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!

You sound horribly judgmental to be honest.

No, it’s unrefined sugar. White sugar is refined.

im pretty sure anyway.

Come on...if you are actually saying it's work to prepare a healthy sandwich there is no help for you.

I think I have a similar life to you OP - also working, also have four kids. My 'disability' is ADHD which does make it harder for me to plan meals and get organised.

We mostly manage to do home cooking, but I am very conscious that both DH and I were brought up in households where that was the norm. We do have the odd oven pizza, ready meal or takeaway.

I think it's probably also quite bad for children to be brought up by judgemental parents tbh. You don't know everyone else's circumstances and I am sure there are things about your parenting that other people would raise an eyebrow to... that's not me casting aspersions, simply saying that it often seems mothers can't win, and I am sure all of us do something in our parenting that some others might look at and say - wonder why they do it that way?

You do you. Let them be.

There are a lot of families where the parents never learned to cook properly.
It's quite a thing to admit and quite daunting to start. You sometimes see threads on here from grown adults who are asking such basic cooking questions it's obvious no-one ever taught them. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know.

I think one of the big problems with helping people cook their children balanced and home cooked food is the narrative around what makes a 'proper meal'

When I grew up, egg on toast or beans on toast or omelette/flan, sardines, jacket potatoes, soup, these were all evening meals

Today if someone on here posted a meal plan that involved these meals they would be shouted down as not feeding their child enough, too much bread, blah blah blah

The simple meal is now considered some sort of insult, basic foods and basic cooking is not considered as a proper meal

If you're not doing some sort of poached harissa salmon or couscous with smoked tofu, or a full curry or chilli or tacos or something, you're considered feeding your children badly

So what do people reach for, they reach for a pre prepared 'fancy' meal

When they coujld have just thrown together a soup or stew or something on toast which would be lower calorie, home cooked, portion controlled and cheap.

We need to help people get back to basic cooking. Meat and 2 veg that most people turn their noses up and sneer at as being beneath them.

Frozen food isn’t necessarily bad food plus you can combine some processed food with home cooked to make it overall healthy eg frozen breaded chicken escalopes with mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans (all cooked fresh) with a sauce made from flour, milk, a chicken stock cube, frozen spinach and dried oregano is filling, cheap (chicken escalopes are approx £2 for 4) and easy, no special skills required. Definitely under £5 to feed 4. Chopped tomatoes are processed but a good use tins, frozen peas actually have more nutrients. Watch Jamie Oliver’s meals for £5 for some inspiration but also combining a bit of convenience with fresh

Yes.
😁

@Alltheyellowbirds unless she was buying specifically unrefined sugar from a health food shop, it wasn’t. Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added to it and that’s what you buy in the supermarket.

Even if it was some special unrefined sugar it makes almost no difference. Both are nutritionally rubbish and metabolised in a similar way.

So I’ve found out you can freeze black bananas and microwave them when you want them. Really helpful for porridge, pancakes, muffins etc without forcing them to stay on your kitchen top attracting flies.

I mean, it is work. Not a lot of work, admittedly, but work nonetheless.

I don’t think money is the main issue. I think time/kids pickiness are probably the biggest factors. I have 3 kids and whilst I try my absolute best to feed them healthy foods, trying to get meals that all of them will eat is tough. I have to do a different variation for each of them. But they always have veg with dinner. Having a variation is great but if your child will only eat 2 or 3 veggies giving them that everyday is fine.

You don't know what you don't know and that is an inescapable fact. I was raised on fish fingers and findus crispy pancakes and spent my early 20s eating bacon sandwiches and tinned macaroni after a vegetarian spell. I didn't know that salads, despite loving them, could be any more exotic than a basic garden salad I didn't know vegetables, despite loving them, could be any more exotic than carrots and parsnips. I didn't know pasta could be more than macaroni or spaghetti bolognese. So while I'm a lot further forward than that now, it actually took a lot of unpicking and working out what I needed to know before I knew it.

I read Poor by Katriona O'Sullivan and this point was reinforced when she spoke about not knowing anything about dental hygiene. You don't know what don't know and you don't magically know what you need to know. Society much prefers to judge and mock than acknowledge we have massive education gaps.

LTB

It's not just about knowing what to eat. It's about knowing what the right foods are. Finding recipes everyone likes. Having the cooking skills to be able to make things. Having the kitchen space, utensils or appliances needed. Lots of deprived families don't have these things, or are genuinely poorly educated around food.
UPF and convenience foods have their place in terms of health. When I was in absolute stress/overload/burnout, premade meals massively helped my mental health as it took off part of the load.

Upbringing and culture can also play a part - what you are used to and accept as normal growing up, people often continue in those patterns. Some people will find it extremely hard because they are literally addicted to the UPFs due to the sugar or salt content and how they are made to make you want more.

Obviously poor and lazy parenting also can be a reason, or contribute. In which case I totally agree with you.

It can be extremely cheap and easy to eat healthily - fruit, jacket potatoes like you say, meat and fresh veggies. Oats or eggs for breakfast. Lots of frozen foods are super convenient these days too. So if people are willing to learn, it shouldn't be a problem once it's highlighted.

This is so true. We used to have much simpler expectations of what a meal was, and it was much less intimidating to learn to cook a baked potato or sardines on toast than the stuff we all expect to eat now.

I think you're part of the problem

Would you say the same if the parents were sitting about smoking weed or taking crack?

Its the food equivalent.

People may know what to eat but not how to cook.
The cheapest food in terms of pence per calorie is custard creams.
The most expensive is lettuce.
If you are on a limited budget and want to fill up your kids with food they will definitely eat, which would you choose?

No, brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added, it’s no healthier.

I think the issue is that the adults might never have learned to cook or eat well, and so don’t or aren’t able to teach their kids. Those kids, without intervention, will go on to raise their children the same way.

This is really where schools or government need to step in. There are lots of skills that some families are unable to give their kids, through active neglect or ignorance. In that case, the system needs to be set up to feed their kids at least one healthy meal a day, and teach them the skills necessary to cook and eat well when they enter adulthood. I’m not sure if it’s changed now, but cookery classes didn’t feature at all when I was at school, and I knew a fair number of children who couldn’t so much as boil an egg.

What on earth? Obviously being off your face on drugs affects parenting rather more than relying on ready meals. What an odd comment.

Sugar is sugar is sugar. It doesn't matter if its 'refined' or not. Even honey is basically sugar. Brown sugar tastes nicer, honey ( but only if its raw local homey) has some anti bacterial agents in it, but its all the same stuff once its eaten and digested. It turns to glucose in the same way. I think this is part of the problem, that there is so much conflicting information out there that you feel like everything is nonsense.

Please tell me how it isn’t?

I’d genuinely love to know.

For a Thursday healthy packed sandwich style lunch I currently reckon it’s:

• Go to shop on Wednesday night, because fresh bread doesn’t last that long from the weekend main shop.
• At some other point, do the prep so that theres suitable sandwich filling available. Geberally by buying salad (straight forward), and cooking and portioning protein to containers / freezer (ideally leftovers from roasts).
• plate, knife and chopping board out.
• ingreidents out, slice protein, slice salad, spread bread, assemble sandwich, wrap sandwich,
• Re wrap sandwich ingredients properly and put away.
• pack it and accompanying bits adequately so dont spill all over work bag (or get warm and turn vile in the summer).
• wash up and put away utensils
• the get home and wash up and put away the lunch containers.

Whilst also trying to wrangle a pre school child out of the door and sort breakfast for both of you. Before 07:30.

That’s a lot more effort than walk into Sainsbury’s, grab three things off shelf next to door. Bleep phone. Return to desk. Eat from packets. Bin wrappers.

It’s not impossible, but it’s an easy thing to swap when Theres a lot going on.

Pretending that Theyre the same isn’t helpful or realistic.

All kids have cooking lessons at school until the GCSE years, they are taught the basics of food and nutrition. They have done forever, no one is leaving school with no food education. It doesn’t mean they take it in and use that knowledge, but it is there.

You can also blend frozen bananas with peanut butter in a nutri bullet (or food processors) and it makes a type of ice cream. It's lovely!! If you like bananas !!