The MN food guilt phenomenon

[emkana]

Tonight I am serving my children

Bird's Eye chicken dippers
Bird's Eye fish fingers
McCain Oven chips
Broccoli
Heinz Baked Beanz

I feel that my mind has been twisted so much that I actually feel bad at producing such a "poor" dinner. But that's silly, isn't it? I mean it's 100 % chicken breast (plus batter, 100 % cod (plus batter), potatoes and sunflower oil...

Haven't managed to make it to the end but some great comments from issymum and Dara and I'm confident there are other sane MNetters here too.

Moondog the viciousness of your opinion feels unecessary and sadly misplaced in this environment. What a pity to degenerate to that level. Since you have I might as well enjoy something similar, though I hope I'll manage to be slightly less aggessive and unpleasant.

I imagine that since you feel so strongly the only spare time you have must surely be spent dedicating your life to the cause. For my money, organic is a luxury afforded only to the wealthy and pseudo liberals do the entire population and debates about healthy eating a huge disservice. Anyone with a family knows that there is fine balance to be struck between the various areas of family life - trying to actually earn money, bringing your kids up balanced and educated, spending constructive/any time with your kids, your parnter, friends & family or just taking a little time for yourself, are all part and parcel of the struggles of the day to day. I believe these are just as important elements to get right as feeding your kids well.

Research is starting to show that hectoring through the media, of the kind demonstrated by Moondog, is actually encouraging vast swatches of the population to stop listening to any messages at all about improving their diets and lifestyle. Nutrition is indeed a social issue, but it's not just about animal welfare. I'm afraid I just believe animals, and fish, come lowest in the pecking order when we're talking about the health of future generations. Sorry Cod.

PS Mine's a Big Mac Moondog.

not much to add here that hasn't already been said, but to echo that DH, who was brought up by a couple of food nazi parents, who STILL boast that they never allow oven chips into the house (boasting that they were supportive caring people may be something more to crow about, but would be untrue), and both DH and his sister are complete junky freaks even 20 years later and would still eat crap every night if allowed. I, on the other hand, was brought up with a single parent who sometimes had to throw chicken drummers (and faoogots - remember them - definitely vaginas if not worse in them!) in the oven as we got back far too late to defrost healthy stuff, in those pre microwave days, let alone cook from scratch, and although I like the occasional fish finger etc, am not obsessed with them. So my deduction from that is that it is more important to give your children a balance and the odd 'quick and easy throw on a baking tray' meal is absolutely fine. And what a luxurious position we all are in to be able to agonise over this stuff...... Also, on the fussy eaters front, DS1 turned his nose up at all Annabel karmel lovingly homecooked and purred food for 2 years and lived on bread and yoghurt. I danced around the house the day he consented to actually leave a chicken dipper on his plate, let alone eat it!

kylester you had a very similar dinner time to me LOL!

Dh and I rarely row (coz we both never back down and its not worth it) but we;'re tired so.... I did them sweet potato and celeriac mash (veg box LOL) with a sort of garlicky bean casserole thing, whislt simultaneously banging every tin / utensil/ door and being V V annoyed.

Not that he noticed- too busy staring at the bloody nintendo.

Bah. Blinkin thing. Might serve that curried tomorrow.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Brains faggots. Did you know that they take 4 mins to microwave now? Yummylicious.

Cratchit - hear hear! I do firmly believe in animal welfare but the way to deal with the issue is at government level, not by guilt tripping parents who are just trying to do the right thing by their children.

Cratchit - good post - particularly agree with the 'switching off'.

I'd be interested in how many of those who go organic for it's nutritional value actually look after their body in other ways - exercise and alcohol intake in particular. It's all about balance (as I'm not allowed to mention moderation ).

I agree largely with cratchit but I do think organic tastes better especially carrots. Back home in Ireland there is no need to buy organic as the less intensive farming methods produce better tasting stuff.

Good post Cratchit.

Sn child aside (I do have one NT and one non food problemed one as well y'know ) I find that the best way to alleviate guilt for me is to do my best

Sometimes my best ids slapping oven chips in becuase I want to take them somewhere special to help boost their store of special memories for when they grow up, or becuase I am just shattered after juggling far too much - I am after all now working one day a week as well as full time Uni, Dh and kids. The vast majority of the time I make something nice (not always 100% home made) from whatever is in the veg box. free range food is out for basic financial reasons, but I do my best as an imperfect person.

I suspect pretty much all mothers are the same, there will always be a top and bottom subsection who do not represent the majority in any way.

If you do your best, you have no need to feel bad.

Resurrecting this thread as, after reading it, I wrote to Birds Eye to ask about the welfare of the animals used in their products. Got a reply this morning so I thought I'd share:

"Thank you for your recent email.

All of the birds that we use in our products are grown to the highest animal welfare standards in barns.

Our relationship with our suppliers is very important to us. Each has a copy of our code of business principles and undertakes to operate in a manner that is consistent with them. Each plant has to provide evidence in the form of an audit report that they are operating to either the higher BRC or EFSIS standard and each has an active, animal welfare programme.

These welfare programmes look at all aspects of the integrated supply chain from feed through to the abattoir and are often conducted in conjunction with an academic partner such as one of the major universities.

I hope this has reassured you about our products."

I was actually fairly impressed with that - I know it's not all organic, skipping in the fields, but at least they seem to have a clear policy and do take the welfare of the animals into consideration.

We normally can't afford organic/free range (excepting eggs and milk, although I do get it if I can) and tend as compromise to at least get the RSPCA label (I know many think that it doesn't go far enough, but at least it's better than nothing, right?).

From,
The Bath-Reared Duck.

I haven't read the whole thread but I have to leap to oven chips defence. I have visited the McCain factory and the process goes:
Lorries of potatoes covered in earth arrive. They are washed in water through long pipe things under the floor. They are chopped by a machine and then fried in sunflower oil. They are frozen There is nothing extruded about them and nothing else added.
And by the way McCains also make McDonalds chips and they are made in exactly the same way. The only reason they are worse for you than oven chips is because they are fried twice (once at macCains and once at Mac Ds) and covered in that salty stuff at MacDs but they are 100% potato.....
rant over