Do people really not know what to eat?

[WilderHawthorn]

Watching ‘what not to eat’, and the family they’ve found are just hopeless. Four small children all shovelled full of UPF junk, parents both obese, freely admit to eating crap constantly.

How adults choose to feed themselves is their choice, but to feed four small kids that much junk? It’s bordering on abuse. An apple/banana costs the same as a packet of crisps, jacket potato is one of the cheapest meals you can make, basic porridge oats and milk for breakfast, it’s not difficult to eat whole foods, so why rely on packaged things?

Freely admit I judge those who feed their children this way and truly despair over childhood obesity stats. I work full time, have 4 DC, DH works full time and I volunteer. I’m very time poor and partially disabled, I still feed my kids well and it doesn’t cost me a fortune. Taught myself to cook. There’s no excuse!

Haven’t RTFT or seen the programme.

Have an interest - although not a parent, I was an overweight child (and we did mostly eat home cooked food, but I am a sugar addict and got extra whenever I could), an obese teenager, and mostly a morbidly obese adult, with occasional brief interruptions aka yo-yo dieting.

Once upon a time, everyone ate minimally processed food, because there wasn’t anything else. And while clearly some people are better cooks than others, and some people can afford better ingredients than others, everyone who cooked knew how to cook, and could rustle meals up from basic ingredients.

So, how did we get to the point where a significant proposition of the population either don’t know how to cook, or prefer UPF to real food? Or to put it another way: why did the first generation exposed to UPF’s take to it, when real food is so much better for you?

Convenience and novelty, for sure. Maybe cost - were UPF’s cheaper than real food when first introduced? I don’t know. Also, no-one knew then just how harmful they were to our health. It’s not just obesity, UPF’s cause metabolic havoc and disease even in people who are not overweight.

But the clincher, IMO, is that UPF’s have been engineered to light up the pleasure centres of our brains like a Christmas tree. They are addictive.

I believe the authorities need to go much further in informing the public just how harmful UPF’s are. Food in hospitals and schools needs to be reformulated.

But will this happen, when food manufacturers have so much power? I doubt it. So what were left with is grassroots action.

PS - I am no longer morbidly obese, have got off two medications for type 2 diabetes (after having it for nearly 30 years) and now sit in the pre diabetic range. All by eating real food rather than UPF’s, moderately low carb and intermittent fasting.

I certainly wasn't judging - I was asking a question. I have someone close to me who has never turned to UPFs and her DD has a very restricted diet. I can't pass comment from personal experience so all I can do is let others speak on this particular subject. I don't believe it's something I would do, but I've never been in this position so I can't claim to hold knowledge.

I didn’t believe it was something I’d do either, until my child was literally nearly starving. You deal with the circumstances in front of you.

This is simply the most middle class comment 😂😂. Pure mumsnet.

NHS dietary advice is usually quite poor and inconsistent between advisors

But, these threads always bring out examples of outlier situations, this is not about children or families with food difficulties, the vast majority of the population dont have these issues.

You wouldn't care about UPFs if the alternative was a starving child withering away in front of you which clearly isn't your friends case but can happen due to various reasons such as ARFID.

In fact, I probably would judge a parent who refused to give their child Birdseye chicken nuggets if the alternative was them starving!

Yep.

I love UPFs. They keep my child out of hospital.

Yes, exactly. I have absolute empathy for those struggling with children with food issues such as ARFID, but I find the comments regarding it can take away from the broader issue at hand.

Most families aren't dealing with that, and those people aren't the people being discussed anyway. I can see how families with children with ARFID might end up going down those paths, but your average family who lives off UPFs for 3 meals and snacks a day isn't coping with that, and their reasoning is very different. Those are the people I hold judgement for.

People for the most part know but prefer excuses to discipline.

I've read this full thread and it's really interesting. Whilst I agree that poverty is a key factor, I think it's an oversimplification. I also strongly agree that pupils should be taught about food and nutrition in schools, however this has to be done in a way that's massively better than it used to be.

Thinking of myself as an example - I'm 58 and was brought up with what I'd think of as a classic 1970's/80's diet. Our main meals were predominantly freshly cooked, however they were also pretty bland and didn't exactly encourage me to believe that 'cooked from scratch' was best. Vegetables were limited and often unappetising (think overcooked cabbage, sprouts and turnip), in fact I actually would only eat carrots if I could have them raw. We had our fair share of stews etc, but meals like mince and potatoes (Scottish MNs will know what I mean!) were revolting to me. We also weren't allowed sweets before a meal (fair enough) and had to ask if we wanted anything afterwards. If we hadn't eaten all our food then there was no chance of being allowed any sweets.

The impact of this on me was that I reacted against it the minute I left home. I still remember the joy of eating a Twix on the way home from work, knowing that dinner was still to come. I also left home around the time that places like M&S really expanded their ready meals so the luxury of buying these and loving the flavours compared with what I'd been used to was huge. My DM just couldn't understand why I'd happily eat a bolognese sauce - with all it's added flavourings - when I couldn't stand the minced beef she provided.

Of course these ready meals were full of additives and it's only in the last 10 years or so I've made much more effort to cook from fresh. The challenge is that this is totally different to what my DM might have taught me so it's all been quite new.

I suppose what I'm saying here is that balance is the right thing. Never allowing a trip to McDonald's or a 'freezer dinner' could result in kids feeling they are missing out and rebelling against this when they have their freedom. I was much less restrictive with my DC and somehow they seem to have turned into pretty health focussed adults, both of them far better cooks than me!

Actually I think it's pretty good now. Tomorrow my daughter will make spring rolls. Last term there were vegetarian burgers made from beans, homemade bread, brownies, curries - all sorts. They have homework on using an oven and hob confidently and chopping different vegetables.

my daughter finds it all pretty easy as, age 13 she regularly cooks at home and can whip up snacks from the various ingredients around the house when she likes - but we are a cooking family and cook most of our dinners from scratch.

both mine have chocolate or crisps after school though and I'm sure I'd be judged for that, but they are both slim and busy children with sports and other clubs so I've always felt they need the sugar!

My kids would choose beige UPF over a jacket potato sadly.

Interesting that schools varied. My DC actually did more useful cookery at primary school. I was a governor at their secondary school and had a discussion about this with the "cookery" teacher. She was old school and agreed with me about the importance of teaching basic food prep but her hands were tied by the curriculum. This would have been about 12 years ago.
Hopefully things have changed now but if other schools were similar to my DCs there are a whole cohort of children who learned very little at school and they probably have their own children now.

I’ve met people who genuinely don’t have a clue about what they should be eating. I’ve also met people who truly believe you can eat as much as you like as long as it’s healthy and you won’t gain weight. But on the whole people do know but busy lives, fussy kids and the price of eating well all contribute to a less than ideal diet.

my diet was fairly terrible growing up. Think half a frozen piece of fish, about 7 chips and a desert spoon of beans one day and a quarter of a frozen pizza with the same portion of chips and beans the next. We were all pretty underweight to be honest.

but I’m a healthy adult, never been more than slightly over weight and when I was I did something about it straight away. I’ve also always cooked good food for my kids but I’d be lying if I said they never ate crap. Yes, I very rarely would use a sauce from a jar as I’m not keen, but a something and chips freezer meal once a week won’t do any harm. I actually really like freezer tea day. We also have one day a week where everyone fends for themselves and that usually ends in us eating rubbish. But meh, we’re not overweight and all exercise regularly so on balance I think we do ok.

tonight will be chicken tenders (from the freezer) with veg egg fried rice (home made). All about balance. There’s no way I’m making my own chicken tenders on a work night 😂.

It might seem obvious to you but it isn't to everyone. We're not born knowing what's nutritious and healthy, it's something we learn. I weren't taught what was healthy as a child and I actually had a few things wrong, I thought all red meat was good for Iron, I was on the 'cereal diet' at one point when it was advertised as a healthy way to lose weight. I had no idea about UPFs and fell for the low fat/low sugar advertisements.

i do, and have. My lad is 19 now, so i'm at the 'older' end of the ARFID parenting journey, i float about the groups on FB and have handed a few peoples ass to them when their kid is starving, at the point of threatened with tube feeding and they're hand wringing about UPF's and 'healthy diet'

I give them the advice i was given. Feed them what they'll eat, right now, it's just important they eat, the 'what' doesn't matter..

I don't think its just a working class thing either.
DH worked in a very posh private school. When it came to peeling an onion for a biology experiment, only one 14yr old knew how to go about this.
I got mine involved in chopping, cooking and cleaning up as soon as they were old enough to stand on a box at the worktop. Two are now very chefy and one lives on bloody frozen pizza.

I agree, but it was a very extreme case. The son was copying the dad with his pot noodles as well. I’ve never seen families eat like this, although I used to cringe at what some parents bought as an after school snack!!

I think most parents occasionally give their kids fishfingers, nuggets, chips etc. I know I did, but they also had home cooked dinner most evenings, I mainly used wholegrain bread/pasta/rice. Plenty of fruit and veg too.

Now I look back and cringe a bit knowing what I do about UPFs but I did the best I could at the time.

A lot of parents just can't be arsed so will instead tell you to stop being judgemental.

Meh, balance. There’s no such thing as “cheat” food, good food or bad food. So many people have a bad relationship with food in completely opposite ways and this trail illustrates it well.

I haven’t seen it so I don’t know how much the family are eating.

But there’s 2 adults, 3 kids in my house. All eat a moderate level of UPF a day I think and we’re all normal weight. Never been overweight.

ETA: we all eat fruit and veg every day.

I’m sure the volume of food they are consuming most contribute a lot.

on another note.. i'm going to throw parental disability into the ring.

Taking my kids out of the equation, i personally do live off a fair bit of takeaway and freezer food.. i am perfectly capable of cooking healthy meals, and on good days i do (like todays stew) make them.. but i have a painful physical disability and need to sit while cooking as i can't stand, some days i'm exhausted, so yes, i'm going to put a frozen pizza in the oven, or pour some boiling water over a sachet of cuppa soup and dip toast in it.

I can’t stand now I’m on a walking frame thankfully I wasn’t when the kids were small. That must be so difficult for you

I am guessing around 75% of food in supermarkets is processed and around 50% ultra processed?

A lot of people assume ‘if it’s fit for human consumption it must be ok to eat’? I am pretty sure most house holds are eating some kind of processed food and a lot are eating ultra processed foods. A lot of people don’t have the time and energy to research and cook from scratch so they grab something that’s already prepared? Also (as they explain on the show)….processed foods taste good, mainly because they are high ins sugar and salt so people become addicted to them?

In an ideal world I would revert back to how my parents shopped for food and would go to the butchers, greengrocer and fish monger….maybe a bakery for real bread, but I can’t afford too and I can’t afford too. I mainly eat non processed foods but by the end of the week I don’t have fresh meat and veg and I haven’t got time to go and get them so we might end up eating fish finger sandwiches.

There are many reasons why people don’t understand how food is made, where it comes from and what’s good/bad but it’s mainly because they don’t want to know and they want convenience?