
If they like them whats the big deal once in a blue moon?

Are me and my kids the only ones on the planet who thinks pesto is vile? I thought I would love it as love pine nuts but yeeuuukkkk!

Aeroflotgirl · 07/02/2017 14:12

Mabey offer mini Pizza, or Fish fingers and chips if the child does not like hotdogs.

TeethDrama · 07/02/2017 14:13

Twist - I think quick and easy food brownies can make themselves and is hard to mess up is different scenario to a play date where the adult is in charge of food and cooking and other options which are not fancier or trendier or harder to make than hotdogs are available e.g. Baked potatoes or even pasta pesto - made with wholewheat pasta and a handful of peas or tomatoes it's definitely better and no harder, just boiling like you'd boil pasta. So it seems a but unnecessary to pick hotdogs which a lot of people don't like the idea of.

titihood · 07/02/2017 14:15

Loads of pesto is made with cashew nuts cos they're cheaper and not many pine nuts at all. I like pesto - easy dinner in a jar = yes thanks!

Maybe it's canned anything that is at issue (if beans are maybe off the menu). What about those canned golden syrup sponge puddings? That was a dream of mine as a kid (we only every had homemade everything, which was amazing in retrospect but I would have killed for white sliced bread and processed foods).

BarbarianMum · 07/02/2017 14:16

OK so why is mini pizza better than hotdog? They are both high in carbs and fat. As is pasta pesto for that matter, although I suppose pesto does have the redeeming goodness of basil.

TeethDrama · 07/02/2017 14:17

Willow - my point was that my kids see them as a treat (hence the inverted commas, to indicate that was a tongue in cheek word) but I don't share that view. However they are not poisonous and I am not so precious that I'd say the kids could not have them ever, but I would not serve them to visiting kids. There's no need to.

GahBuggerit · 07/02/2017 14:17

OMG what is this obsession with Pesto??? I havent met a kid yet who eats pesto, and my kids have been known to eat dog chocolate ffs Hmm yet Ive never met a kid who doesnt like a forbidden hot dog.

TBH, the circles I roll in, I'd be more likely to be judged as a snobby cow if a playdate when home and announced to his mum that I offered pasta and pesto. Cant win!

JaniceBattersby · 07/02/2017 14:18

My children are very discerning.

Thy know better than to choose friends whose parents are so stuck up their own arse that they'd be upset about their kids eating a sodding hotdog.

I'm just grateful that someone likes my child enough to invite them over for tea. If that tea involves a packet of Skips and a bag of Haribo, then that's fine.

TeethDrama · 07/02/2017 14:18

Barbarian - pesto made from basil and pine nuts and oil. Hot dogs made from eyelashes, lips & ass as someone I know used to say.

BarbarianMum · 07/02/2017 14:18

I love pesto but I'm under no illusion that it's a balanced meal. Pasta pesto, like lots of Italian dishes, was a food of the poor - the pesto flavoured the stodge that filled you up when you couldn't afford much in the way of meat, fish, eggs or veg.

BarbarianMum · 07/02/2017 14:21

Lips and ass = protein and fat. Is it the collegen content your objecting to?

GahBuggerit · 07/02/2017 14:23

Janice - your kids are very wise Grin

Same here tbh, can't imagine my kids ever being friends with kids who have THOSE sort of parents.

Twistmeandturnme · 07/02/2017 14:24

Hot dogs made from eyelashes, lips & ass as someone I know used to say.
..but that isn't necessarily so is it?
If someone gave your child home made toad in the hole you wouldn't judge them but value sausages have about 40% meat and that is basically connective tissue and membranes mixed with bread.
Frankfurters are at least a higher percentage of meat: lips and anus is only muscle after all....'Oh I couldn't possibly eat lips or tongue or anything that's been in an animal's mouth.....I'll just have an egg!' Grin

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 07/02/2017 14:25

If you're taking DD off my hands for a few hours you can feed her whatever you like.

I thought hot dogs/cheap pizza/fish fingers and chips was compulsory "playdate" food?

TeethDrama · 07/02/2017 14:29

Twist - I don't buy value sausages? I don't eat much meat so when I do I buy the best, it doesn't work out any more expensive or any less healthy eating less meat but better cuts. Sick of the obsession with cheap shit processed meat, battery eggs etc but that's another thread...

ArcheryAnnie · 07/02/2017 14:30

Has anyone had Iceland sausagemeat squares? It's practically vegan, it's got so much breadcrumb in it. The only reason I don't feed it to visitors is that they'd probably hate it, but DS and I like it in a sandwich for an occasional weekday breakfast. I mean, it's practically a bread sandwich, but it's delicious and ludicrously cheap.

Unless you are eating nothing but crap all day, every day, a bit of terrible food from time to time is absolutely fine.

tovelitime · 07/02/2017 14:31

If want to feed my child dinner so that I don't have to do it then please feel free to give them whatever you like. I'm just thrilled not to go through the rigmarole and will look forward to getting them straight home, into pyjamas and into bed. I'll deal with the nutrition another time

Somehowsomewhere · 07/02/2017 14:33

Sick of the obsession with cheap shit processed meat, battery eggs etc but that's another thread...

Who is obsessed with these things? No one I've met.

HelenaGWells · 07/02/2017 14:40

I wouldn't care. If you hosted my child and fed them I'd be delighted. I've never asked my kids what they had for food at someone elses house as it really doesn't matter, it's one meal, it won't kill them ffs.

tovelitime · 07/02/2017 14:43

In 11 years of after school playdates with 3 children I'm yet to have one of mine come home being fed anything other than fish fingers, breaded chicken, pizza,hot dogs, pasta with cheese / pesto or a bagel. All naice families, all eat well and healthily generally but I thought that was standard easy playdate dinner?

Artandco · 07/02/2017 14:45

Tov - most our play dates just eat normal meal with us as a family TBH. We don't cook separately for kids often. Most our play dates are at weekend TBH as working weekdays

expatinscotland · 07/02/2017 14:47

Some people are seriously eating disordered. It's sad.

YANBU.

Moogdroog · 07/02/2017 14:50

I hear 'hot dogs for tea' and my head plays me this...

Sorry.

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