To take DD 5 to McDonald's every other weekend?

[quincyquince]

She's gluten free, so has a portion of small chips and either a small mcflurry or orange juice or sauce with the chips.

We go after swimming.

This is ok, right? My friend thinks it's awful that she goes twice a month. But it's not like she's having the processed bread and cheese and stuff all the time?

Some of my DCs favourite memories are of walking to our local McDonald's and getting either chips or an ice-cream sa treat. Sometimes they were allowed both. It doesn't seem to have harmed them. Probably because it's just food. Not crack.

Yes its to do with allergens and not mixing with meat for vegetarians.

Eating out with Gluten Intolerance is tricky. You've found a way your DD can do something "normal". So what if it isn't the healthiest snack in the world... I bet with GI she eats a lot healthier than the vast majority of children daily.

She can't have cake...
The only choices she ever gets at cafe's/bakeries is brownies. Sometimes flapjack. Maybe chocolate krispie cakes.

And she'll have the OJ / ice-cream/ sauce in a sort of rotation.

Fast food has addictive qualities with the heavy flavour and salt. Occasionally it’s absolutely fine but I wouldn’t go as often as every other weekend.

Whilst I wouldn’t do it - I don’t see mcds as ‘treat’ food, because there are far tastier options, I see it as ‘convenience, fuck we’re in a hurry and no food in’ food - I wouldn’t make a comment to you if you do.

I thought it was compulsory to have some nice warm chips after swimming.

ignore her.

I know - a child eating potatoes and ice-cream twice a month is just a disaster waiting to happen 😱

There's literally no salt in the chips or anything else? It's potatoes cooked in oil?

You've really made me fancy some chicken nuggets now!

It’s a bit of a stretch to equate McDonald’s chips to potatoes! I’ll accept I don’t know the percentages, but my guess would be 10% potatoes, to 90% oil.
I eat mcds by the way.

Ignore your friend. Sounds like a really nice weekend treat your dd will always have fond memories of.

They chuck salt all over the chips once out of the fryer.

I think go if you want - but don’t pretend that any ‘food’ you get from there has any nutritional value whatsoever. It doesn’t. Which is fine occasionally.

Here are the ingredients:

Ingredients: Potatoes, Non-Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed), Dextrose (predominantly added at beginning of the potato season).
Prepared in the restaurants using a non-hydrogenated vegetable oil.
Salt is added after cooking.

And the percentages

Which shows they're 86% potato and 14% oil. Not exactly awful.

They are 100% just potatoes cooked in oil..

It's once a fortnight. It's a small portion of chips. It's after swimming.

Of course it's all right.

I wish I'd done stuff like this with my mum when I was growing up. Instead we had a mum who banged on about diets and calories and "bad" foods all the time, and yes, my sibling and I did both get eating disorders.

I'll accept that chips and ice cream aren't the greatest food for a 5yo, but the idea that they're somehow worse than other chips and icecream because they're from McDs is ridiculous. I can't see any harm in a once a fortnight treat.

I just looked up the same thing @faerietales!

not quite as bad as my uneducated guess - but I think if you saw 14% of the weight of a bag of chips in rape seed oil form (so the worst one) I wonder how many tablespoons that is? 2?

Of course it’s ok to take your daughter to McDonalds a couple of times a month!

Which is barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

I just get really sick of people acting like McDonald's is some kind of Frankenfood - it might be in the US but in the UK it's literally just...food. It's fine.

Good grief of course that’s OK. Anyone even asking the question is not the problem. McDonald’s could serve raw organic broccoli and some people would still find a reason to judge you because they just prefer judging people and feeling superior.

Don’t be so utterly ridiculous! “No way” to Chips once every two weeks?!? You’re just being contrary for attention.

Try having a DC with ASD who only eats chips, sliced carrots & chicken fillets every single day without fail, even though I never willingly gave said DC chips from the moment of birth! Tried it once at school and like many Autistic DC, was hooked on that one meal and stopped eating anything else from that moment forward. Then spent 5 years working with an NHS dietician who has tried & failed to get DC eating other things and has reassured me, in detail, around 400 times that what my DC is eating is more than meeting child’s nutritional requirements and is perfectly healthy.
DC’s GP regaled a story of a school friend of his whom only ever ate jam sandwiches. Not just for school lunches but every meal. He’s now a rugby player for rugby union and is 6’3. Dr said “Most people don’t realise that the majority of food these days is fortified, even things you’d never imagine. It’s overconsumption that’s the biggest issue”.

Just imagine if I came onto MN and said “Is it ok for my child to eat chips every day?” People like you would have a field day. When the reality is, it’s really not that bad! Ffs the poor Victorians living in the slums, ate bread & butter for the majority of their meals and this was long before fortified bread & butter. Can you even imagine….
If anything, demonising treats is going to set up more bad habits with regards to food, than allowing them in moderation!

As a woman in my late 30s, I can confirm that getting a cheeseburger from Aspendos Kebab on the way home after swim club on a Thursday night with my mum & sister is a very happy memory. Ignore your friend. Xx

possibly overinvested but I’m waiting for dd…

so I’ve just scrolled a bit further down google as it’s McDonald’s themselves who have probably paid a premium to bag all the top spots on google, but it gets a bit worse when they aren’t in control of what gets reported…

I don't like McDonald's and so never really went when children were small but can't see the problem with chips and ice cream once a fortnight. Your friend is nuts.