British kids and eating habits - IABU ?

[lovemycoffee2]

I have two young kids and we live in the UK but we are not originally from here.

At home we cook everyday from scratch our food and we take that food at a lunch box at our workplace. We have a light dinner again made from scratch.

The issue is our kids which are of course going to school/nursery and they love to copy their friends!

In the UK it's healthy if a kid eats sausages (god knows what the meat has inside), or for example Heinz baked beans which have 10% sugar and 20% salt (leaving 70% being actual beans) or if they eat fish fingers which are pre-fried (even if you bake them they were already fried before got frozen) or chicken nuggets (again pre-fried which god knows what was the oil quality).

It's also acceptable to drink juices which have no sugar but plenty sweeteners.

Also, it's perfectly fine to have a ham sandwich for lunch which has ready made processed bread full of emulsifiers and ham which (like sausage) god knows what ingredients has.

It's ok that primary schools offer desserts, even if they are small portions and low sugar on a daily basis - not on a weekly or as special occasion! I don't have a dessert everyday, why my kid is offered one?

Honestly, are all these things ok? Am I paranoid?

I am very worried that the kids will either end up obsessed. with diabetes or with other health issues given all the processed food and the fact that we are what we eat.

YABU - are you crazy?

YANBU - unfortunately this is a "balanced healthy diet" in the UK!

I. don't. have. a bread maker.

The crack comment was clearly a joke. Chill your beans.

I just googled obesity in Malta. Seems to be quite a concern there. I'll stick to sausage and mash thanks.

But what toppings would go on the potato?
Beans - As already established, not OK
Cheese and butter - probably processed, ready grated cheese. Dripping in fat, higher in salt than beans.
Tuna - salty, oily, you might as well give your children crack
Chilli - OK if freshly prepared and simmered for hours to really release the flavours. But likely the dastardly school would put sugar in it, or buy in chilli which would have added sugar.

As a kid we were always given a pudding at school, and my kids were too. It’s normal here.

Some people are quite defensive on here but I'm like you. I'm amazed at what people feed their kids. Ours love beige fried food too so it's an uphill battle to get them to eat fairly healthily.

The snack culture is crazy. Everywhere there are kids,they have to have a snack. Unnecessary at best.

Kids meals are all nuggets,burgers,sausages, pizza or fish fingers ( or pasta).

Pudding everyday for their school lunch. The worst school lunch at my kids' school is sausage roll/chips and then chocolate cake. How on earth is anyone thinking that's ok? No nutrition, just processed fat and sugar.

We try to balance all of this with home cooked meals but my husband is not really backing me up (he's British). He loves unhealthy stuff,snacks all evening long and then is not hungry for breakfast in the morning (surprise surprise!) . He looks at vegetarian food as if it's abnormal and almost never eat fruit. However he has 2 bags of crisps every day! He still thinks olives are good for you in spite of me trying to educate him!
He's genetically lucky as he's slim by nature and quite fit but I'm not sure how!

My kids usually feel better and behave and sleep better when they eat healthy food.

We eat baked beans,sausages and pizza too but it's not that often and I try to buy organic or better quality if I can.

I want to get rid of white bread but I'm not sure I'll win this one!

So yes, Britain is a country with a massive issue with obesity (pardon the pun) and the food people eat everyday is definitely part of this. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

Also they get similar menu at school in Spain. Plus soups and fresh fish, casserols based on legumes, all made from scratch.
I grew up in the 1980s and this was standard. Dessert at school was fruit, sometimes yogurt.
All children are used to it and they have it from.early age.

urm no... I've got 3 children and a full time job. I also make packed lunches for them daily (I always include raw veggies for those of you wondering if I pack Doritos and Red Bull).

I also cook their evening meals from scratch.

So by the time I've done school runs, worked, made dinner and put them to bed, washed the dishes and tidied the house and done a load of laundry NO I do not have time to hand make bread and cleaning up the doughy mess (so messy).

If that makes me lazy, so be it.

and also, my mum taught me how to cook and bake when I was growing up. I did Home Ec GCSE and I cooked family meals from age 14. So take your judgey pants elsewhere about my knowledge of nutrition.

Tuna is a big predator so will be full of mercury. Not massively healthy either...

I wasn’t actually referring to you in my comment about lack of nutrition knowledge (which is why I didn’t quote you) but I’m certainly not taking lessons on being non-judgemental from someone who says things like ‘are you on crack’

Tuna - salty, oily, you might as well give your children crack

😂😂😂

He still thinks olives are good for you in spite of me trying to educate him!

What is wrong with olives????

😄Only on Mumsnet, eh ...

They bloody do lol. If you’ve never been to a playground with Italian kids you don’t know what a tantrum is.

A lot of roasting of the UK by ‘superior’ continentals who look down on us. My kids state primary school had amazing lunches.

If you feed your children decent meals at home then you don’t need to fret.

you literally commented about how you can't believe people couldn't make bread in a few mins .. then said people weren't educated in nutrition. how else am I meant to take it?

the crack comment was clearly a joke

I was going to ask this too. What IS wrong with olives?

Canned tuna is actually fairly low in mercury because of the size of fish they used for the tinned stuff. And providing you aren’t eating tuna every day, your mercury levels are likely to be fairly normal

you need to buy reduced salt, reduced fat olives but not upf obvs

Ooh bugger that, I love the big juicy buggers stuffed with garlic cloves.

I prefer chilli flakes

Ooh I’ve not tried chilli flakes with olives! Gotta look out for those.

Jokes are usually funny aren't they?

Yes I can't believe people can't be bothered to make bread, sorry, but it doesn't take that long and it's much healthier. But the nutrition comment was a wider issue because I really cannot believe that people would be presented with information about how harmful processed meat etc is and still choose to eat it unless they are seriously lacking in understanding about how and why nutrition is so important. Especially when you have kids and you are almost solely responsible for their health and what goes into their bodies.

My favorite part of this thread is that its British food being ridiculed and watching everyone so upset by it. Saying dont judge what other people do, you dont know their circumstances. Dont say that a whole country (or continent) is the same, etc etc etc. Now had this thread been about AMERICAN kids oh boy. At least once every couple weeks is there a thread to rip apart the food eaten/fed to kids in America. No one worries then about "dont judge other people" "you dont know their circumstances" and so on. Doesnt feel so good when its an attack on your children does it? Maybe remember that the next time an American Eating thread pops up

humour is subjective. I can tell when people are trying to make jokes even when I don't think they are being funny.

Regarding "can't be bothered' urm maybe. I mean, I work my arse off running a household and working full time but hey, why not add in an extra hour to make bread from scratch so that mumsnet posters don't think I'm lazy.

Yes an hour. Locating ingredients and equipment, mixing, proving, baking and cleaning. I know because I've done it. I like fresh bread. I just prioritise other things... like my own sanity.

Nobody seems to have found your comment funny so far.

I don't care if you're lazy or not? Prioritise what you want, it's no skin off my nose. I still think it's sad that the modern world doesn't consider making bread something worth doing. If it takes you an hour I'd say it's a skill issue tbh.