Argument over Billy Bear Ham

[Yebbie]

DC had friends over for play date, I provided lunch (baguettes, cucumber, cheese and billy bear ham, apple and yoghurt for pudding)

Yes it's processed and gimmicky, we are all vegetarian in this house apart from my 3 year old, so it was the only meat we had and they asked for ham in their baguettes.

Friend fuming I fed her son Billy bear ham, very dramatic about it, don't you know what's in that? I'm not one for processed food particularly, but my 3yo loves the stuff and has an otherwise balanced vegetarian diet so what's the issue, in my opinion. AIBU?

I wonder if all these horrified parents have children with perfect diets that never touch anything processed.

chicken nuggets?
packaged sandwich meat?
sausages?
burger?
pizza?

The list is endless

Obviously a child living off purely processed unhealthy food isn't great, but most kids will have things here and there for convenience or at perfumes etc.

but ffs horrified over a slice of luncheon meat? 😂😂😂😂😂

Personally i think its gross but my kids love it and i buy a pack weekly 💁

I dont complain about what anyone else feeds my kids im just greatful to have a break from the endless making of meals and snacks.

Yep - unless you’re child only ever eats fruit and vegetables they WILL eat processed crap.

is it classism because Billy Bear is a right common little bastard? If Precious has been given Serrano Ham would mummy have said “oh how lovely”

It's nutritionally no different to sausages or other luncheon meat type products, it's just the same thing made into something that's fun for children.

It's not scraps 'hosed off' the carcass, because that's mechanically recovered meat and they have to declare that on the labelling.

Not great as a staple part of the diet, but absolutely no issue occasionally.

Yup. A gateway drug to Antipasti. One day it's Billy Bear, the next it's Nduja and black olives, possibly the most addictive substance this side of chargrilled artichokes and breasola.

Your friend is being weird.

Personally in this house we only have decent quality free range ham. it’s usually organic and nitrate free, so salt pork I guess more than ham as we know it. But I accept we’re the outliers and that outside this house the DC enjoy all sorts of food that in my opinion is low welfare, processed crap. I don’t try to police it or cast judgement.

The appropriate response of your friend is the same as I gave mine when she brought my DC home charged up on too many sweets and having had a MacDonalds for tea ‘thanks so much for having DC, hope they weren’t too much trouble’.

When other people look after your kids you have to accept their standards. You can decide whether their standards are good enough for you, but if they’re not then the solution is for those people not to look after your kids. Of course, there’s plenty of scenarios where you can make a polite request in the first instance. I had to ask my parents to refrain from giving my 2YO fizzy. I was nice about it.

So… if she was never intending to send her kids to you again OP then she should have just kept her opinions to herself. If they will be with you again then her options are to either politely request or accept your standards are different.

Getting shitty with you is awful behaviour.

Evidence that processed meat gives you cancer please

www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/report-says-eating-processed-meat-is-carcinogenic-understanding-the-findings/

Plus thousands of research articles if you'd make the effort to look. Eating significant quantities of processed meat is a known cancer risk.

At parties *

Really not a big deal.

As my mother the food professional would say, "There's no such thing as junk food, dear - only junk diet."

Get a teddy bear shaped cutter, get decent ham and cut out the shape yourself. You could even mix it up with other shapes he might like. I did this when mine were a similar age and would only eat sandwiches if they were dinosaur or train shaped!

I mean, the key words there is significant quantities. One slice of bear face does not a significant quantity make.

I mean, the key words there is significant quantities. One slice of bear face does not a significant quantity make.

Sure. Smoking one cigarette won't give you cancer either. Doesn't mean cigarette smoke isn't carcinogenic.

Sorry can't be arsed to read the full thread. Just astonished that vegetarians (presumably vegetarian because they don't believe in eating animals for moral reasons) would buy the worst quality meat available, produced from animals who live in vastly substandard living conditions! I'm not vegetarian but I always buy local, free range and well reared meat. It's really important to me and I'd rather eat no meat at all than crap!
Not having a go, just puzzled by the logic!

Although the only response from the month we should have been "thank you for feeding my child". Anything less is just plain rude!

Ham compatibility🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂

Mother!! Aargh!

I love a food thread on here.

Always full of parents who are horrified over the idea of processed food for their little darlings, but 99% of them don't see an issue with downing a bottle of wine in one go 🙄

I used to moan at my DM giving my kids Billy Bear meat when they visited her . Sadly, my mum is no longer with us but I have a tall , healthy 24 year old DS and 16 year old DD, so no harm was done !! I think your pal should chill out a bit !Someone looking after and feeding your kids is something yi be grateful about ! I'm veggie too and as long as they are eating plenty veg , quality protein and fruit ,they should be fine !

My older ones practically lived on that stuff at one point. No harm done. I can't roll my eyes enough at some of the responses on this thread.

@Maydaysoonenough but OP is bringing up her child to make his own choices , nothing wrong with that
She isn't enforcing her choices on him , i guarantee even vegetarians don't always feed their children all healthy things

@Thehundredthnamechange do you have fresh cooked chicken in all sandwiches then
As hame is processed met so is cornbeef, sausages , burgers , nuggets etc
You are obviously not relaxed if you eat none of these things
And you have to eat more than a slice to be at risk

@FatOaf like you said significant quantities not one slice
And lets be honest everything they find bad for you , amazing out life expectancy has gone up really

Most people do that to an extent surely. Their children are expected to adopt the parents or family normal to a certain extent in terms of what they're offered at least.