AIBU to think this dinner was not junk food?

[FluffyUnionSocks]

My youngest sister is 15 weeks pregnant with her PFB and I find myself having to bite my tongue constantly with the nonsense she is spouting. All of a sudden she is a child rearing goddess after read half a parenting book, I really wish I could tell her to shut the fuck up and that I’ve managed to get my eldest child to 16 years old without her helpful hints. Her comments about how she would never feed her PFB junk food like I was preparing when I was cooking a quick dinner after activities last night nearly saw me commit murder with a spatula.

The meal in question was tacos, quick easy and nutritious I thought but the way she went on and on about junk and frozen/tinned vegetables being highly processed who knows maybe I am wrong and they are seen as junk? So Mumsnet was my quick Monday night dinner as unhealthy as she made out? We don’t get home until just gone 7:30pm on Mondays and I can get this to the table in 20ish minutes and it’s eaten without complaint by all 3 dc.

250g 5% mince beef
1 tin of kidney beans
1 tin of mixed beans
2 tins of tomatoes
frozen sweetcorn
frozen peppers
frozen sweet potato chunks
2 red onions
1 chilli
1 packet of taco seasoning
taco shells
Each plate had a side salad on consisting of bistro salad leaves out a bag, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, peppers, radishes, celery, grated carrot and spring onion.

I should add she managed 3 taco shells of the highly processed mix without complaint.

@ODFOx one of the DC is lactose intolerant

Because you know, they weren't freshly picked, soaked and boiled. Apparently we have very little idea and they were lying to us that frozen vegetables can be more nutritious in winter than fresh ones.

Are you the pregnant sister? 😂

I make similar regularly. I classify it as middling on the health chart, it's full of decent ingredients but the seasoning mix is high in salt and the shells are fried. I tend to use tortillas instead of the shells myself. Not every meal needs to be super virtuous anyway!!!

This is reminding me of the time my friend told me that feeding my one year old a (homemade) burger was awful but that giving her all the same ingredients (turkey, egg, cheese, broccoli) separately would be fine. 😆

Not too hot on nutrition, are you? 😂

This is absolutely not junk food. This has already passed the 'massive salad' test at least 3 times over

You read my mind @Antiquiteas.

It's certainly true that if peas aren't straight out of the garden then frozen ones taste better than ones which have spent days on a shelf.

Cluelessness about food is such a bugbear of mine. Frozen or tinned food is absolutely fine to eat and, especially int he case of frozen, has plenty of nutrition.

This reminds of the woman on here years ago, pregnant with her PFB who wailed her mother was trying to poison her and was totally unsympathetic... it turned out that the OP thought that being pregnant she could only basically eat well cooked red meat and chicken, fresh vegetables and pasta. Pretty much. her mother had cooked her a salmon fillet.....

Now cheese would be calorific sacrilege

I want @dotjones to be real and I want to live in a world where I understand why celery and radishes are junk but grated carrot isn't junk even though it has been 'processed' by a grater.

Definitely not junk food.

And sounds delicious.

Cheese ... sour cream ...

She has no idea what she’s talking about. Frozen and tinned veg are not highly processed. She doesn’t know what processed means. Frozen veg isn’t processed at all, just frozen. Because it’s frozen very soon after picking, halting the deterioration process, it often has more nutrients and fewer breakdown products than “fresh” veg that’s been sitting in lorries, shops and the fridge for days or weeks.
Tinned veg is just fresh veg that’s been cooked quickly at a very high temperature to sterilise it, so again the food doesn’t “age”. Apart from the addition of salt (sometimes) there’s no other processing. Because it is sterile, it’s very safe food. No risk of food poisoning.
I’m sure she’ll say I’m wrong, even though I studied this stuff at university, because I’m sure she read something on Facebook or in some idiotic “health” magazine.

@Dotjones
Elements of it are definitely junk food

250g 5% mince beef - not junk
1 tin of kidney beans - junk
1 tin of mixed beans - junk
2 tins of tomatoes - junk
frozen sweetcorn - junk
frozen peppers - junk
frozen sweet potato chunks - junk
2 red onions -not junk
1 chilli - junk
1 packet of taco seasoning -junk
taco shells -junk
Each plate had a side salad on consisting of bistro salad leaves out a bag junk, cucumber not junk, cherry tomatoes not junk, peppers not junk, radishes junk, celery junk, grated carrot not junk and spring onion. not junk

What are you talking about. Obviously you have never studied nutrition!

Eg frozen sweetcorn is healthier than fresh.
Canned beans are super healthy and the humble chilli, what it do to upset you.

Frozen vegetables are often higher in vitamins than fresh due to the speed of freezing. They are an excellent way for families to increase the nutritional content of meals quickly and affordably. Definitely tk me encouraged. I've worked with a nutritionist to design meals for low income low confidence cooks and they are highly recommended

Sorry posted too soon was gonna say ..

Cheese .. sour cream

May God have mercy upon your soul.

I once had a guy refuse to eat what I’d cooked (for several people) because he said it was ‘bloody junk’. It was beef chilli, made from scratch. He was an arsehole. Your sister is going to come down to earth with a bump once she’s a mum.

Oh no please 🤦🏼‍♀️ Now that song's in my head and will be for 3 days 😫😫😫😫😫

Just think of all the fun you can have though in years to come when she is faced with the reality of parenthood rather than the book's version!

25 is indeed about the right age to be exposed to screens imo

Seems like a balanced meal to me. Fresh meat in healthy amounts, and tinned and frozen veg is not junk food !!

That’s bollocks, and I’m not even going to say “with respect”.

All of a sudden she is a child rearing goddess after read half a parenting book, I really wish I could tell her to shut the fuck up and that I’ve managed to get my eldest child to 16 years old without her helpful hints.

Just tell her this! Explain PFB syndrome, in as kindly and patronising a way as possible. It's the sisterly thing to do. If you point her towards Mumsnet she'll be serving rice crispies for breakfast in no time.

Well I've never heard of sweet potato in tacos but the more veg the better I guess!
Frozen veg is more nutritious than shop bought fresh as it's frozen straight after harvesting. Shop bought fresh veg is at least 2-4 days old. Veg loses nutrients with every passing hour. Especially in the case of sweetcorn. Some kitchen gardeners even have a pan boiling ready, before they harvest their homegrown sweetcorn cobs as literally every second counts. True story!

Sadly some people out there think that anything which is wrapped in plastic = junk food. Even veg. It is naivety in the absolute extreme!