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!

But aren’t fish fingers just white fish in breadcrumbs? Not all UPF is bad, YOLO after all.

It literally says unrefined on the packet, but I suppose you’re right in that it’s not a bag of sugar beet 😂

Agree: some of the competitive undereating on here is terrifying. I think many of these threads should be taken down by the mods: they are triggering to people with disordered eating and full of unscientific nonsense.

People assume they are eating healthily as UPF foods are often advertised as healthy- eg high protein (but full of sugar and preservatives) fortified with vitamins (cereal) tasty and delicious (McD, KFC, pizza,) good for you (eg energy drinks) or a fun lifestyle choice (RedBull, Coke,)
And also food served for school dinners is not healthy, same in hospitals.
Unless people are interested in food/cooking or nutrition it is easy to believe the marketing and that the products they choose are healthy.

You invested me in brown sugar now...

I would guess that not all brown sugar is the same given the quick google search.

But aren’t fish fingers just white fish in breadcrumbs? Not all UPF is bad, YOLO after all.
I thought that fish fingers would have been ok. However this is what I found out:

Fish fingers are classified as ultra-processed foods (UPF) because they undergo extensive industrial manufacturing and contain ingredients typically not used in home kitchens.
According to the widely used NOVA classification system, a food is "ultra-processed" (Group 4) if it is a formulation of industrial ingredients rather than just a modified version of a whole food.
Key Reasons Fish Fingers are UPF

• Industrial Ingredients & Additives: Many brands use substances like diphosphates (binders), modified starches, and raising agents to improve texture and shelf life.
• Highly Processed "Mince": While some use whole fillets, others use "minced fish"—leftover bits processed with binders and emulsifiers to mimic the texture of a whole fillet.
• Manufacturing Methods: The production process involves multiple steps that cannot be replicated at home, such as industrial pre-frying (often in inflammatory vegetable oils) and extrusion.
• High "Non-Food" Components: Many supermarket fish fingers contain less than 60% actual fish, with the remainder being a mixture of breadcrumbs, seed oils, and various starches.

I work in the timber industry and was horrified to find out that the end use of our product is something called cellulose which is a common food additive and filler. It never crossed my mind that the trees we were harvesting would end up in anything other than paper or wood products. Yet here we are...

And yet on the Yuka app the majority of fish fingers are rated excellent although I don’t think too many fish fingrs leads to obesity.

The couple in the programme did a better job than the producers of pointing out it did involve a lot more washing up but didn’t cost more (if you don’t factor in time). They weren’t stupid so it might have been helpful to probe more into the ‘why?’.

my very well educated boss, who can cook, still has energy drinks by the fridge full and large white baguette sandwiches even though he’s got diabetes, couple of staff at work who complain about not losing weight while eating mayonnaise stuffed sandwiches and salads and raiding the biscuit tin. It’s addictive, and millions of pounds has gone into making it all addictive. My DHs ex hardly touches a vegetable …. I bloody love crisps and have had to go cold turkey and I’m a stone and a half overweight.

both been ill so had M&S fishcakes last night, few oven chips and a pile of green veg. I had home made BLT with avocado and sourdough bread for lunch.

it’s a balance isn’t it? Got a frozen home made beef stew in the freezer for tea tonight.

Ignoring the issue of food (which i know is the point of the thread) programmes are edited a certain way to get maximum engagement/interest/reaction from viewers and i think most of time (particularly on certain channels) that is at the expense of the people appearing.
Ive often read or heard from people who've spoken to the press or been on tv and said it was twisted to suit the narrative and came across completely different to how they were led to believe. It wouldn't surprise me if the families in this show (I confess I havent seen it) did cook some meals themselves but it suited the premise of the show to portray that they lived entirely off upfs.

Look at "how clean is your house" in the early 2000s, I imagine a lot, if not all of the people living in that level of clutter/dirt etc, had some kind of MH issues....even now I think similarly about sort your life out. I would think therapy would be a more helpful option than everyone seeing all your stuff laid out in a warehouse.
I feel uncomfortable watching that kind of show, because there is so much more to it than people being too lazy/uneducated etc to cook/clean or whatever the issue is.

I find it hard. I have two fussy teens and I genuinely often feel I don’t know what to cook. We eat a lot of pasta, I don’t even like pasta but there’s few meals they’ll both eat. My son would rather not eat at all, he’s very limited in his food intake. Weirdly he does like to cook though so I’m hoping to build on this.

I find it depressing cooking and it being rejected. I’ve done a cooking course to help find some inspiration but I often end up shoving a pizza in the oven or fish fingers for the ease and the peace. When I’m down I eat rubbish. I’m 2 stone overweight, my DC are healthy weights and so far have good teeth despite the sugar they inhale.

Super invested now. Had to go and look up sugar beet… learn something new everyday!

I assumed all sugar was made from sugar cane and I was clearly wrong. I live in a sugar cane region and within a short distance of a sugar mill and it didn’t even cross my mind that sugar was made from an alternative. It’s been a learning day for me.

Not true.

You can buy unrefined sugar, well that's what it is called but it is actually minimally refined so it still has molasses in it.

Putting the molasses back in to the white sugar gives it a different taste hence it being used in coffee not tea (well in the 70s it was) and changes the taste of baking.

I think crisps are an interesting thing. In the 1970s it was a once a week treat while watching Star Trek.

Now they are a daily part of a lot of peoples' daily diet.

Someone up thread mentioned 'meal deals', these are not healthy but they look like they should be, and it plays into our subconscious that it is a daily diet.

Just having a look on Tesco's website, trying to find healthier choices

Pollen & Grace Mezze Houmous + Rainbow Veg Grain Bowl 275g looks health and is packed with veg, it is 414 calories
Pure orange juice (330) ml is another 150 calories
Tesco Carrot & Houmous 100g is 117 calories

Total 681 calories

A Tesco roast dinner is about 400 calories. I'm not saying ready meal is better than the meal deal but just on calories it is. I know the Mezze have a lot of veg in them so are probably better for you. And there are vitamins in the OJ, along with about a desert spoon of sugar.

Poor isn’t an excuse for making your kid fat I became a mum at 16 lived in a homeless shelter and had to share the kitchen with a crazy bitch. Still fed my kid well

You’d be surprised what goes on in private boarding schools these days. They have suffered financially. Friend works in one and the canteen food is carefully rationed. Staff are told off for eating in the canteen at dinner time. Friend does it to save money and has been repeatedly told off. Technically it’s allowable if you are still working - so friend stays behind marking/planning until food time. Food is healthy on paper so that box is ticked, but in reality, meal times are short, food runs out, portion size suffers, children are hungry which they sometimes then address with cereal / white bread and jam in the boarding house. Or sweets bought. They do a lot of exercise and those teens are generally exceptionally lean.

I feel uncomfortable watching that kind of show, because there is so much more to it than people being too lazy/uneducated etc to cook/clean or whatever the issue is.

Judgement sells though, a lot of people watch these programmes and then they can congratulate themselves & feel better about themselves.

A healthy balance between the occasional snack/UPF and mostly non UPF is ideal imo I wouldn't want to live a life where I never had any tasty UPF snacks (my mother does and my god is it boring!) I am a very good cook (it is my only skill I'm quite awful at everything else 😂😂) so I don't feel bad about the occasional UPF snack or takeaway when the majority of our meals are home cooked and great

I do think that in 2025, for an adult not to be able to cook (excluding disabilities and such etc) its quite embarrassing. There is such a wealth of knowledge out there, its not hard to learn. I learnt most of my cooking tips from tiktok, there's some really good creators on there who teach you in ways that are easy to learn. I found the best way to learn how to cook (for me) was to understand WHY we did XYZ thing rather than just remembering certain cooking steps. I read Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat which was extremely useful. Im a much better cook because I now understand the processes behind what I'm doing so I can amend things using intuition and not religiously follow recipes - I roasted a duck the other day for the first time and loosely followed a recipe but tbh mostly did it myself purely from what I have learnt on how to break down proteins with bicarb soda, remove moisture and create crispy skin when I do chicken/pork belly etc.

I am also not afraid to use salt or MSG or fats and have probably 10 different kinds of cooking fats in the house depending on ehat I'm cooking 😂

Overeating for kids is rife though, a different eating disorder.

I often wonder this, I mean who the hell is agreeing to go on tv and get flamed and humiliated I remember this tv show big families on benefits or something I wonder if the people on it were just told it was about big families but not benefits. I remember the voice over flaming them “she lives in her benefits house in her benefits town with her benefits dogs and benefits kids” 🤣

I was on holiday in Tenerife over Xmas and spent a day in a water park. It was mostly fast food type options, and as I'm gluten intolerant I did wish I'd brought something with me other than Trek bars, but on the menu even of the kiosk type offerings were a salad and a fruit salad. When I bought the salad it was clearly freshly made on the premises and it was tasty and inexpensive. They were well stocked with pots of fruit salad too. I don't generally go to theme parks in the UK but I don't think many do that. The airport was the same.

It does show the culture difference I think.

@soupyspoon what does that have to do with my post?

You missed the bit where the son was copying the dad eating the pot noodles and the kids were eating chocolate etc - they switched to fruit snacks at the end.

You’re absolutely right of course.

These days there’s so much tempting junk available.

@Needlenardlenoo yes there is a cultural difference.

Some of the food on offer here is shit. I like McDonalds/BK so am not fussy or scared of calories but somewhere like Legoland sells horrible food. I always bring packed lunch for trips to theme parks etc

Obviously it is. I’m not stupid.