Or is toast with honey a perfectly acceptable breakfast for a 4yo?

[n0ne]

Just that, really. DD(4) is asking for toast with honey for breakfast. DH is telling her she can't have it. I ask why, he says it's just pure sugar and looks at me like I've got two heads. Surely toast with honey is a perfectly normal breakfast option? It's not like she eats it every day (or in fact ever before).

DH is foreign, if that makes a difference. He has some really weird (to me) ideas about what is and isn't an acceptable meal

Laurie clearly that was lighthearted. Perhaps my tone was lost through the screen. Your very patronising snippy tone, however is not

Children needs carbs in the morning, as much as they need fat and protein. Nothing wrong with honey (essentially is is pure sugar but its better than a bowl of crunchie nut cornflakes which is heavily processed).

Porridge oats, milk, and honey is a great breakfast for kids. Or scrambled eggs and ham, boiled eggs, sometimes my kids have a ham and cheese toastie (I live overseas and its common to have for breakfast). I don't like sugary cereal per se, but my kids eat it, just like I do sometimes for ease.

Not RTFT but why would toast and honey not be ok for breakfast?

I don't like honey very much but if you do, why not?

100% every meal does not need a perfect balance. That's not rocket science.

I would like to warn you though that the recipe I'm making for dinner tonight contain the poison formerly known as honey

I hope your will is in order...

I was planning on having pork chops with honey and mustard sauce for dinner. I'll have to scrap that I guess.

I don't get this logic...
Honey on toast?
Pure sugar! That way obesity lies
Add banana/protein, that'll fix it!
So how does adding MORE food and calories reduce the obesity risk?

Because a meal high in carbs will create larger fluctuations in blood sugar management. It's metabolised quickly...the body then says "I'm really hungry, eat something NOW!"...more likely to then crave a high carb (often high calorie too) snack because it's instant fuel and the brain loves it...but it's metabolised quickly...the body then says "I'm really hungry, eat something NOW!"...more likely to then crave a high carb snack...etc, etc. This can easily lead to a roller coaster of blood sugar spikes, increase in hormone control to deal with it, blood sugar lows, hormones send brain "eat something now!" signals. It's this regular snacking on high carb foods that can lead to weight gain.

However, if you add protein or fat to the meal (which metabolise much slower) that lowers the glycaemic load which helps keep things more balanced and easier for the body to control. So, for example, if you really want a chocolate bar it's "better" from a being kinder to your pancreas perspective to choose a Snickers than a Mars bar, especially if you eat a lot of sugar anyway. This is because the nuts in snickers add to the fat content which lowers the GI/GL.

Eat right. Exercise. Die anyway. Something is going to kill us all
Thing is Expat that although we're all going to die in the end, ideally we don't want to spend the last few decades with lifestyle-related ill health with the symptoms managed by drugs. I'd rather not anyway. There is simply no getting away from the fact that what we consume affects our bodies on a biochemical level and over time can really fuck things up. Either care or don't care. We don't have to be obsessed with it though, there's balance.

Winnie The Pooh is DEAD?
Afraid so Thyme...complications caused by his metabolic syndrome

So why do I not feel hungry until lunchtime if I eat toast and honey for breakfast? Today I had a Lidl apple turnover for breakfast (not at all a regular thing) and again not hungry until lunch. I can have poached eggs and feel exactly the same as if I had toast and honey.

no dairy in my lunch or dinner today. But since I had egg muffins for breakfast

But eggs aren't dairy? Dairy is from a cow.

There is simply no getting away from the fact that what we consume affects our bodies on a biochemical level and over time can really fuck things up.

Yes, but honey on toast for breakfast is not going to do that.

Also, balancing every MEAL is insane - who has time for that? I'm a slim size 8 and I balance my diet as a WHOLE - if I had fish and chips for dinner, I'd have salad for lunch the next day. If I went to a restaurant 3 times in one week, I wouldn't go for a bit. Some days I have scrambled eggs for breakfast, sometimes PB&J on toast with yogurt, sometimes porridge.

Who has time to look at their soup and think "ahh, this is lacking in X nutrient, I must add Y!"

hhhmm. Acceptable once in a while, but don't try to kid yourself that it's anything other than sugar on sugar (bread being a carbohydrate that is quickly broken down into glucose).

given about 70% of those over 35 are overweight or obese far more of us are getting our diet wrong than getting it right
Exactly. Yet dare say cereal or toast is not an ideal breakfast (not even saying you shouldn't eat it at all!) and you're treated like a nutrition nazi! You can even talk about the wider context on threads like this, to put things in perspective, but some people will still twist words and tell you you've said toast and honey is "unhealthy" when you haven't at all

Its fine.

Protein or dairy. Basic balancing of some carbohydrate, some protein and some plant based food in all meals. Is that so very difficult?

It isn't difficult so much as boring and pointless and could border on unhealthily obsessive. Honestly, just relax around food, you are doing your children no favours by policing every meal.

but don't try to kid yourself that it's anything other than sugar on sugar

But this is for a 4y/o that's going to spend the morning running around, not an overweight 50y/o that's going to sit in the office.

Was it last night, a programme about how our cereals are so much healthier now. I think it was cornflakes. They tasted a box using a recipe from the 90s and it was salty to the taste. We are much healthier now. Honey has lots of benefits and so does bread. Wait until she goes to parties! He'll be a healthy parent bore!!!

There is simply no getting away from the fact that what we consume affects our bodies on a biochemical level and over time can really fuck things up.

Yes, but honey on toast for breakfast is not going to do that

Please reread my posts NameChangr678 because I said "over time" and also in the context of the overall diet. So I try and eat "healthily" 80% of the time (throughout a week rather than each day because that would be a huge arse ache) and chill right out for 20%. I've been known to have cake for breakfast but I definitely wouldn't have something like that every day.

I gave my dc French toast (left over WHITE baguette) with honey this morning

Have I killed them? Or will the have got fat since this morning?

Totally agree with baalam makes no difference whether I eat protein or carbs as to how full up I feel. This is, I suspect, psychological (as it is the other way round, believing you feel more full from protein) as I grew up on a diet of "If you're still hungry have some toast or a sandwich" which I did. It was always a filler food.

Whilst current thinking is around carbs causing blood sugar spikes and I don't deny this is true, I suspect it's far less important than the diet industry currently likes to think, and that, like everything, there is no one size fits all and we all react differently.

I drink apple cider vinegar and honey in water almost every morning. My mum did it so I do too. I'm convinced it's good for you!

Also, as a random observation I have noticed that people who talk a lot about balance and getting it right and good and bad foods are often overweight themselves, or work very hard not to be. This makes it fairly hard to take their advice IRL which is something you can't tell over an Internet forum but something I always bear in mind.

I'm eating Skittles right now. And this is technically my breakfast.

Also, as a random observation I have noticed that people who talk a lot about balance and getting it right and good and bad foods are often overweight themselves, or work very hard not to be. This makes it fairly hard to take their advice IRL which is something you can't tell over an Internet forum but something I always bear in mind.

Absolutely!

I remember when as a slim teenager, my extremely overweight aunt lectured me on "don't eat bread before bed, you'll get fat". Yes, because she obviously had everything under control.....We are both still exactly the same size 10 years later.

Meh, I probably would serve some protein alongside. Hard-boiled egg or cheese, or smear some (no added sugar, don't worry ) peanut butter on the toast along with honey.

But I'm a childminder and I'm used to writing the day's menu on the whiteboard in my entryway...I like it to sound fairly balanced.

That being said mine ate pop tarts for breakfast twice last weekend. They're alive still and don't have diabetes or massive sudden weight gain.

I'm slim, even while pregnant twice my bmi was in the healthy range. I eat whatever I want, toast and honey included. I just don't eat loads of it and not every day.

People who bang on about their blood sugar crashing because they ate toast once or saying that the toast and honey is ok as long as it's artisanal spelt bread and a 'scrape' of honey must be terribly boring in real life.

This poor four year old has never even had honey and fecking toast in her life before and people are wringing their hands about 'sugar highs' and childhood obesity