AIBU to tire of moral superiority around meals?

[Spinmerightroundbaby]

I think if women/mothers have the time to spend cooking nutritious meals and enjoy doing it, that’s a beautiful thing. I have noticed though, there’s a tendency just lately for judgement towards parents who sometimes opt for frozen foods, takeaways or less healthy options.

AIBU to think that as long as there is a balance and your family isn’t on KFC every day, people should keep snooty attitudes to themselves as the odd frozen meal or microwave dinner isn’t a big deal? Especially if it means you have more quality time with your children rather than fussing about in the kitchen? Especially for working mothers too who are generally time poor and low energy.

It just feels like it’s the whole BF versus formula feeding disagreement but it’s become a bit more prevalent (in my locality at least) and I find it a bit tiresome. To me it feels like mostly now, this isn’t even about women wanting to do right by their children, it is about perception. They want to be perceived as ‘good’ mothers when children care more about quality time with their parents.

Do people not realise though how dangerous ultra processed food is to our bodies? Especially young children’s who are still developing and need nutrients to grow? I’m no food snob and have lived hand to mouth sometimes, working full time with three under three so I get the juggling act, but big companies and fast food outlets aren’t there to make life easier, they exist to get us to consume so they spend millions upon millions developing addictive convenience foods cheaply and deliciously so they can hook us in and maximise profits. They bung all manner of dubious chemicals in products to try and make us eat as much of it as possible. Read about the formula milk scandal or the floating nestle shop in the rainforests as just two huge examples of the devious and somewhat scary tactics and you’ll begin to understand why we have an increase in all types of cancers across the board, eating disorders, neurological conditions and obesity. It’s because we are consuming all types of preservatives and additives in quantities that literally make them simultaneously poisonous and addictive.

If in doubt, blame capitalism! 😂

Sometimes I just cannot be bothered thinking of and cooking another meal. I don't often have takeaways and my daughter doesn't enjoy them anyway, but I do have a freezer and I sure as hell use it. It's not just about time either, it's what I can afford, what's there on any given day relative to when I done the shopping, what she likes, how much time we have in between finishing work and getting to her club. I'm also trying to expand her tastes a bit more when I get the chance but honestly, I just do my best and that should be enough with what I've got and that should be enough for people it's really got nothing to do with. Nobody has ever given a fuck what her dad gives her to eat.

I mentally tick off DC’s five a day and things like this every day but I’ve recently stopped seeing a couple of mums (never used to meet up with the dads before anyone says “What about the dads?”) from my NCT group who are obsessive about their kids not having lots of different things ever: UPFs, sugar, seed oils, screens... They were also anti medication and certain vaccines. We just didn’t gel beyond the fact we had our kids the same time. I feel happier not seeing them so much. I like to think I’m pretty confident in the choices I make as a parent most of the time but I did often second guess myself about the diet stuff eg if I let DC have a scoop of icecream after a restaurant meal.

I don't use ready meals but use convenience things like sachets of lentils and rice, hot smoked salmon, marinaded chicken, to save a bit of time and generally cook things which are quick and easy. Closest we get to a ready meal is fresh filled pasta & pesto. We have plenty of veg and fruit. DDs love salad and make their own breakfast bowls with fresh/frozen fruit, granola and yogurt. Fish can be expensive but it's so quick and easy. A couple of meals a week are basically fish/meat, small potatoes roasted in the air fryer and veg. In winter I make more soups, stews, curries, dhal, chilli, shepherd's pie.

Nothing wrong with quick meals - especially when people are working, kids have school/activities.

Term time is manic in our house so we do have quick meals a lot during the week. We don't have takeaways and don't do ready meals apart from a very occasional cook curry.

We might have things like homemade veg soup (made in advance), omelette with veggies in (DS likes fish fingers and peas in his 😂), baked fish with vegetables and new potatoes to minimise prep etc.

So, we make sure we eat well but minimise the prep time on some nights. I am lucky though because DS eats anything so its easy to make sure he has a good diet.

I feel very guilty that my diet is healthier than that of my children. I do try but when they’re asking for their 15th snack of the day it’s easier to let them have the biscuit or chocolate they really want rather than trying to make them have something else. Their lunches are ok, although dc3 (fussiest child) has too much of a reliance on ham as a protein. They often have a sandwich/wrap/crackers, carrot/cucumber/peppers, some Greek yoghurt, and some fruit. So not perfect with shop bought bread or wraps, but not terrible. Dinner is usually home cooked, lots of different veg, very little ultra processed. Sometimes oven chips. More rarely breaded fish. Very rarely chicken nuggets. They last had a McDonald’s in May, but are likely to have one or similar on Thursday because we’re going on holiday straight from work and sometimes it’s just easier to stop on the way to get something! We probably average one takeaway a month which is more than we used to. We have an excellent Thai and an excellent Bengali restaurant which both serve amazing fresh tasting food so tend to use those although they’re probably still not at all healthy!

Breakfasts are terrible, scotch pancakes with honey or nutella (and Greek yoghurt), cheerios, cornflakes, granola, bagels… I tried for a long time on this but unfortunately 3/4 of my children would prefer not to eat breakfast at all and honestly on a busy weekday morning where I’m trying to get everyone out of the door on time I’ve given in and let them have whatever they’ll eat. They do eat eggs but not every day. The other child eats porridge and fruit though!

Then they snack on shite. They do have fruit, veg, nuts but then they also have popcorn, biscuits, chocolate…I don’t buy sweets but we seem to have a never ending supply in the house from school fairs, Halloween, people’s birthdays at school, Christmas at school so they do eat a small bag of sweets at least once a week. I don’t know, maybe me restricting it is part of the problem? Maybe if I let them just eat it when they got it instead of restricting it to one chocolate thing a day or one thing of sweets they’d go off it? (And it would be gone and we wouldn’t still have chocolate Santas in the house in July).

I don’t judge others but I do judge myself. I can cook, I can afford and have access to the ingredients to cook. I know what is healthy and what isn’t. I know that nutrition is important. I started off giving them only nutritious food.Yet I don’t have the energy to constantly battle with my children over what they eat or to come up with healthy offerings and so I let them eat more crap food than I would eat myself. And I judge myself for that (and for buying the packaged snacks) and feel like I’m failing them and not doing the best for their bodies.

Meh we have a takeaway most weeks, I couldn't care less if it only takes 10 mins to make something healthy, I don't want to cook I don't want to wash up and we enjoy it. We have freezer shit a couple of times a month as well. But right now i have dough in the machine to make rolls for lunch and I'm about to make a pesto & sundried tomato wholewheat pasta salad to go in the fridge for grab and go lunches, there's loads of fruit and salad in the fridge and I'm making curry from scratch for dinner. Its all about balance! Oh and i really quite enjoy a microwave curry as well the m&s ones are lovely!

I agree that children need to be given nutritional food, and there needs to be balance.
I hate cooking but had 4 kids alone. I could not afford microwave food or takeaways so always cooked and still cook from scratch. Most things I make can be ready in 20 mins. It takes no time to prep a few veggies cook rice or pasta. Mexican food takes literally no time. I don't do pies, or roasts too much effort and oven time, slow cooker my son doesn't like says it tastes of tomato even when there aren't any.
Crap food doesn't necessarily mean overweight kids, the four neighbours kids have a terrible diet and they are all very slim but have multiple illnesses and always off school but that may not me linked. I certainly wouldn't criticise their mum.

Why do we have such low expectations of parents? Do we really need to lay on cooking classes when they can literally look up anything on the internet?

Yes, I do judge parents who feed their children a poor diet. Because it’s the rest of society that has to deal with the fallout.

Frozen food a couple of times a week is fine. Ready meals and take away once in a while won’t kill you but personally I don’t eat them and I wouldn’t let my kids have them regularly. We maybe have McDonalds once every couple of months but we’ve not had ready meals in years and my son had his first KFC a few weeks ago on a school trip- he’s 14!

I don’t agree with judging anything TBH but the food we feed our kids in the UK is horrific compared to most places where simple cooking from scratch is the norm. Where fish, fresh veg, pulses, grains and salad are routinely served to little kids who enjoy them. Working hours, relentless advertising of utter shite and child poverty have all had a huge impact. Some people in the UK have no clue what balance is.

So I don’t agree that it’s better to bung a ready meal in the microwave and spend time with the kids TBH. By all means get them to help you cook (and surely in most cases it’s fine to do both) but one of the most important things you can do as a parent is feed them good nutritious food and teach healthy habits around food.

And this is why the obesity levels are what they are. “Don’t judge me!!!” Sure.

Parents in other countries also work; in fact in many of them more than in the UK. An occasional pizza will not kill anyone, but the fact that every restaurant’s “children’s meals” are a bunch of ultra processed crap is an example of how badly we feed the kids here. The school menus are closer to the US than Europe. It’s all pretty disgusting.

Aside from dominant persisting divisions in domestic labour/ working (out of the home) hours, men/ dads don't seem to get so emotionally wrapped up in these things.

It's a task to feed the family; they feed them. It gets ticked off the list with varying degress of healthy outcome, but they seem less inclined to ruminate over the big picture and emotional side of food as love than many women do.

I recently read a thread where almost everybody claimed that that they NEVER made a less than positive comment about the appearance of a celebrity on TV. So they never mentioned if someone had had some work done on their face, or looked older or tired or ill, or was wearing something awful or odd etc. Judging by the other threads on here (there's one at the moment criticizing the women's football team's outfits), Gogglebox and general chit-chat, I don't think people are always honest. And surveys and MN threads aren't always representative!

I like thighs but tenderloins are the best. Just IMO. :-)

Depends really, feel a bit sorry for kids/families who live on UPF’s but that’s their choice I guess. I’m not really that bothered providing it’s not my family/my DD.

Depends really, feel a bit sorry for kids/families who live on UPF’s but that’s their choice I guess. I’m not really that bothered providing it’s not my family/my DD.

When people say frozen food do they mean frozen veg? Frozen veg is brilliant!

We don’t really do ‘kids food’ like nuggets, chips etc at home but DS will have them at restaurants. Takeaways not very often. I do rely on convenience like new Covent Garden soups, pre marinated chicken breast etc that I shove in the air fryer and microwave some frozen peas.

It’s tricky though. Both of us work FT in demanding jobs. I have a chronic illness and am gluten free because of it and prefer to eat veggie. DS and DH love meat. DS hates saucy food like curry/stews whereas I would use the slow cooker a lot more. Luckily DH eats whatever is available!

School menus here are atrocious. The UK really has this idea that 'best value' is always 'cheapest'. Making this rubbish off site and transporting it in where it's served up half frozen. Gross. I remember school dinners quite fondly.

I found it impossible to find the time to cook from scratch every night when my kids were younger. It sounds dramatic but it totally changed my life when I started to batch cook on a Sunday night. I cooked once a week, portioned it up in the freezer, and then after a couple of months we had a huge variety of meals to choose from every day. Not as good as making it fresh but much cheaper than convenience food. We had chicken and beef chilli’s, bolognese, veggie and meat curries, stews etc etc. Admittedly I had to buy a giant freezer for the garage but it made life so easy.

Nuggets and fish fingers here mainly. I suppose the good side is that she doesn't like things like burgers and pizzas and hot dogs so we can't go down that route too often. We tried to make our own nuggets but I'm an appalling cook and she just prefers the plain chicken breast in the end so that's not too bad 😆

@usedtobeaylis DS frequently tells me school dinners are nicer than my meals! In fairness his school meals are delicious and they very much focus on a balanced diet made from scratch. Some parents complain about the lack of burgers/nuggets/chips but they have a jacket potato bar each day for those who hate lasagne/fajitas/honey mustard chicken etc.

Primary school menus actually have to meet reasonable nutrition guidelines.

Do men have any responsibility here?