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 agree it is not a good habit to get the DC into.

Sauces made from tomato puree taste absolutely awful, poorly based ones made from actual tomatoes don’t taste great either. Someone tried to convinve me they made a nice tomato based sauce, it turned out to be roasted tomatoes, basil and salt, awful.

Oh look another Britain bashing post.
At least its not just the usual dig at England!!

I can also guarantee that you don't know how to cook if you rely on sugar to make it tasty 😂

It's the Canadian label for beans by the way, good old google image search!

Then you need better boundaries at home and say no.

We come from South Europe by the way

Which one of the 19 countries in South Europe OP?

I was close with 'American'

Maybe I could say I meant 'North American continent'

@NotAlexa i can’t think of anything more harmful to a child’s relationship with food than showing them pictures of obese people and telling them that’s what’ll happen if they eat - gasp - processed foods!! I hope they don’t inherit your judgement of others and what seems to be a case of orthorexia.

Er, I don't. Or if I do, it's a teaspoon of sugar to correct the tomatoes from the added acid in the tinned ones. Not needed if they're fresh. If you add more than that you're getting into BBQ sauce realm.

Tinned beans are a different matter, they do add more to that (not as many as the American Heinz beans, which for historical reasons, have always been a sweeter recipe)

What nonsense to damn all uk parents like this. Not many eat these things exclusively and provided the home diet is mostly good they do no harm from time to time. You are very judgemental from a position of little knowledge of the mass of the uk population. Most parents do the best they can within their budgets. Your fixation with food is more of a worry in case it causes your children eating problems in the future if you must pontificate at least get your facts right eg Heinz baked beans

No, you parent your child because that’s your job

Indeed, perhaps just a bit misinformed.

There’s this word we use, I believe it is “no”.

Can I stay up later?
Can I watch TV before school?
Can I wear my wellies to school?
Can I bring my entire collection of dinosaurs to granddads 80th birthday?

Kids push boundaries.

I don't quite understand your point about sausages... Sausage forms a staple ingredient of many European cuisines including French, Italian and German. As with any meat, you wouldn't eat them every day and it's best to buy from a good butcher if you can

She's Maltese.

So pasta, soups, risotto, bread etc.

IMAGINE THE SALT CONTENT AHHHH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_life_expectancy

Life expectancy difference between UK and Malta is about 1 year. If all you're gaining by never eating "bad" foods is 1 extra year then I'd rather have the cake, chocolate, sausages, ham, bacon etc than that 1 year.

Yes, I think that's a good point.

I don't think you are being unreasonable really just a walk round any supermarket will show that most people have very few fresh items in their trolly or basket some onions or potatoes or a bunch of bananas and the rest of it is mostly pre-packaged highly processed food that can be eaten out the box or bag or popped in the microwave or fizzy drinks and alcohol. The diet of the average brit is dreadful having said that the cost of living is high and people work long hours and have limited time each night to cook and prep healthy food so I can see why people rely on convenience foods and takeaways.

I think I agree with a PP. It's competitive flax seeds in my village. When dd had a playmate mum was cooking qinona for herself and dad was having a salad. So no only are they eating from scratch raw vegan, they are cooking three meals from scratch each mealtime.

We cook everything from scratch as ots cheaper. But I don't bake bread daily for 6 people. My eldest son is 5,7 and just under 8 stone, his brother is 12 five foot and ten stone so go figure. Clean diet didn't stop one being fat and other emaciated

Yep unfortunately a lot of British people can't cook won't cook or are too poor to cook and live heavily on Highly processed foods and junk food that is the norm not the exception. I wish it were different. You tend to see more cooking from scratch and healthier options from richer families and immigrant families who prioritise fresh food and ingredients.

This thread is literally making me crave a fish finger or sausage sandwich in cheap white bread 👌

Though the Mediterranean diet has again just been voted the ‘best diet for 2021’, the majority of Maltese prefer to resort to an abundance of fried and fatty foods, injected with too much sugar content, according to chefs and health experts.

timesofmalta.com/article/no-mediterranean-diet-please-were-maltese.843867#:~:text=Though%20the%20Mediterranean%20diet%20has,to%20chefs%20and%20health%20experts.

🤣🤣🤣

Kids need a higher percentage of fat in their diets than adults.

That being said though I don't know that they need a cake/cookie/icecream/jelly etc at school every day. They aren't low sugar versions either whoever said that!

This post comes up every few weeks. Is there too much processed food in British diets? Yes. Do you have to eat it? No. Will the quantities children get in a school dinner/a party tea/a McDonalds with a friend etc cause serious health problems? Also no.

Do people in other countries eat less processed food? On average Italy, Greece and France eat less UPF than the UK, Germany and Scandinavian countries. Does that matter? Well there's quite a lot of evidence the Mediterranean diet with an emphasis on fresh food is associated with good health outcomes so probably for health eating more fresh food is good. But children in those countries definitely have tantrums! Tantrums are a healthy developmental stage for all children and are not caused by ham or cured with salad.