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!

And yet, despite all that, brits still end up living a relatively long life by global terms

I hear you, I also grew up elsewhere in Europe and my school dinners were inspired in traditional home cooking, like stews, pulses, loads of vegetables, pasta, etc. We never had pizza, nuggets, fish fingers, sausages...I have voted yanbu because independently on schools' budgets I consider the standard menu selection for lunches in the UK lacking on nutrients and enough vegetables.

Malta is the most obese country in the EU - and this was from before UK left.

perhaps get on your high horse there too?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Malta

Yeah this.
I don’t recognise what you’re saying at all op. And no one thinks beans and sausages are healthy. But of course, the rest of Europe is far superior 🙄.

Yeah this isn’t considered healthy either. My kids drink water or milk, something like a fruit shoot would be a rare occasion.

Really, you’d rather have cakes than 1 more year with your loved ones?

Oh look op, Malta at the top….

should stop frying your beans…

Could I compromise and get 6 months and have cakes with my loved ones?

Surely everything in moderation? The poster who ridiculed processed meats can rip the saucisson from my cold dead body as I am never giving that up!! See chorizo and morcilla also. Nothing better than potatoes (fried!!!), with chorizo, morcilla, and an egg on top. Maybe a few (fried!!) peppers too.

I didn't know about Malta, but I remember reading a few years ago that Greece has Europe's most obese children. It turns out that alongside the "healthy Mediterranean diet" bit with salad and sardines, the kids sneak a lot of spanakopita and baklava from the local φούρνος on the way home from school.

You should probably stop judging the uk so much, Malta has a higher obesity rate (for both adults and children!). 😬
https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/?age=a&sex=m

It might be from "% of recommended daily amount". According to the Heinz "British style baked beans" can I'm looking at here in Canada the sodium content per serving is 12% of recommended daily amount, and sugar is 5%. Fibre is a healthy 25% RDA per serving though. Not all bad!

I think op might be too embarrassed to come back

YANBU to describe British food this way. We are definitely unhealthy compared to other European countries.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/karen-le-billion-french-children-eat-anything

My children don't eat anywhere near the normal amount & I've always thought that if would be amazing if they would eat similar diets to French children.

😆

That’s because you’re depriving him of ever having these things so he’s becoming obsessed with them. You’re also not setting up your children to develop healthy habits. Never eating convenience foods or sugar in their lifetime is unrealistic. Everything in moderation is a much more sensible approach so that you don’t end up with the much desired forbidden food situation you’ve currently created.

If your son is 4 there’s also the possibility that his account is not truly accurate and he’s exaggerating because to him it feels like he’s the only one without treats. When the reality is that different children have treats on different days.

Beans are not 20% salt, thats the RDA - recommended daily amount. God, no wonder people think food is unhealthy.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/252261477

Isn’t there a popular snack in France of a bar of chocolate inside a baguette and that’s what the kids eat after school?

oh come on, it's not xenophobic to criticize ham and sausages.
Someone above even used the 'racist' word. Is British a race? Honestly.
We're not going to get anywhere in this country if we are so defensive about everything. OP put it a bit snobbishly but her points are valid, aren't they?

Just back from Spain and France. I was staying in non touristy places. Went out to eat most days especially for breakfast. I distinctly remember the food in offer because I was the only person eating only fruit for breakfast because the other stuff was too sweet/rich. Pastries filled with chocolate. Every pastry drizzled with some sort of syrup. Fried potatoes, pink sausages that felt like plastic, eggs laden with butter and salt. The Spanish and French had no issue filling their plates with this stuff. They were also having sparkling wine with breakfast.

I'm not denying food in the uk can be rubbish but how do you explain the above if what you say is true. This is not the first time I have witnessed this.

How’s it snobby?

I'm old enough to remember the scousers sketch in Harry Enfield. They would say "are you on crack?" if one of them said something wierd/out of character. We say it sometimes in my house as a quote as we find it funny.

You clearly don't.

Take a chill pill. Am I allowed to say that? or are you concerned I'm alluding to recreational drugs again?

It's quite normal to have a pudding at the end of a main meal. I always cooked good, healthy food but we had a pudding, even if it was only fruit with cream or ice cream. Apple (or other fruit) pie, tart or crumble at weekends. I always had that too when I was growing up and I was healthy., never had much of a sweet tooth. My mother was a splendid cook, she too was healthy and lived to be old. I had strawberries, grapes and blueberries with a little rice pudding tonight, it was good. Moderation in all things.

Oh I think British food is great, but I’m talking more the restaurant scene rather than school dinners and not specifically British dishes. School dinners just sound gross though and why would they care! It’s all contracts & you can’t just not return to the canteen the next day because the food sucked, it’s a captive market plus kids most of the time don’t even know what good food tastes like. Anyway someone should ban ultra processed hot dogs on school menus.

@violetmountainhare has a point... an acquaintance of mine absolutely banned her kids from having artificial sugar of any kind - no occasional treats of baked goods, sweets, chocolate or anything. They became obsessed with sugar. She discovered they were drinking the nectar she was putting out for hummingbirds (1 part white sugar to 4 parts water)...sigh.