My husband has lost the plot !!

[MyWonderfulbutcrazyHusband]

Ok, so hear me out here!!!

In my opinion, DCs (6 and 4) are pretty healthy kids! They exercise a LOT and their diet is, I think, pretty ok!

Example

Breakfast - weetabix with fromage frais, honey and grapes

Snack - milk and a some fruit (or occasionally Pom bears or a 'YoYo' bar for a treat!!)

Lunch - sanwiches with cucumber slices and carrot sticks

Snack - banana or raisins

Dinner - tomato pasta or spaghetti bolognaise or something like that! With veg sticks

So ... my (usually amazing, very sane, very sensible and completely gorgeous lovely he's reading this!!) DH said tonight he thinks the children have too much sugar and we need to cut out the fromage frais and honey in the mornings?

I think ... 'well at least they don't scoff chocolate, don't eat takeaways, and they deserve at least something they like (life is too short to cut out everything, right?)'

So - what do you think!?

Husband is reading this! So please tell him to leave their breakfast alone! They are good, healthy, sporty kids and a fromage frais in the morning won't kill them!?

(Sadly, I am prepared to be told IABU, but you do realise DH will not let me forget it!!)

OP this type of thread on MN always attracts of lot of posters who probably have some type of eating disorder.
I suspect none of them are qualified dietitians (anyone can call themselves a nutritionist but dietitian is a protected term) so dont take this nonsense about too much sugar/carbs seriously

fifty it is one day. And from that you cannot sensibly analyse anything at all.

Just eating 1.7g of sugar in my two weetabix. Better book myself in for that insulin resistence blood test

This thread is mad. Your DC have a good diet, with balance. I suppose if you have the time or inclination to break it down into nutrients it might be a little on the sugar heavy side, but FFS children need a certain amount of sugar, it's not like your offering them chocolate buttons and skittles for breakfast.
My DC eat a frube every lunchtime. and quite a bit of fruit. They also eat shreddies for breakfast before school. They are not fat. Because they eat food that is largely made from scratch the rest of the time, they do not gorge on biscuits or crisps and they are both active. like most DC. My life is too short to argue with them about natural plain yoghurt and oatcakes. They are healthy, so are me and DH and we live a good balanced lifestyle with a wide range of foods in it for all of us.

Batshit thread, as usual when food and SUGAR! is mentioned.

Eat food (that your grandparents would recognise). Mostly plants. Not too much of it.

The best, simplest advice.

Reading about dietitians who think the amount of sugrarfrom fruit is the biggest issue in a diet. Surely that’s a message that’s got mangled along the way! . Someone upthread said this which I totally 100% agree with:

Fruit is a good thing. Naturally occurring fruit sugars are fine, a good source of energy accompanied by nutrients and dietary fibre.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

My grans diet she lived to 85 died in the 1980s
Breakfast white toast butter, tea.
Snack biscuit coffee
Lunch stew made of beef, turnip, carrots, potatoes, some cabbage, stewed fruit and custard, tea.
Tea white bread and jam, cake at least 2 different types. Tea
Supper tea biscuits.

@Teateaandmoretea

You are quite clearly displaying the problem our population has. This is, by most accounts, a standard diet... It's probably actually better than most... But we have an obese population. Even our population of children are obese. So, if this is a "normal" diet and we have an obese population... what does that tell you about a "normal" diet. Admittedly, most would orobablynincoude sweets and crisps so add that into what everyone here is saying that "it's fine".

The sad fact is that it is not. If we all went back to eating like our granparents did, recognisable food most being veg then we would not be obese. As a country we are. No other argument is needed. What you perceive as a "normal" diet is making people obese. It might be normal but it's not healthy and not sustainable.

This OP isn't that bad; I only suggested one change to cheese and to avoid jars of sauce. But I suspect most people posting their kids meals and snacks would need to change a lot more.

And when people with properly healthy diets come along, you call them obsessed and make fun of them. Maybe think about being more responsible in the way you speak to people.

You directed personal insults at me. Did I make anything I said personal or slag any one off or mock them with snide comments? No. But you did. Again, I know who I would rather be and I know who I want my kids to be.

TBH obesity is probably caused by portion size rather than what we actually eat.

And lack of excercise...

I’m seriously worried for the posters who are so neurotic about their children’s diets now. How are they going to cope when they have no control over their intakes when they’re teenagers and young adults. You may think you’re setting them up to make the right choices but you don’t have to read far on Mumsnet to realise that our choices don’t count for much when they’re autonomous.

Hi! OP here! Thanks for all the tips and posts :) (especially thanks to those on my side! Although DH has amassed quite a bit of support - damn you mumsnet!!!!) :)

Just wanted to add in that both DC are slim (40th and 50th centiles for height!) with good teeth! (according to recent dentist visit!!) and DS1 (6) swims 3 times a week, runs junior park runs, and cycles 15 miles a week :) (not cos I'm a slave driver!! But because he has so much energy I can't contain it! And he LOVES all kinds of sport!!! Football etc... at school!)

Also - we don't just eat tomato pasta (and we do, it has quorn and veggies in it)! My days example food was just an example! Sometimes dinner might be fish, vegetables and potatoes etc...!

As @GabriellaMontez posts, it’s about moderation and balance:

“I think this thread highlights the need for moderation and a bit of common sense.

There is no consensus and the official guidelines change fairly regularly.

Avoid obesity and too much of anything. Have plenty of exercise”

It’s sad but a lot of posts on these types of threads highlight what is wrong with our societies attitudes to foods. We have lost our basic relationship to foods and people genuinely don’t know what’s healthy, unhealthy and what’s marketing bullshit. So they grasp onto one extreme ‘rule’ after another. Demonising huge swathes if foods and hero worshipping others. Taking a simple fact and extending it beyond its original meaning to apply it to everything.

And we get a mixed up nightmare where the ‘ideal diet’ is so restrictive, applying all these mashed up snippets into one extreme sanctified tightrope of eating. And damnation and scorn on anyone who cannot stick to this unattainable, ever reducing footprint of foods... and then we wonder why there’s an obesity problem?

It’s not just the ‘bad eating’ that’s the problem. It’s all attitudes towards food in media and society that have become so fucked up. And you can see it on here too.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know it doesn’t lie in telling people that carrots have too much sugar in them (!), or that fruit is unhealthy. It’s the broad messages about food that are the most important, and these are the ones that seem to have got lost. So, it’s not helpful to demonize certain vegetables and fruit, when we do know that overall, most people aren’t even getting to the 5 a day with fruit & veg combined, and it’s now understood that it should be more like 9 a day. Putting people off eating fruit & veg is messing with the main message and contributing to all this skewing of our relationship with food if we don’t dare eat a carrot or a grape because now they are ‘unhealthy’, and proteins so amazing... so, did it, I’m going to eat a burger and chips instead!

(I know I’m picking up on one or two things that have been said, and that’s not particularly fair as the thread is full of them, but these are just easy examples. I also know it’s not the responsibility of individual posters to be the government broadcasters of nutritionist advice! Or responsible for a nations screwed up ness. It’s symptomatic, rather than blaming, I was going for...)

• sorry typo! - and 'when' we do, it has quite and veggies in it!

I'll try again!

and 'when' we do, it has 'quorn' and veggies in it!!

Grrrrr typos!

These threads always baffle me. I'm pretty sure the average family is eating sugary cereal and biscuits as snacks etc. So demonising fruit, which a lot of children refuse to eat, and which is packed full of vitamins and nutrients is just not productive. The sugar in fruit is a very different kind of sugar than the stuff you get in cakes and biscuits. Fruit is not something children need to be limited on.

Neither do children need low fat anything to whoever suggested switching to semi skimmed milk! Everyone in this house has full fat milk, real butter and full fat yoghurt and none of us are overweight. It tastes nicer and keeps you fuller for longer. And children need fat in their diets.

There are some bloody joyless people on here. Be careful how much fruit you eat? Swap fromage fraud for Greek yoghurt? Have you listened to yourselves? Analysing every last carb and sugar molecule can't be healthy. Sporty, active children who have no health or teeth issues that we're aware of and you're finding fault in the healthy diet they eat? Really? Food is food - yes, some is better for us than others but it's both fuel and part of the pleasure of life. I'd LOVE to see the food diaries of some of the virtuous posters here who seem to have lost complete sight of the OP so that they can opine about health and feel better about themselves.

OP you're doing a great job, carry on giving your kids things they enjoy and encouraging a healthy lifestyle. Try not to overanalyse, you know whether your kids are healthy and happy or not.

Sugar in pasta sauce, sugar in yoghurt and fruit and raisins and to bars and cereal...
More veg, less pasta

Swap fromage fraud for Greek yoghurt? Have you listened to yourselves? Analysing every last carb and sugar molecule can't be healthy.

Eating processed food is not healthy. The food companies have brainwashed us over the last 6 decades to increase their profits.

There is much less profit in raw brocolli compared to a ready meal.

My grans diet she lived to 85 died in the 1980s

She lived through two world wars when food was scarce and so had very little sugar or salt in her diet during those times.

Her diet between 1900 and 1960 would have contained very little processed food and so very little added sugar and salt.

Your kids are healthy and so their food is fine. Obviously not perfect through the eyes of all of the MN dieticians. But it is fine. Not full of processed crap, zillions of snacks or fizzy drinks. Varied, fresh stuff and some sugar.
I fully believe fine is good for our kids. Fine helps our kids think normally about food.

The thing I think is far more damaging to our kids future health is their relationship with food. We need to stop using food in response to their emotions. They are upset: give them a treat. They have done well: give them a treat. They are misbehaving: threaten to not give them a treat. This is how I was raised and so at every point of high or low emotion, my instinct is to eat. I’m like bloody Pavlovs dog!

Emotional eating and eating disorders will be far more damaging to our kids long term health than a few raisins or Pom bears when they are small.

Btw I’m not aiming this at anyone on here, it is just my general opinion on stuff in my real life.

ILoveAllRainbows - are you suggesting that we only feed ourselves and our children on naturally-occurring foods?

Obviously not perfect through the eyes of all of the MN dieticians

thats the problem, they are not qualified dietitians!

Your diet is obviously incredibly healthy compared to the average British diet.

I have a blanket aversion to kids' yogurt and I'd strip that out sharpish, not only because I find the packaging obscene but because it's always junk. I make my own yogurt and serve with decadent and healthy toppings alike, great for your gut and great for cutting back on plastic.

I actually can't believe someone is saying that Weetabix is sweet at 4% sugar including naturally occurring sugars and that anyone disagreeing has buggered taste buds. I'd actually say that kind of bonkers misguided obsession is part and parcel of our flawed food culture. Apparently some survey suggested that 65% of UK adults ate no green veg at all in the previous week, yet people on here are worrying about fucking Weetabix, apples and carrots. Fwiw my diet is pretty flawless (I probably get 10+ portions of veg in a day because I bloody love them). Part of the reason it is so good is that I love food. People I know obsessing about food in an orthorexic kind of way, I notice, don't actually eat that well - two weeks of avocado and kale smoothies and then end up scoffing biscuits because suddenly food is all about prohibition and naughtiness rather than pleasure, and if you fall off the wagon you get guilt and recrimination and comfort eating. Absolutely fucking bonkers. Enjoy your food and everything in moderation.

are you suggesting that we only feed ourselves and our children on naturally-occurring foods?

Yes, that would be the ideal, but it is not possible as everyone likes treats (including me). I try to eat non-processed food as much as possible, but will treat myself as well.

The OP's children are eating Weetabix which is a processed cereal. But it is much better than eating cocopops or sugar puffs.

Her children should be told that porridge or shredded wheat is better than Weetabix, but they might not like those cereals when they are young.

If the OP had encouraged her children to eat shredded wheat instead of Weetabix then they might be happy to eat shredded wheat.

If children are given undiluted fresh orange juice, they are unlikley to like diluted fresh orange juice. But if all the know is diluted fresh orange juice then they will like it.

The food companies have brainwashed us by telling us how delicious processed food is for several decades to it will be difficult to wean ourselves off it.

Inert if I asked you if you knitted it would you throw something at me?

Inert if I asked you if you knitted it would you throw something at me?

Certainly not.

I learned about making yogurt here, but it's really more about cutting back on plastic than anything else. It's surprisingly easy!