What to put in kids' sandwiches now we're not allowed ham?

[Indiechic]

The dc love sandwiches and were happy to have cheese salad sandwiches and ham salad sandwiches in their lunchboxes. Now that the advice has changed and processed meat is a carcinogenic, what am I supposed to feed them? Is it just ham that the advice refers to? Can someone please enlighten me? I also know that chicken nuggets etc aren't particularly healthy, but are they all a carcinogen too? I'm a veggie who's not very good with food, so could really do with some help.

Everything in moderation. Just don't have ham everyday.
Egg or humus spring to mind - tuna.

Boring but mine now have the same cheese & salad sarnies everyday. I mix up the cheese though, melted mozzarella & pesto. Red Leicester & chutney etc etc. They used to have ham or salami almost every day
Chicken is still fine afaik

DD likes grated carrot with sunflower seed butter (you could use peanut butter, but she's allergic), or sliced banana with SS butter (latter's sweet, but OK occasionally).

Do they have to have sandwiches every day? Could you send them in with eg leftover pasta made into a salad?

Try this:

www.theppk.com/2013/07/chickpea-salad-sammiches/

You can make up a goodly amount and just pop it in daily. It really is amazing. You don't need to use vegan mayo obviously - just regular mayo does the job if you aren't vegan.

We get wafer thin chicken instead of ham.

Dd only eats ham in sandwiches. I make her a smoked ham sandwich plus cream crackers and cheese, grapes, satsuma, crisps and a homemade cake in her lunch box.

If your DC are not fussy there are tons of fillings for sandwiches by mixing chutneys, pickles and fillings;
Wensleydale and onion chutney (dm's preferred sandwich)
Cheese and tomato
Marmite ( and cheese according to db)
Beef
Chicken
Beef and roasted red peppers
Chicken and red currant jelly (better as a toastie with Brie).
Triple decker chicken salad sandwiches are DH's favourite.
Roasted veg wrap

Sliced roast chicken?

Is wafer thin chicken ok then? Obviously I know that all that plastic stuff can't be that good, but not akin to giving your kids cigarettes.

They are very young, and will only eat dry food. Anything wet like pasta sauce or gravy wouldn't be touched.

Yes, mine were having lots of ham as I was trying to give them protein. I just need something quick and cheap.

Thanks for the recipe ideas, I'll have a look

Are the packets of chicken, turkey, beef ok then?

You know the proper ham cut thinly off a joint - would that work? (Sorry I'm veggie)

That's what I was wondering, is a proper cut ok? However, as a veggie I wouldn't be buying and getting involved with joints of ham!! There's only so much meat I can handle

The bread is a processed food. Unless you do everything from scratch, and by that I mean growing the wheat, then every bit of food you eat is processed in some way.

Cheese is heavily processed.

People have eaten this stuff for centuries.

Just carry on with ham.

Exhaust fumes are carcinogenic - do you all wear gass masks when out and about?

I'm veggie. My children aren't. We get "proper ham" from the butcher. DH goes for it. The butcher rears and kills his own meat, and also sells other locally raised meat. He makes his own ham. I figure this is less processed than plastic ham. Similar cost too.

sclices roast meat.
vegan pate (free from aisle)

just don't have ham/processed meat every day

Quorn make a ham substitute that is very nice (IMO), could be worth trying to see if your children like it.

Butchers ham slices -delicious with beetroot.
Tuna and cucumber
Egg salad

the problem with ham is that during the curing process the problem occur.

'raw' meats (dried ham, salami) have a whole other host of issues, would only serve them once a month at most.

Read the statistics- eating ham means an increased risk but it is still a small absolute risk. You should be varying their diet anyway. According to cancer research

We know that, out of every 1000 people in the UK, about 61 will develop bowel cancer at some point in their lives. Those who eat the lowest amount of processed meat are likely to have a lower lifetime risk than the rest of the population (about 56 cases per 1000 low meat-eaters).

If this is correct, the WCRF’s analysis suggests that, among 1000 people who eat the most processed meat, you’d expect 66 to develop bowel cancer at some point in their lives – 10 more than the group who eat the least processed meat.

Source here