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’re probably right, normally I would use fresh veg and but literally no time this morning. But then I would argue it’s better than some alternatives. Any veg is better than none, whether it’s straight from the garden, fresh from the supermarket, frozen, or from a tin.

I empathise with the poster who said about the judgement on here. I think there’s extremes of attitudes to food, when most people are muddling in the middle.

Oooh food "but olympics"! Has anyone said yet that pulses are a no go because they don't have time to soak them?

You're right. I'm not saying a good diet isn't preferable but it can be very easy to sit in smug middle class judgement when you haven't lived on the breadline and edges of society. In those places there is no good food/bad food, just hungry or not. A pack of 35p noodles from Aldi takes minimum budget, requires next to no facilities or gadgets, is low cost to prepare and is better than nothing if you are desperate.

Exactly!

you need to make a bingo card for threads like these about

food, dieting, sugar

But I honestly don’t understand why people don’t try.

Because trying takes time. It costs money. It often requires new equipment and knowledge. And then you have to be sure your children are going to actually eat what you've spent time making.

@PattiPatty my sister is the same age and was taught how to cook and nutrition in food tech. She learnt knife skills, pasta cooking, fruit salad, how to cook chicken, made custard from scratch.

i was in secondary school in the 90s and learnt quite similar.

I know the cooking syllabus in secondaries has been very similar for the last ten years.

My son is in secondary now, he did make wraps in y7 but these had to involve protein and vegetables and the nutrition was discussed and explained.

It’s a shame your child wasn’t taught properly, I wonder if that can be extrapolated to other schools or my examples can?

2015 a framework was released that outlines in detail what should be covered in food classes.

I agree about porridge. A big bag of unbranded is very cheap. You can microwave it with water and top up with a bit of milk. Half a sliced banana and a bit of chopped apple and that’s a great breakfast for kids. My adult son still has this for breakfast. Very cheap.

On many a thread on here people are simply using UPF to describe any and all types of food. People havent a got a clue

And thats another, thing, you have people going on about chucking out their oxo cubes and tomato ketchup etc, to extremes in my view and then somneone who is trying to learn how to improve their kids diets are going to be completely bamboozled by this rubbish.

Atlhough why people think they need stock cubes or sachets of spice mixes is another whole thread.

It depends on the brown sugar: Muscovado is unrefined and still has the molasses in. 'Dark brown sugar' has had it taken out and put back in. Better flavour for baking (IMO) but still sugar, not a health product. Demerara sugar still has some natural molasses in it.

I’m not getting at you, we’re all doing the best we can. I pointed it out because your post said there’s no excuse, everyone should be making an effort…and it’s just not that simple. You’re making a home-cooked meal with some processed ingredients…some people would consider that no better than chicken nuggets and spaghetti hoops. Some parents feel they’ve done well if they manage a bit of tinned sweetcorn instead of the spaghetti hoops, but there’s always someone ready to say it doesn’t count as veg because it comes in a tin and has additives. “Making an effort” means different things to different people, and it’s complicated.

This. Refined sugar or unrefined sugar… it’s glucose,fructose or sucrose. And it all acts the same in the body. It’s sugar.

My DS is borderline overweight according to NHS guidelines. You can see his ribs. I never thought I'd be that mum but I really do doubt the obesity figures now. No wonder we can't see the overweight toddlers if they look like mine!

Or just make it with milk… kids need the calcium and choline in milk. They don’t need to be on a diet.

Tell me you don’t know the definition of UPF without telling me. Everything in your second paragraph is incorrect.

I had friends growing up who ate freezer food and beans or peas every night for tea. When they went to uni, they knew how to cook, if cooking involved putting something on an oven tray or putting something in the microwave. We didn't learn in school about the food groups or the importance of a balanced diet. Many of those people now have kids - I imagine there will be many of them who are simply eating (and therefore feeding their children) the same way they ate and were fed. It's easy to act shocked about it when you've been brought up with not only an understanding of why it's important, but also an awareness of how to do those things - if you only know how to microwave stuff, even chopping some veg can seem faffy or something that people like you don't do or even daunting.

I would love it if my child ate the same meals as myself, but unfortunately it isn't that easy. I am a decent cook so it isn't bad cooking, he refuses a lot of meals purely on the smell which he is very sensitive too.

He has got better overtime and will now eat some home cooked meals, but not everything. I resort to something in the freezer like fish fingers at times. He is a very healthy, happy child so I have no concerns. People on here can judge all they like.

@CremeEggsForBreakfastyoure confusing processed food (food that’s changed and processed in any way including home cooking) and ULTRA processed food (food that’s altered through processes and ingredients that are not possible/available in a domestic kitchen)

I get it too and appreciate what you’re saying. I was just giving an example of an ‘easy’ meal (as opposed to a ‘good’ meal) as I think that the challenge in many people’s lives is time and money. I think a lot is to do with my perception of what makes a meal healthy and perhaps I hadn’t factored in the salt content in this case, or the amount of processed food. But I would hope it’s a better alternative to some other foods (such as takeaways). Maybe it’s not and that’s the issue

Apples and bananas go out of date. Crisps last ages. Apples and bananas can have grotty stuff going on inside that makes kids reject them. Crisps are gloriously consistent. I can see why families on a budget would rather buy stuff that will absolutely be guaranteed to be eaten.

And I think everyone knows what good food looks like, and what is good for them. We are all taught that at school.

Most adults weren't taught just how bad UPF is though, or how much of what we eat is in fact overly processed. A jar of Dolmio pasta sauce might not be anywhere near as good for you as a bolognese made from scratch, but I genuinely don't believe many parents would consider that they're feeding their kids' ultra-processed food if they served up a spag bol with sauce from a jar.

So I vote YABU, and I wouldn't judge people for not knowing just how bad the food they are feeding themselves or their kids.

I judge the food industry and its lack of regulation until recently for landing us here.

They really aren't. Crisps are full of fat and salt, all taste purely of that, and don't fill you up at all, or provide any nutrients whatsoever. If you really do think they're great, you probably grew up in one of those houses where people couldn't be bothered to cook and believe that shit 'food' is fun. And that's a shame for you.
I do eat crips sometimes, but it's not food. It's more like wine!

Banana's and apples, on the other hand are great, as they are cheap, filling, portable, and contain nutrients your body needs.

I think a lot of it is due to lack of education.

I’m vegan and eat incredibly clean. No UPF’s, everything homemade, track every macro etc.

However I acknowledge not everyone can eat like me for numerous reasons.

Mainly lack of education . Either from schools or they grew up (usually in poverty) where cheap UPF freezer foods where the go to. Lots of time poor people have never been taught how to cook. My food bill is actually very cheap, however if I didn’t know how to cook then I imagine it would be very high.

There are lots of people who resort to cheap UPF foods who are poorer and think that this is all they can eat as they haven’t been taught how to eat anything else within their budget. People also aren’t educated on what a normal portion size is. If you’ve grown up with generational obesity you don’t realise how little food we actually need to survive. My Mum is obese and her portion sizes are insane. I am a normal weight and eat normal sized meals and she thinks I eat like a mouse.

Some people also need convenience foods for a multitude of reasons and unfortunately not many of them available are healthy.

People also have no idea of healthy vs unhealthy. My Grandma is overweight and constantly wants to lose weight but when I suggest foods to her won’t eat them. She refuses to eat fruit as “it’s full of sugar”, yet will happily eat 4 slices of Warburtons with lurpack for breakfast.

Theres no comparison to the casserole recipe that the poster set out, to spaghetti hoops and chicken nuggets, dont be disengenuous

Rightly or wrongly, I never assume that tins of veg are full of sugar and salt because I personally, if buying tinned stuff, dont buy it with sugar and salt

Tomatoes for example dont have sugar and salt added to them but many a thread on here lumps them in as UPFs sometimes.

If there is salt in a tin of sweetcorn for example, it would simply be in the place of salt I would use in a recipe in any case.

Presumably people don’t, though, or there’s some reason that’s stopping them.

Getting exasperated at people instead of understanding the hurdles isn’t going to help. People will just be put off.

It seems a deficiency of crisps in the diet can lead to a loss of sense of humour?