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!!)

When I read the op I wondered how long it’d Ben before someone recommended the Lidl Greek yogurt. And I wasn’t disappointed. You lot are bloody obsessed with Lidl buckets of Greek yogurt. It’s no different to any other!
This is the most offensive comment I have ever read on here.
Have my very first (Lidl btw)

This thread is insane! God half of you would be calling the Social on me. One of my kids sometimes goes days without ingesting a fruit or vegetable!

I agree with you frog I'm not sure either

I don’t give a monkeys about the sugar, but I can’t quite imagine how the breakfast looks and feels in the mouth. Is it broken up Weetabix mixed with fromage frais and honey and grapes on top? Is milk involved? It sounds like it would be all lumpy and weird in the mouth, and personally I don’t think that grapes go with any sort of dairy apart from maybe cheese. I bloody love Weetabix but you need a decent amount of milk over it to soak through to the right consistency (though it must be eaten fast to avoid it going too mushy- a fine art!).

I think it's nice your DH cares, what are his suggestions for alternatives, I think you both deserve an equal chance to express your opinions, a few days of your preferred breakfast and a few days of his maybe?

Perfectly fine by me too, they need the calcium that's in the fromage frail anyway, so that offsets the but of sugar.

Personally I would switch up the weetabix to a GF banana pancake (blitz up egg, banana, little oats & little sesame seeds) only because there's more nutrition in that than the weetabix, but there's nothing wrong with your choices at all

So husband not happy! But considering a compromise of low sugar fromage frais!  rather than cutting it out completely

Seriously so he's happier giving your DC chemical laden shite than a bit of sugar

Artificial sweeteners are not a healthy choice & can cause stomach cramps & diarrhoea for some, especially little ones, in fact WILL cause stomach cramps & diarrhoea in everyone if not taken in small amounts. See the warnings on the backs of diabetic foods

Hi all! Sorry, just to clarify -

• DC are not overweight
• DC have good teeth
• we do vary diet, and consume lots of veg
• no, sorry didn't clarify, it's not dry weetabix and fromage frais (yuk!!!) - its weetabix with milk and a dollop of fromage frais on the top, with honey! (DS2s favourite cereal!!! DS1 just has shredded wheat, shreddies, milk and honey)
• DH doesn't have an eating disorder (but is way to health conscious and into his nutrition if you ask me!!!)

I'm loving the thread and having some good laughs!!! Thank you all so much for your replies so far!

(I'm realising that my DH is not the only healthy-eating loon out there!!!! )

There’s a fair amount of sugar there,

The 3 pieces of fruit spread out as standalone sort of snacks isn’t ideal because of the sugar content although it’s natural, I’d completely ditch the raisins- any dried fruit- check the sugars!

The breakfast seems like far too much sugar, there’s sugar in weetabix plus then the honey isn’t good, then fruit, that’s a lot for their teeth, what about porridge oats with cinnamon and a banana or half an apple? Then the only sugar to take into account in that meal is from the fruit.

Though, what’s their dentist say when they visit? Have they had any issues with their enamel? I’m not sure if I’m coming from a place that’s a little too concerned but that sort of sugar made DD need fillings (I’m convinced she has enamel issues!)

Please ignore my post, I don’t even know where I got 3 standalone fruit snacks from. Sorry.

Sounds good to me. slinks off to find some chocolate biscuits

Sugar in weetabix? Only 4.5% so comes in as green on the traffic light system.
(Shuffles back to her bag of five doughnuts!)

Healthy all day but starting the day with a huge heap of sugar. The fromage frai would go. Not sure how they managed to market themselves as good for kids when it’s pure sugar added to dairy! Not needed for bones

Just give your kids dust.

DS1 (6) swims 3 times a week, runs junior park runs, and cycles 15 miles a week smile (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!)

That is fantastic. Well done for keeping the DCs active.

But please read DrizzleDrozzle's post on the importance of balance.

With that much physical activity your DCs need more protein and calcium. Protein and fibre are important after swimming. Carbs and fats are important beforehand.

When DD1 was swimming competitively her coach sent out a sheet with info on the sort of pre and post swim snacks and sample meals the team members should have. There was lots of: protein, whole grains, peanut butter, tuna salad, meat, legumes, veg and calcium from various sources on that list.

I do not think your DH is off his rocker at all here. Your DCs are not getting enough protein or calcium.

Milk for breakfast and as a mid morning drink contains calcium.

And unless dc is a particularly competitive athlete, there really is no need to follow an athlete's food schedule. Just give a good balance which the op is already doing.

Thanks mathanxiety!

When I started this post I genuinely thought they were doing pretty well and more healthy than many!

I still think I'll persuade DH to let them keep the fromage frais as they like it and it's not like their eating loads or going mad with the chocolate and chips etc...

However, I'm learning a lot on here! - I hadn't really thought much about protein (my kids are meat eaters but I'm a vegetarian, almost vegan, and so I think I'm trying when I give them meat and fish for dinner and lunch ... but realise I might not always be getting right!) and now realising that with all the sport, they probably don't get enough. Not sure how to up it at breakfast though (neither DC like eggs or peanut butter :( ) - any suggestions?

Also, we might watch the raisins a bit :)

First I don't think what your children eat is unhealthy and think it's good that DP is taking more than a little interest. I asked a good friend, who'd studied and worked professionally in the area of nutrition. Here's part of her reply.

“The problem is that people, especially researchers, look at single nutrients, and we don’t eat single nutrients, we eat mixed diets …”

In terms of different types of sugars, sucrose, fructose, glucose, she wrote,

“But it is sugar, and once it is through the gut wall and into the blood, it makes no difference to your body whether the sugar was extracted from beet under an EU subsidy, eaten as dried apricots collected by obscure tribes in the foothills of the Himalayas, or collected by bees from organic thyme (it is sugar)

“It's the sugar rush, … (that) seems to make a difference to the body; the liver and the pancreas have to work very hard to remove that sugar from the blood and try to do something useful with it.”

We're grandparents, we notice the vast majority of our grandchildren prefer savoury to sweet stuff, because they were not brought up on large quantities of sweets, buns, cakes and so on. They certainly enjoyed Nanna's cakes, but it wasn't the main event.

I suggest you both read Tim Spector's The Diet Myth – he's a great believer in diversity of diet and currently doing a lot of relevant work on the microbiome.

Good luck to you both.

You could try them with homemade fromage frais ?? That way you keep the protein & calcium in that, but lose the worst of the sugar. Just blitz up frozen strawberries into Creme Frais.

As for getting more protein & calcium into them. This is a problem I have with my own vegetarian DD, get nutritious food into her is difficult in general. I've got past this with the pancakes I've mentioned below, which are...

1 large egg,
1 banana
Tablespoon of sesame seeds
Tablespoon of oats.
If you have a nutribullet, you can even add a bit of clean eggshell for extra minerals.

Cook on griddle or dry frying pan, takes about 10 minutes in total.

This makes about 4 small drop scone sized nutritious pancakes which fill my 15 yo up for the morning. I've tried everything with her & these have been the only big hit. You could serve with a dollop of home made creme frais

I know someone who has opened up to me about her serious eating disorder. In her household growing up they weren't really allowed sugar at all and her parents were controlling about food. It really opened my eyes and made me relax a bit about the occasional treat. Everything in moderation. I'd keep the fromage frais with breakfast and allow honey or similar with something else as a snack at another time of the day if they want it e.g. on toast.

If you have a nutribullet, you can even add a bit of clean eggshell for extra minerals

I’m sorry but that is the craziest thing I have ever read on Mumsnet!

Justbe I had a friend who was a similar story. In fact I know 2, Her parents were old hippies & they had the most amazing kitchen full of jars of various grains, dried mushrooms, fruits etc etc. This was the 80s, so such a nutritious vegetarian diet was rare back then. I didn't eat meat, but I got the veg & potatoes & was lucky if I got an omelet or fish fingers with it some days, so their vegetarian whole-food fascinated me.

As soon as my friend was old enough to go into town on her own though, she literally stuffed her face with junk food for the whole day, burgers, pasties, bacon sandwiches, sweets etc, she ended up a lot overweight. Same story with a woman I met years later, she was also very overweight, for the same reasons. They rebelled against the very healthy diets, so I'm always very mindful with mine that you can go too far. Balance is definitely the key. Thankfully I see no signs of my teen DD rebelling with Food, if anything she takes it a step further than we did as she now won't eat fish. She eats like a gnat because of health problems, but what she eats is 99% very good 🤞

I'm sure it is Jesse, but it's almost pure calcium with a lot of other trace minerals, so not so barking mad if you want to get extra calcium & minerals into you👍🏼 read up on it, it might surprise you

Oh I don’t doubt that the nutritional benefits are genuine RockinHippy, same with eating your own placenta I’m sure, but I’ll pass