Is DS’ diet really that bad?

[enuquer]

Please be kind.

DS is 2, will be 3 at the end of the year. His daily diet is usually

Breakfast: weetabix or rice krispies/corn flakes

Morning snack: an orange or a yoghurt

Lunch: Ham sandwich with an orange or yoghurt (whatever he doesn't have for snack) and some wotsits or quavers

Afternoon snack: 2 biscuits or a small packet of chocolate buttons

Dinner: pasta/pizza/ sausage and mash with carrots/fish fingers/chicken nuggets/ the occasional McDonald's happy meal (probably once or twice a month)

Dessert: ice cream or a small chocolate bar

Then he sometimes has chips if me and DP have had a takeaway, and he isn't asleep yet.

The only fruit and veg he'll eat are oranges and carrots. During the day he does drink water or apple juice and has a bottle of milk before bed.

We recently stayed at my mum's as my mum said that he shouldn't be eating those foods and his diet is awful.

Is it really that bad?

The idea that it takes privilege to know how to cool for your dc is wrong.
When you have a dc you are obliged to perform a few basic functions for them, including feeding them. Giving them snacks all day does not fulfil that obligation. As well as causing them to become obese there is a chance it will affect their mental health. There is an epidemic of mental illness amongst my DC’s age group which I think is caused or contributed to by a lifetime of bad food.

Why does everything on MN turn into a wealth divide debate??

Anyone watching celebrity master chef? Penny Lancaster has more money than all of us put together and can’t seem to cook very well.

There was a series on BBC a few years ago called Back in time for Dinner and it posed some really interesting questions about the way our attitudes towards food have changed. I can’t remember the numbers, but we spend a significant amount less on food now then we have ever done in the past.

As parents, it is our responsibility to feed our children nourishing food. If you can work a smart phone, you can work a hob. If you can’t cook, you need to learn a few basic recipes.

Cheap cooking isn’t all about lentils and tinned tomatoes. A packet of lamb mince is £3.57 in Sainsbury’s. It can be turned in shepherds pie, keema curry, Greek kebabs, hm burgers, quesadillas. All cheap and easy to do and more filling and nourishing than fishfingers. That said, I love a fishfinger. They’re not actually particularly bad for you and we eat them as part of a varied diet.

A jacket potato with cheese and beans. Lots of goodness and vitamin c in the potato, dairy, protein, one of your five a day. Needs nothing more than putting the potato in the oven and they’re cheap. There are endless quick, easy and cheap meals out there.

Money is not a reason to feed our kids rubbish.

@Caiti19

P.S. kids "yoghurts" are a joke. They are sweets masked as dairy. I never buy anything from that aisle as the marketing of that crap to children really annoys me. Try giving plain natural yoghurt (which believe it or not is already sweet with natural sugars), add dollop of jam or drizzle of honey if you need to to begin with and gradually reduce. We all really enjoy natural Greek-style yoghurt. It really doesn't need anything added.

What the hell do you think Jam is???????????????????

FYI there are kids yoghurts/ fromage frais that really do have just puree fruit added but you have to actually read the labels

And DS likes yeo valley natural yoghurt- it's much less sour than others (DH agrees)

I am sorry for turning it into a thing about money.

I didn't actually mean that really but I posted without thinking because I get annoyed by breezy 'cooking is so easy' comments.

I have been cooking from scratch for about 20 years. I can follow a recipe but I still can't just create 'some kind of sauce' or not an edible one. My chicken strips looked beautiful but were basically tasteless.

What I meant was some combination of time, and upbringing. Someone who works full time and gets in at 6 to a screaming hungry child is unlikely to be able to whip up a successful meal with one hand while checking the recipe on YouTube with the other.

Someone who ate good food growing up and whose parents taught them how to cook has a massive advantage over someone who grew up eating fish fingers.

(I am still not talking about me. I have all these advantages and no excuse. This thread has actually made me resolve to try harder).

@Harrysmummy246 couldn’t agree more about jam. Highly processed and full of sugar. It’s no better than a fruit flavoured yoghurt. When our bodies receive sugar, they don’t know if it’s come from honey or jam or a bar of chocolate and process it in exactly the same way. Some of the advice people are giving, although well intended, is way off the mark.

@Hdhdjejdj I am really interested in the link between current diets and mental illness. Did you watch What are we feeding our kids? Definite link between ultra processed foods and brain activity. Much more research needs to be done into it…

The easiest sauce is a tin of tomatoes, some butter or oil, seasoning and half an onion. Simmer for 45 minutes. Everyone can do and afford that.

@Aria999 I’m not a great cook and use lots of recipes, even if I’ve done the dish 100 times before. But I can put a tin of tomatoes in a pan with some garlic granules, oregano, seasoning and simmer it to make a sauce which I use for pizza base, pasta, on chicken with some cheese on top…

A jacket potato takes no more time to put in the oven than a tray of nuggets. Beans on Toast has more nutritional value than chicken nuggets for eg

I think we are generally agreeing but I do think people use lack of money as an easy get out for not thinking about what they are feeding their kids.

I’ve been there as a single parent, trying to get food on the table and I know it’s hard, but it’s so important it should be a priority.

Cooking can be as hard or as simple as you can manage. An egg omelette served with salad or boiled potato and side veg takes minutes. The skill needed to do this is not top chef level. Does not cost a lot either. If you have children then they have the right to be fed properly, with food that will nourish their bodies. You are what you eat.

I would like to very gently suggest that anyone who thinks finances and cooking or whatever are not connected goes to have a look at what Jack Monroe has said on the matter.
Does not cost a lot is just not good enough when you are on a budget for everything to the penny, including the fuel cost. And in that situation, you're most likely relying on a food bank and that's not as simple as ooh, I would like x, y and z this week please is it....

Ok Harrysmummy246. But I personally was not talking about people in food or fuel poverty.

@DelphineMarineaux

Cooking is a basic life skill. If you don't know how to cook, you really should learn how to do it. With today's technology you don't even have to leave your house or spend money to learn, there are so many videos on YouTube that specifically caters to people that don't cook, or have little time to cook.

I'm sorry, but there just isn't any good excuse to feeding yourself and your children fish fingers when it takes just as long to heat them up as it does to bake a filet of salmon.

Weigh up how much salmon costs and a box of fish fingers though 🤔

@Redruby2020

There’s plenty of cheaper fish options than salmon and plenty of resources for low cost cooking available online. Sooo many excuses for serving up shit food.

cookingonabootstrap.com/

Jack Monroe

www.asda.com/good-living/article/beat-the-budget

@Redruby2020 fish fingers aren’t made with salmon 😂 for exactly that reason..

[quote FTEngineerM]@Redruby2020 I don’t know why people use UC as a reason to eat poorly, some of the most nutritious foods are incredibly cheap. Just some from our ‘saving for a deposit’ and ‘on maternity leave’ food budgets:

Yoghurt & flour pizza bases.. 10p per portion.
Kidney bean and carrot burgers.. 14p per portion.
Lentil Dahl.. 28p per portion.
Kidney bean and coconut curry.. 38p per portion.

The list goes on, obviously you put something with the above but that can also be cheap. A whole cabbage is what 45p in lidl, quarter it slap some oil on and some garlic and roast it.

Good food is not expensive.
Things can be cooked in the evening when kids are in bed and warmed for a few days after. Most things freeze well.

I’m not saying life isn’t tiring, it fucking absolutely is, but nutritious food is not expensive.[/quote]
Hi, thanks for your reply. I think I mentioned UC mostly because of tying it in with work expectations, and them saying to pay more so child can stay in day care until 6pm. I'm sorry but after doing a days work then collecting DS at 6pm I really won't feel like doing much else, and I am also having health problems which are adding to difficulties faced. My cooker backs on to DS's bedroom so it is definantly not feasible to cook when DS in bed. But i do not disagree completely that it is expensive to eat well, I would just say that for certain things it does become a bit tight at times.

@FTEngineerM

It was Redruby who compared salmon to fish fingers, so why are you laughing at her?

It was another poster, DelphineMarineaux, who said that there is no excuse for giving your kid fish fingers when you can cook a salmon fillet in the same amount of time it takes to heat up fish fingers.

It was redruby who pointed out that salmon costs a lot more than fish fingers so that other poster telling someone to make salmon fillets instead of fish fingers because there "is no excuse not to" is the idiot. They're the one not thinking about cost.

Yes, you would make fish fingers from white fish but that isnt was redruby was talking about.

*wasnt redruby

I have a three year old son who has a sever food phobia due to some medical issues, he had surgery in June so his eating has improved as he's no longer choking when he eats and we are slowly working on the phobia. We pick a new food at a time, this week it's tomato and introduce it to our plate first, I've discovered he's more willing to try things if he thinks they are mine. Then we put it in his plate for a few meals, if he doesn't touch it then that's fine we just keep trying, eventually we have found he will try it.

Today he has eaten

Breakfast- Weetabix and a banana

Morning snack- A rice cake & half an apple

Lunch- Ham sandwich, cherry tomatoes, cucumber sticks and hummus

Afternoon snack- Dairylea Dunker and a handful of blueberries

Evening meal- Pasta bake, sweetcorn and garlic bread

He's also had about 12 magic stars chocolates as were potting training and he gets 1-2 eveytime he does something

The diet that the OP listed is expensive. Money is no excuse in this case.

I've hit peak Mumsnet because today my kids (2 and 4) have had:

Breakfast: Porridge and flaxseed with raisins, a little glass of my kefir/blueberries/Greek yog smoothie.

Snack: Strawberries and raspberries, bread sticks.

Lunch: satay chicken (homemade), carrot, cucumber, tomato, cheese sandwich (half) on whole meal bread, apple, pom bears.

Snack: hot chocolate made with vegan chocolate and oat milk

Dinner: sausage, lentil, quinoa bake with tomato courgette, pepper and onion sauce, plus parmesan on top.

What a fucking wanker parent I sound... 🤣

I'm on a health kick though so I've pretty much banned processed food. We're going to make soup tomorrow and have homemade pizza (on flatbread) on Friday. We made nuggets from scratch yesterday too.

Its simple substitutions and a bit of planning involved in making sure we have time and ingredients in, but it's making a real difference to our health and energy levels, plus since nixing the junk my kids have slept so much better!

[quote FTEngineerM]@Redruby2020 fish fingers aren’t made with salmon 😂 for exactly that reason..[/quote]
You don't say 🙄😆😆 I was saying that is exactly why it is no good someone suggesting you 'pop a salmon fillet' in the oven as opposed to fish fingers because it's healthier, yes but there is a reason people buy them!

The messages about healthy eating are not working. The sooner they teach proper nutrition in schools, the better. Feeding kids frankenfoods is setting them up for DT2 & Alzheimer’s aka DT3. Read this.

Good for you @Meatshake keep it up, it makes a huge difference to health. You’re not a wanker, you’re an excellent parent.

Too many sweets/crisps and chocolate

Too much beige food