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!

Yeah, you don't understand how to read nutritional labels.

Oh my goodness , I’ve just being holidaying in the Uk . I remember saying to my husband that I’ve noticed a lot of young children are overweight . However we went to Malta for a week also and I then remarked upon how so many Maltese adults are obese . And directly around the midriff! Valletta is full on with pizzerias everywhere, with so many different types of puff pastries . Malta is one of the fattest nations in Europe. Hope OP knows this .

Totally agree. The other day most of the primary children at ours just had a small square of pizza and a small square of shortbread on their plate. Despite the fruit/yighurt/salad etc that was also on offer. The portion sizes are also often very small.

I always like these threads where people have moved to the UK and then spend all their energy complaining about it. Are we forcing people to move here and remain here now? Also there's no law that you have to feed your kid school dinners, you can send packed lunches, or even home school if you want to control everything they are exposed to at all times.

For most, normal, people we cook healthily at home, serve half decent breakfasts and try to encourage our kids to develop a balanced attitude to food, that includes some treats and occasional junk food but where they also learn about nutrition and healthy eating.

Completely agree with the above posts. When mine were at state primary they had packed lunches and they me cost more than school lunch would have. School lunches were beige.

Personally I thought when they were introduced that FSM across the board were a retrograde step because once something is free one can't complain - rather like the NHS.

When DS transferred to the independent sector the lunches were exceptional. They were, however, £4.50 per day in 2004. Nevertheless it was better value for money.

I recall complaining bitterly about school lunches in the 60's and my mother's response was "it doesn't matter because you get excellent food at home". The issue was and still is that some children don't.

It requires you to be in the house though for sufficient time, if you are out at work alll day that may not be practical. How long will the whole process take in the evening?
its not necessarily about not being bothered, it’s about the best use of time.

I'm so pleased you put this thread on OP. I am British and am sick of emulsifiers in a range of products, meat that looks ever more pale and unappetising. I suppose the good thing is we have a range of vegetables in the supermarket.

I work full time and my evenings are spent chopping, boiling and roasting veg. It's hard work making lunches and dinner for dh, myself and 2 boys and a lot of my food is a struggle to be healthy, tasty and nutritional.

Do you have any links to recipes with decent food that's easy to prepare.

Please don't suggest bbc good food. If you type in kids lunches to it's search function it's full of tortilla wraps, muffins, traybakes, dips, fish and chicken in breadcrumbs (as if i have time to do that every morning) the remaining meals are pasta salads which I can already do.

Thankyou in advance

It requires kitchen space. It requires initial outlay for the ingredients. It requires the use of fuel to cook the loaf. It requires a certain amount of effort at the end of a long day over and above picking up a loaf on your way home.

Seriously. What part of widespread poverty and its knock-on effects do people not see or understand? This is so Marie Antoinette.

I grew up in a working class part of London. A rather deprived area. Yet there was a local baker, a greengrocer, a butcher. All those are now gone. There’s a Sainsbury’s local where the bakery was.
Yet we - and this isn’t aimed at you - still blame the individual for making poor eating choices and wonder why “they” eat bread with artificial ingredients. Still ignore the role of the food industry, government both central and local in changing the way we eat.

You can't generalise, everyone ages differently.Many people are infirm at 80 & many people remain fit & healthy. Genetics along with Lifestyle play a huge part in later years.

I agree with you and place a big proportion of blame at the large food corporations and governments. It’s all about money/profit and not what is best for the people.

For most, normal, people we cook healthily at home, serve half decent breakfasts and try to encourage our kids to develop a balanced attitude to food, that includes some treats and occasional junk food but where they also learn about nutrition and healthy eating.

I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of people don't know what 'healthy' food is (not suggesting you fall into this).. And that is where the root of the problem lies. I think a lot of people think they are eating healthy food when they're not.

When I first started seeing my huasband, I was shocked at what he ate thinking it was healthy. It took me a long time to convince him that a shop bought ready meal version of anything wasn't the same as/superior to anything cooked at home. He assumed that, if it was food sold in a shop, it was healthy.

I haven't caught up with the whole thread but I've already seen beans on toast described as a healthy meal on here. For us, this is one of our lazy 'junk' option meals that we only have occasionally because it isn't healthy.

And I was no different at one point. I remember buying Bran Flakes because we thought they were a healthy breakfast option but we checked one day and realised that they were 33% sugar. I haven't bought a breakfast cereal since (around 15 years).

We don't buy crisps or snack type foods generally. Yes, fresh food is more expensive but I reckon I still spend less overall than people whose trolleys are full of crisps, snacks and ready meals.

If you're making a whole recipe with sauces etc from scratch, yes, it's time consuming but it takes, what, half an hour to stick chicken nuggets and chips in the oven and have dinner on the table? Chicken thighs cook in 40 mins, it takes 20 mins to prepare and steam some veg while that's happening. It takes 5 mins to prepare a salad or stick some vegetables on a tray to roast while pork belly sits in the oven for an hour. Cooking from scratch doesn't have to mean labouring over a hot stove for hours.

When the children were younger, I'd make a large vegetable curry on a Sunday which would feed us for two days and take 5 mins to reheat. On the third, there wouldn't be enough of any of it left to feed anyone properly so it got blended down into a soup - 'curry soup' was one of their favourites. A vegetable curry is easy to make and once you've got the spices in, it's the cost of some veg and a tin of tomatoes.

Sainsbury’s local sell bread, vegetables and meat.

Habits, habits, habits. You are totally right of course. But you are getting flamed because you’re criticising a nation’s eating habits and culture on a UK forum.

Let’s just look at these school meals around the world: https://www.boredpanda.com/school-lunches-from-around-the-world/

We are a country with a huge obesity problem and we’re closing our eyes to it, becoming more and more like the US. People in Spain, Italy etc look very different from us weight and health wise. They eat fresh, real food, eating fast food and ready meals isn’t a daily thing there - although it’s changing.

Case point, I came to the UK as a teen for university. For the first 3 months I kept the same eating habits, cooking fresh etc. I was initially shocked at the British way of eating - crisps, fizzy drinks, chocolate bars as part of a lunch/ meal deal? Oven pizza or chips as a home-cooked meal? Processed square toast for breakfast? A takeaway sandwich as a healthy-ish lunch? And I was around normal university students and later London corporate office workers.

’Back home’ there was no such thing as takeaways, fried/ battered foods would only be eaten at McDonalds, and supermarkets/ shops didn’t serve ready meals. You actually had to get ingredients and cook.

I then gave in to peer pressure and gained 20kg in 3 months embracing the standard British diet!

It takes effort to stay healthy in the UK as unhealthy snacks and junk food are so normalised. I went abroad for the summer and lost the weight quite easily.

I know other foreign women who have gained a similar amount shortly after arriving in Britain, trying to fit in and embrace the food lifestyles.

I’m now much healthier but the snacks/ vending machines/ UPF/ junk food culture we’re surrounded by is hard to kick as a habit. It becomes normalised.

I’m horrified at the kinds of foods schools think it’s ok to feed a growing child. My friend did her PhD in that and we went through some menus - it was a real wtf moment.

I wonder… Do private schools offer better quality food? You’d like to hope so if you’re paying a good chunk of money for it!

Where are you getting 33% sugar in Bran Flakes from?

www.kelloggs.co.uk/en_GB/products/bran-flakes.html

Uh huh. But is it the same quality as smaller, independent traders? Is it sourced at local markets like it was when I was a child in London? Does Sainsbury’s have to think about customer service or does the predominance of the supermarket engender a take it or leave it attitude?
previous posters have decried the quality of mass produced bread and industrially mass produced food is what you’re going to get in supermarkets. When I went to work early as a teenager, the baker by the bus stop had just finished baking his loaves; you could smell it.

Burger and chips
Tinned ravioli
Cordon bleu (highly processed)
followed by
Chocolate mousse
Fruit yoghurt
Creme caramel

Plus vegetable/salad and cheese courses.

Just a few examples from the school lunch menu from the continent (where I currently live.)

The solids at 4 months thing is horrendous outdated advice. Many mums local to me know this.

To add, these are not my first choices of meals for my kids and quite often they complain that the food is disgusting and that they've hardly eaten. I cook from scratch too but packed lunch isn't an option so it is what it is.

A group of parents at another local school who felt strongly about the food (mostly vegetarian and there is non eggie option) formed a group and a rota and would take turns to cook for their kids every day.

If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it @OP?

Pleb. I have a proving basket. 😂

I agree with this. However, we live in a 'deprived' area but there are still butchers and a greengrocers on the High Street.

Lidl and Aldi sell inexpensive vegetables. If you're shopping at Sainsburys for example it's expensive but it doesn't have to be.

I go to the supermarket and I look in the meat, veg and dairy aisles etc. I don't even go to the aisles where the crap is.

The problem is that we do have an obesity crisis in this country (and, no, we're not alone in that) but not everyone is. But as soon as anyone suggests individuals could do something about it, they get pounced on and criticised, and the government and large corporations get blamed. No, they're not blameless, but the only person who is responsible for what I buy in the shops and what I put into my mouth is me.

But people make snarky comments and wear their crap diets like a badge of honour and, at least some of, those people will also be wondering why it is they can't lose weight and looking for someone else to blame for that too.

A carrot’s a carrot regardless of where it is “sourced”.

I bet the most popular bread bought at the mythical baker was white bread in those days. White fresh bread is worse for you than most of the packaged wholemeal loaves that Sainsbury’s sell. Locals always have some sort of bread that is seeded etc.

Fresh meat in a packet is still healthier than a ready meal. Fine, split hairs about organic and welfare but the point is that it sells ingredients not just processed foods.

That United Kingdom one looks pretty good. Garlic bread is probably not the healthiest thing but it could be a lot worse

Lots of countries do solids at 4 months (some even 3). It’s very difficult as individuals to know what is right. I live in a country where the guidance is 4 so went for 5 as a compromise given uk is 6 but I was also met with negative comments from the health workers when I said I hadn’t started at 4

You sound obsessive OP. Just send you PFB in with a packed lunch and don't worry about what others are doing. Plenty of my friends' kids eat: ham or cheese sandwich, pack of crisp, chocolate bar for lunch apparently. Doesn't mean I have to send mine in with that junk though.

I'm confident that's what we read at the time. However, it might have included the milk added. Who knows. 15 + years is a long time ago!

However, and regardless of the quality of my memory...

That link says that there are 65g of carbs (14g of which are sugar) in every 100g of cereal. So 65% carbs, 14% pure sugar.

Your body converts all carbs to sugar anyway.

It isn't a healthy food.