To think beige kids dinners are fine?

[reachermarry]

Scrolling FB today and seen a video come up from a mum of 2 and what she gave her kids for good during the day.

cereal for breakfast with option of fruit/veg

picky bits for lunch, on this occasion included a sandwich, Dairylea dunkers, a pack of fridge raiders, banana, an angel cake slice.

for dinner the child had, fish fingers, chips, peas.

for pudding was given a fromage frais and a mini Maryland bag of cookies.

Now I am not sure how old the child was as there was no mention, but the comments were horrendous, comments were saying how she should be done for neglect because of the ultra processed food she’s feeding her kid.

What’s your views on it?

I’ll start, I see nothing wrong with this diet, maybe breakfast could be a little more filling, perhaps an option of something else on the side, but that’s just my child, I know some kids don’t like big brekkies.

I can’t be the only one especially growing up in the lower/working class families, that had a diet consisting of quick save chips, and pizza/sausages surely?

There’s beige food and then there’s a bit much. Nearly everything is processed, no good fats and hardly any nutrients.
Breakfast was okay, lunch needed some cucumber, fruit and removal of some of the processed items.
Dinner was fine but no need for processed dessert on top of a bad days eating

Depends on the "cereal" and sandwiches etc

Is it massive bowl of coco pops or a bowl of porridge?
Is it a billy bear ham slice in cheap white bread? Or a cheese and tomato sandwich in wholemeal sourdough (or whatever)

We use things like fridge raiders or dunkers as treats/snacks occasionally but I'm tight and would rather give them some bread sticks and cream cheese or some leftover roast chicken 😂

It’s a day full of absolute crap and most of us have been there. As a one off it’s fine. It’s not a healthy, balanced diet that should be fed every day though.

This is MN, you will not get a balanced view on food here.

My toddler eats lots of fruit and veg but is very picky when it comes to staple items at lunch/dinner. So she does have a lot of beige food but it’s always accompanied by a side of broccoli, carrots, peas or a piece of fruit. Threads like this depress me. Surely everyone is just doing their best.

As a one off every so often it's fine. But as a diet every day it's not good but very normal unfortunately.

It depends what the child will eat, doesn't it? Easy to sit in judgment when you don’t have a child, who would rather starve themselves than eat differently. If it’s just a case of mum not thinking then maybe swapping the dunkers for some carrots and cucumber sticks or similar is an easy fix for starters. This is all going on the assumption that the sandwich filling is nutritious. Equally the child may only eat jam, in which case dunkers and fridge raiders might be a way of getting protein in.

When people talk about beige food they're not talking about hand made organic chicken Kievs.

I think it's pretty poor

The problem is parents post these things on social media all the time, wanting validation or argument. What's the point? People love to be keyboard warriors and boast about themselves. The world has gone crazy in terms of comparison.
The things we should be judging are neglect or abuse. This food doesn't fit those catagories so it's a mindless conversation. The bigger problem is the amount of ultra processed foods in supermarkets and the normalising of these things more generally. Hardly anyone eats a really good diet anymore. You'd have to really know your stuff. The high streets are now littered with junk food shops and ultra processed food is everywhere.

Fine as a one-off, not ok all of the time.

I'm also from a working class background and we never had this stuff! Branded snacks etc far too expensive. We were never allowed KFC or McDonalds or Pizza Hut due to cost either.

Yes and nobody Would call those home made things beige. Beige food is processed food you just bung in the oven. I would’ve thought that was obvious. Home made toad in the hole isn’t beige. An Aunt Bessie’s one is. A gregg’s sausage roll is beige, one you’ve made at home from scratch isn’t.

I mean there is a reason over a quarter of the children in the UK are overweight or obese.

Not the beans!!! 🙄

OP MN is mental about food and UPFs. Yes that child’s diet has a lot of processed foods but really cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and fish fingers for tea is pretty standard kids fare and has been since i was a child.

Not the best, not the worst.

Anyone thinking this would constitute “neglect” and should be reported is nuts. And insulting to children experiencing true neglect.

Also bear in mind @reachermarry that processed crap 20-30 years ago is probably still less crap than today- the “advances” we’ve made in food production have not helped.

I totally agree that if the child will only eat this rubbish then you do what you have to but that’s not what was in the original post. And, honestly, there is just no excuse, I’ve met families living in incredibly poor and deprived countries with a one ring cooker whose kids eat better than this.

Also bear in mind that processed crap 20-30 years ago is probably still less crap than today

Processed food in the 70s was humming with chemicals. E numbers and carcinogenic additives weren't banned until much later. I remember luminous squash.

Every day it's terrible. We shouldn't be saying it's ok because it normalises a diet that's dreadful and we should be able to say that. Let's not kid ourselves it's ok.

But I caveat that - when DS was younger we struggled to get him to eat anything at all. It was horrendously stressful. He can be very picky. In some situations it's just better for a kid to eat anything.

And we don't know if that's their diet every single day, and whether they do have days where they get a proper meal that's not out of a box. The key point is to mix it up. And doing so helps kids who like beige be exposed to the smells and visuals of cooking food which lead them to trying new foods which are much better for them. They can't do that if parents don't ever cook properly. Nor do they learn cooking skills for when they are older just from seeing a parent cook.

Families are busy. Cooking takes time, effort and thought. It's not actually that easy. I don't begrudge families that do it so many days a week. Where I have the problem is with it being every day, not understanding the importance of at least cooking properly on some days and normalising this as a diet which is perfectly fine to have all the time.

I am not a good cook. Learning a few easy, quick recipes that really don't take long (not in the Jamie Oliver pretendy way but genuinely are easy) is so important for many reasons.

We have an obesity crisis for a reason. Let's not pretend we don't or pretend it doesn't matter. Of course it does.

This. It's not ideal, but it's not neglect, people have no idea what true neglect is anymore.

I do mean of course it’s not ok to have everyday, but I don’t think the comments of “ this is child abuse “ are valid.

for the poster who asked if it was me, no i don’t post on Facebook or tiktok.

and my child would not find this food sufficient, she is a big eater and would have the breakfast and lunch in one meal, plus she doesn’t like cheese so that wipes out Dairylea for us 😂

20 years ago we had turkey twizzlers. Whilst the food companies are always finding new and inventive ways to process food, their older versions weren't really better. And if anything they had more preservatives and heaven knows what else.

Yes thats crap the meals need more fruit and veg.

Well if you don’t want how you run your life criticised, then don’t post the details online

It’s not especially healthy no - not enough protein, fruit and veg and fibre

Of course saying it’s child abuse is daft

But she’s feeding the idiots by posting her life online. Why do that?

Not the best, not the worst.

I genuinely can’t see this pov. The only thing worse is not feeding them at all, which is a pretty fucking low bar for comparison.
What could you actually feed a child for a full day that’s worse than this?