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?

It isn’t what I’d be feeding my kids.

cereal - depends on the cereal but not very filling.
fruit/veg - great.

A sandwich - probably ok, but depends on the quality of ingredients and filling.
dunkers - junk
a pack of fridge raiders - junk
banana - great
an angel cake slice - junk. Ok in isolation but combined with other items, junk.

fish fingers - fine, ideally as an occasional meal but not bad
chips - once every few weeks, fine. I wouldn’t have this on top of an already junk filled day
peas - great

fromage frais - could be good if not processed but if it’s a processed one, not so great
mini Maryland bag - again, ok as a one off but combined with angel cake, fromage frais, lunchtime junk and potentially sugar cereal, not a great way to end the day.

My kids:

B:
Greek yog and home made granola,
lower sugar and higher fibre cereal
toast
porridge
most days they have a boiled egg and soldiers

L:
hot lunch at school, and at home:
sandwiches
pasta salad
toasties
veg soup and cheese scones

S:
fruit
oat bars
cheese and crackers
occasional crisps
Popcorn
a biscuit

D:
Pork chops, lamb chops, sausages, steak, pies, stir fry, pasta dishes with some protein, breaded fish, mash or roasted potatoes, beef burgers. Sometimes chips, fish fingers, potatoes waffles.

Pudding: Greek yoghurt, fruit, crumble, stewed fruit, a biscuit, rice pudding

drinks: water or sometimes diluted fruit juice.

So by no means an incredible diet, mine could eat more fish and less carb, better or less snacks, but mostly whole ingredients and not too many UPF.

Mine go loopy if fed too much sugar / additives / junk, and they’re just always hungry too.

So...my kids (young teenagers and junior and infant age) have this week

Breakfasts - younger two have breakfast club at school which is toast and butter, yoghurt. Fruit and a cup of orange juice or water. Youngest teenager doesn't like breakfast. Oldest will usually have beans or scrambled egg on toast as he's home educated. Saturday mornings are home made 'mcdonalds' muffin with sausage, egg and hash brown because we have football (easy to make in airfryer, can take them with us, warm and filling). Sundays usually homemade pancakes or waffles with fruit and honey. (Waffle maker was a great investment!)

Mid morning snacks - youngest have fruit at school. One has milk, other has water. School teenager takes a banana or if I've got some in, homemade muffin (veggie based)

Lunches: the school kids have school dinners, which are pretty decent. Eldest school kid usually goes for pasta bake or curry. Youngers have whatever is on school menu which is carb heavy but mostly made fresh on site). They like veg so generally eat it. Eldest, depending on what time he's had breakfast might have soup (homemade in freezer), leftovers from night before.

Weekend lunches are homemade soup/sandwich of cheese, tuna mayo, veg sticks (cucumber, peppers). The bread we get is the stuff my husband makes at work so it's not shop bought stuff - but I'm never going to be someone that makes it otherwise!), some crisps and a cake bar type thing.
.
After school snack - Greek yoghurt with some honey and fruit, couple of biscuits, pack of crisps (not all of them, that's the choice!). Husband is a Baker so sometimes brings home things that didn't sell the day before, so might be homemade cake once a week.they also love mini cucumbers

Dinner:
(This week's meal plan)

Today - lamb roast dinner wirh cauliflower, broccoli, honey carrots, parsnips and swede, Yorkshire pud (aunt Bessie's because I can't make them!), roast potatoes, gravy, stuffing.

M - fish pie with broccoli, and swede mashed into the mash

T - veggie lasagne (made from scratch - even the pasta because my home ed boy LOVES making pasta sheets - haven't quite got the texture perfect yet but everyone enjoys it!) with peas on the side. Lasagne has lentils and mixed beans in, ragu is made with passata, grated carrots, celery, onion, peppers)

W - McDonald's (parents evening and then just an hour before football game)

T - cottage pie, which is half mince/half lentils, mashed sweet potato on tip and then some spring greens on ths side. There's peas, onions and if I can get away with it, carrots (we don't like carrots generally unless smothered in honey!) In the pie

F - fish fingers or nuggets chips and beans. Plate of veggie sticks on table. Again, Friday nights are insanely crazy nights here so that's generally our beige food night, or something like beans or scrambled egg on toast.

S - chicken tikka chunks with homemade flatbread (natural yoghurt and flour), mint yoghurt dip, roasted aubergine, peppers and onions, and trying them with roasted asparagus for the first time

Don't generally have puddings but there's always yoghurt, fruit (bananas, apples, frozen berries), biscuit barrel, cheese.

I think what people choose to feed their children is their business and without knowing more information nobody can judge.

Fed is best.

Okay occasionally but not every day

Some days you just need to do what's quick and easy but not every day. We never really had beige food growing up except Friday night chips from the chippie down the road, never a separate meal for kids, we always ate together things like casseroles and roasts and curries - very rarely we would have a steak and kidney pudding from the shop, so its not a habit I'm used to and generally do the same as my mum did - cooking from scratch, or near scratch (pre-marinated meats sometimes) but also always keep some fish fingers or similar in the freezer and instant noodles in the cupboard for those days when I really don't have the time or energy.

ok but I have just looked up the ingredients for a shop bought fish fingers- surely all this is could be in a cupboard at home

• Cod (Fish) (58%),
• Breadcrumb Coating**,
• Rapeseed Oil,
• *Breadcrumb Coating (Wheat* Flour, Water, Potato Starch, Salt, Paprika, Yeast, Turmeric)

If I made some homemade fishfingers from scratch to this exact recipe would they be equally as bad? Would that be processed?

Potatoe starch isn’t a common kitchen ingrdients

there are fish fingers and fish fingers

some will be perfectly fine and healthy and others will more likely have junk in them

cost isn’t always an indicator of crapness either Lidl and Aldi stuff sometimes has less crop than M&S

It’s hardly just the fish fingers, is it? It’s everything else on the list of food.

I agree with this. We cook from scratch most of the time. We do still eat biscuits, cake crisps etc but isn't the main part of our diet.
It doesn't have to be fancy or time consuming. I very much live in the real world. I just don't but a load of processed food for our meals. I really recent people resent the assumption that I don't like in tbe real world. I work full time as does my OH. We just choose to prioritise fresh food most of the time.

Oh I can think of a few things, our son was regularly fed the contents of his nappy. As a child we had very very little money, so a lot of our food was gone off, ever eaten already moulding bread and fizzy cucumbers for your dinner?

I always have potato starch (potato flour) in my kitchen - it is a very useful ingredient. Especially good in Swiss roll sponges.

It’s not in the bero book!

Agree. It is a very immature attitude to take.

Yes, some people have a very strange attitude towards anyone feeding tbeir children decent quality, healthy food.

It's not amazing but I'm shocked at how people are acting like this is a completely terrible diet?? Not fab for everyday but every now and then it seems pretty normal.

My 9 and 6 year old daughters ate yesterday
Breakfast: Banana porridge with raspberries and fruit skewers
Both were starving at about 10am so gave them cream cheese bagels and cucumber
Lunch: Pesto chicken salad
Gave my 6 year old a chocolate granola bar at about 2pm and then she wanted crisps so I gave her a pack of Hula hoops.
Dinner: Fish pie with peas and mash
9 year old wanted a frozen berry yoghurt bowl for dessert and 6 year old had a rocket ice lolly and then an angel cake slice

My 16 year old teenage daughters ate the same breakfast and then both were revising with friends in the library and I think one had Pop Eyes for lunch and the other had a Subway?? Not sure though.
Both came home and probably grabbed snacks themselves involving something like pretzels, rice cakes, crisps, fruit, popcorn - whatever was in the house really.
Had the same dinner and one of them didn't want dessert and the other had a Magnum ice cream.

13 year old son ate pretty similar but ate much more frequently with a lot more snacks really! He's always eating some form of sandwich and toast whenever hungry.

Probably not the healthiest today but they're active, happy and are healthy and fit.

It all seems fine as a one off- my kids have fish fingers for tea sometimes, love an occasional dunker, etc. It’s just if all 3 meals look like that most days I would be concerned

Steak is not "processed"... It's lump of meat, grilled.

It's as processed as a chicken breast.

It’s pretty awful. Why you’d want to post on SM, god knows. But if you put it out there, you have to be prepared for whatever flak it gets

I mean it’s a pretty low bar if you compare something to abuse to make yourself feel like you’re doing a good enough job?

I'm amazed anyone doesn't see the processing involved in eating cow.

I’m absolutely sick to DEATH of hearing “fed is best”
no. Fed is the bare bloody minimum! We should all be striving to make sure our kids have a nutritious and healthy diet. The odd meal of fish fingers and beans isn’t going to kill them but if it’s beige at every meal (excepting any disabilities or neurodivergence of course) then you need a bloody good look at yourself.

Just accept defeat. You can take issue with eating meat all you want, that still doesn’t make steak a highly processed food. There’s no more processing than picking raspberries, moving them through a factory to be packaged and shipped to a store.
You’re just wrong.

No, beige food is I believe refers to beige coloured often frozen stuff chucked in the oven.Chips, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, the godawful reformed turkey drummer type things, sausage rolls.
Sausage, mash and vegetables is a perfectly sound dinner!

I let my kids eat beige food but I always make sure there's vegetables on the plate. They like cakes and crisps but also like fruit. About 3 nights a week I will make something from scratch. It's all about balance.

The odd meal is fine

It's not hard to do non UPF meals

Sausage, eggs, chips
Chicken casserole
Jacket potatoes
Omelette and bread

Etc