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!

Ive had to find real cheats in many recipes to avoid using my food processor. I hate setting it up, avoiding slicing my fingers on the blades, washing the thing up (because I wont allow it in the dishwasher, probably my fault but I know dishwashers ruin things)

So where possible I take alternative routes. However my red cabbage definitely needs it and I need to make another batch soon.

But as you say, someone like me who rarely follows or even uses a recipe, feels confident to do that like you, but someone else would slavishly follow the recpe and never do it again, its too onerous.

There are massive amounts of fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices that can be purchased frozen. They are not UPFs and usually at a decent price point. Frozen sofritto makes my life much easier and costs not a huge amount more than fresh.

How do you get your kids to eat properly?

Mine are 8 and 10 and getting worse!

The list of things they won't eat is much much longer than the list of things they will eat.

What they like one week they won't eat the next.

I buy fruit, one day they inhale it, the next they won't touch it.

I use the too ripe bananas to make muffins/banana bread-wont touch them.

Porridge oats to make flapjack-wont touch it

My eldest will eat eggs, beans, porridge, youngest won't.

They won't touch a jacket potato.

Sausages are a no

Bolognese-youngest will only eat if it's "the same" all the time. Fruit wise he will eat apples and strawberries, nothing else. Vegetables only carrots and only with gravy.

Eldest will eat carrots, broccoli and corn on the cob, apples and bananas. No berries.

No shepherds pie, no fish pie. No rice.

Maybe it is laziness because I'm tired of thinking what to feed them that is remotely healthy. I've started making my own pizzas and I would happily cook all kinds of things, bake cakes but it's a pointless task and I end up either throwing it, eating it myself, or giving the various cakes to people at work.

It's exhausting and I know they are eating shit but I have no idea how to turn it around. I put carrot sticks and apples in their packed lunches and it comes back uneaten.

I'm so jealous of people who can give their kids a jacket potato with some carrot sticks on the side because it would be such an improvement for us.

They started on homemade purees and wouldn't touch the shop bought baby food I bought if we were out. Then I started giving them homemade things like risotto, salmon, bolognese, curry, rice and it was all going great until each hit 3 and it's been a battle since. They will genuinely go to bed with no dinner which really isn't good for them 😭

True, but 'edible food like substances' are bad.

Oh come on … seriously 🙄🤣 get up earlier on make it the night before 🤦🏻‍♀️ are you that incapable?!?

It's so hard isn't it. To be honest my little one can eat all the upf he wants if it means he's eating. People can judge away. I'd love to see how they would deal with that situation if it was their child.

Yep! There are kids walking into my son’s school eating sausage rolls from the Nisa next door! But there’s a cost of living crisis and parents on benefits can’t afford to feed their kids!!! 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Oh I see what you are saying now. You were meaning those ready mixed spice packets? I got the wrong end of the stick. I just have individual jars of spices that I use to season chicken, lamb etc. I do use stock cubes as well though, oxo cubes were a thing in my life growing up😄.

This is exactly what my son is like and he is currently on the pathway for an autism assessment. All the people judging have no idea how hard it is dealing with this kind of thing

do you think its a case of

its not my favourite food so im not eating it as I only want to eat my favourite foods?

My dds used to be similar - they'd like something one week and the next told me they didn't like it - so I sat down and we had a conversation about it and came to a compromise - which made my life much easier as I had a list of 5 meals they would eat and a list of their favourite foods

Yes you can but it costs more and not everyone has freezer space.

Well, and I will try to be brief because I could talk about food forever and ever, Im always cooking and looking at foods/recipes, it depends what you are talking about

If you're talking about a soup for example, I tend to save cooking juices from other meats, keep them in little pots in the freezer, fat and everything, I dont drain it off, and use chunks of that as the base with water. Then add spices and herbs from the cupboard. But you really dont need to. Ive just knocked up a vey quick soup, from 'leftovers'. My favourite type of soup, it has some roasted veg, carrot, spinach, bulgar wheat, I just chucked in herbs, spices, salt to taste. I do like a lot of salt.

If you're talking about a casserole, personally no, I wouldnt use a stock cube and if I didnt have any frozen juices, I would just add in things like a bit of wine, wine vinegar, soy, marmite, glug of this, glug of that, herbs, spices etc etc until I get the flavour I want

There are some which I wont scrimp on, so a french onion soup, food of the gods, really does need a beef bone broth as the base, otherise you dont get the right flavour

AT the moment, I have a nice little selection of chicken bones in the freezer, ready to boil up, I will portion that into pots of stock.

But, Im coming from a flavour and money perspective. I really dont think people need to pass out at the thought of a stock cube in UPF purposes.

Exactly.

It's also easy to be judgemental and smug when you don't have a child with SEND, several allergies or any other medical condition that can severely restrict what your child can eat.

I said YABU because actually it’s easy to slip into eating junk -especially UPFs - as a daily habit. I’ll use myself as an example:

Today, I had an omelette with veg and cheese for breakfast, but also a little chorizo, 1 x toast and marmalade - all UFPs.

For lunch I had tzatziki with supermarket pita bread - both UPFs. Also apple, cheese and raw nuts, admittedly these are healthy.

I had biscuits, tortilla chips and salsa as snacks (clearing Xmas party leftovers) - all UPFs. Actually because I’m type 1 diabetic my care team have encouraged me to have a biscuit when I breastfeed my baby, to maintain my blood sugar - that adds up to a lot of biscuits! Yesterday I had supermarket granola and Greek style yogurt as a snack, both UPFs I think.

Dinner will be fish, veg & rice - but as working parents it will be packet 2 min rice - another UPF. We’ll probably have a 10g of chocolate for pudding.

All the food groups, veg at every meal, but equally lots of junk. I could improve it, but ICBA atm.

Not all UPFs are created equally and I honestly do not believe it’s in anyone’s interest to try and eliminate all of them.

eschewing a tin of tomatoes because it’s got herbs in is absolutely madness.

living on reformed chicken and Thomas the tank engine shaped spaghetti with a side of coke and haribo is also madness.

Being guided to make better choices and swaps should be the aim.

costs more than what?

and some people don't have freezers so it wouldn't be suitable at all, others don't have ovens, but its an option for those that do and have some space

More than buying a single onion, carrot and a stick of celery. More than that. I don’t buy frozen sofrito because it is cheaper to make it myself. I’m on a budget.

Agree on all of the above.

Re this particular comment — ‘to cook from scratch you need the ingredients, which takes planning’ — I’d add that it takes confidence too; if you’ve grown up in house where home-cooked food wasn’t a thing, cooking from scratch can feel incredibly daunting.

The irony of being quite handy with the old insult yourself, bleating you say.

Disingenuous was the post, so I called it out. Sorry you didnt like it.

But doesn’t home made stock take hours to make from scratch? I’ve only done it a handful of times
It can take a while but you are not glued to the hob watching it!
Once it us simmering I can get on with other things oe even put my feet up fora bit!
If I make a very large portion I can freeze a good amount into individual portions so dont need take it so often.

It costs very little as I use 'scrappy bits', the peel from carrots, potatoes etc

I don't think the family were particularly atypical or extreme. Lots of people eat like this. They also seemed to be really nice people who care about their kids and work hard, and I agree with those saying there seemed to be a bit of a classist element to this show.

I think a lot of people just really don't have a clue about UPFs and nutrition. People who've been raised to take an interest think it's part of the normal landscape of life, but for people who've not been raised like that, it just isn't.

Have you been to McDonald's?

Did you specifically want fresh tomatoes? Always going to be more pricey but the flavour is different if thats what you wanted.

For cheaper, I would use tinned, nothing wrong with tinned toms, use plum if possible and mash them up yourself, more flavour and usually even cheaper as no one wants them.

Also its not in season for tomatoes so again, fresh are going to be more pricey

You could have added in a cheaper veg like carrot and made 6 portions to cut the price down.

I laughed a LOT at this. Thank you 🙏🏼

There’s food that’s bad for our bodies and mental health