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?

@Shmee1988 home made , from scratch, organic, lots and lots of PrOtEiN!!!! And lots of veggies

The people complaining about neglect can Google the number for the NSPCC.

@Maitri108 sure Sunny D used to glow alarmingly 🤣

I know! It was like nuclear waste and unnaturally orange.

I find it just so, so strange that people think making a decent effort with your child’s health is something worth taking the piss over.

Honestly the idea that we should rub someone’s ego and make them think serving the shittest food all day long is good enough so depressing.

How is steak not processed?about as cancery as you can get.i think this shows people have different ideas of what's healthy,I'd never see steak as healthy.

It's all about moderation, surely.

Most days it's good to feed your kids a wide variety of veg, fruit, pulses, eggs, dairy, fish.

Sometimes it's okay to have a beige day. I tend to looks at what we eat over the course of a week vs. a day.

I resent the idea that only privileged/ wanky or unreal people eat veggies/ non processed food or adult foods because across the world, most people eat that way. It's the UK that is in a bubble.

I can't imagine feeding fridge raiders to a dog, never mind a child.
The dinner and breakfast are ok, but too many sweet things and the lunch is rubbish except the banana and the sandwich.
Growing up in the 80s processed food was seen as normal to some degree. But not for every meal! My mum always cooked from scratch a quick dinner like stir fry for me. I did love chips though, but we didn't really have them much at home.

How is steak processed? Its just... meat.

I'd usually agree, but DD does love a Fridge Raider, occasionally we get her a packet as a car snack.

But the operative word is "occasionally" most snacks are fruit, veg, or things like lentil rice cakes and houmous.

There's no real nutritional value to a doughnut either, but having one every few months is a delightful pleasure!

Okay so for us it would look like:
Breakfast: milk and a banana. Then a combination of eggs on toast, cream cheese bagel, berries, natural yogurt or weetabix
Lunch: Wrap or sandwich with chicken, cheese or cream cheese. Cucumber and fruit
Dinner: family meals all made from scratch apart from pizza. Chicken curry, bolognese, vegetable pasta bake, roast dinner, stir fry, beans on toast, omelette.
After dinner it’s yogurt but that’s not everyday. Snacks are cheese and crackers or rice cakes.
Sometimes we have homemade cake if we have made it, or a packet of crisps if we are on a day out. In the summer we have lots of ice cream but I tend to make that from yogurt as much as possible. By no means is it a perfect diet but we do try

The justification from some people that shit diets is due to finances and lack of knowledge is ridiculous and patronising. I was poor when I first had my DS and amazingly I was able to feed him normal, healthy food because it was no more expensive than crap, processed food. We have never had easier access to information online and if people can watch ‘get ready with me’ tiktoks online they can also watch ‘how to make a salad’ videos online.

Aside from children who have needs which genuinely limit their diet, over the years I have seen a strong correlation between DC who have been brought up with a healthy diet and their willingness to eat a wide range of food, and DC who have just always been given beige food unsurprisingly being fussy eaters. They never want to know what’s in a cheese pizza or a McDonald’s, but always eye any normal sort of meal as if it’s poisonous. It’s just lazy parenting.

A normal day for DD

Porridge with honey and fruit.
Peppers, carrot sticks and blueberries as snacks over the day.
Lentil soup (home made) for lunch, side of cucumber and 🍅
Brown rice, salmon, broccoli for dinner.
A yogurt or an ice lolly for pudding.

Not exemplary, but enough to sustain the odd nuggets and chips, Fridge Raider, or packet of Wotsits without any detrimental affect on her health.

They're no worse than a cake or whatever but I just think they look and smell terrible! So it's my own phobia more than a health concern tbh x

Lunch sounds very poor. What are fridge raiders?

Breakfast could be OK-ish or awful depending on the cereal. Eg Coco Pops are basically the same as processed cake or cookies. Weetabix with no added sugar plus banana and milk is reasonable.

Oh yes. They smell vile!!

We make DD open the car window.

I remember my mum saying the same about scampi fries (the fishy crisps) in the 1980's.

Steak is by definition a minimally processed item.

For the odd day it’ll do no harm. But if that’s the kids diet every day it’s shocking. No wonder we’re in an obesity crisis.

She always says how old the kids are "what my very fussy 10 year old ate today" etc so I doubt it's her, but it did remind me of the kinds of things she feeds hers as well.

It's a lot of processed food and not good, but it's not anything like neglect. It's varied ish with some fruit and veg at each meal - it's not like the kid's just having McDonald's and sweets for every meal.

Do you understand what "processed" means? It's not a synonym for "carcinogenic".

Why would a steak be processed food?!

I honestly have no idea what the definition of processed food is! Surely most foods are processed in some way.

Processed food is factory-made food involving processes and/or ingredients (often a long list of them!) that you wouldn't find in a domestic kitchen. It's easy enough to see what is meant by this if you take a look at the ingredients list on a loaf of sliced supermarket bread.

Steak is simply beef. From a cow. It's not at all processed. Yes it's not great to eat too much red meat, but it is also an all-natural food with lots of iron and protein.

Ok a genuine day of food for us might be

• porridge, toast with peanut butter or jam, maybe an omelette
• school lunch or packed lunch (cheese and ham sandwich, crackers, yoghurt, fruit, maybe a flapjack)
• Dinner, baked potatoes with topppings (beans/ cheese/ tuna mayo) and salad, sausage pasta, fajitas, maybe a burger but with home made sweet potato/ potato wedges and broccoli or sweetcorn on the side. Pudding (not every day) fruit, ice lolly or jelly.

Not perfect but to me and most other people surely this is more the norm than the OP’s example? I also think it would be no more expensive. I am a bit sick of what looks to me like a perfectly normal day’s food being made out to be middle class privilege or something.

I love scampi fries!! 🥰