Does a stew count as a healthy meal?

[TheGrinchIsComingToTown]

I'm having a bit of a debate with my mum.

I've made a chicken stew - chicken breast, carrots, peas, onions, potato and gravy.

She says it doesn't count as being "healthy", because of the potatoes. I think it does, because it's got a ton of veg and protein in it.

Basically just that. In the winter my healthy meal staples are stews and soups, but now I feel like they're not actually that good 😅

The stew sounds very healthy. However it depends on portion sizes, etc
Of course it may also depend on how many potatoes are in the stew compared to the chicken.
If you are trying to lose weight, the fewer calories are a good idea, but I would cut out the extra roll and butter.
If you bought it as a fully prepared meal / or microwave meal, then I would check the ingredients, as supermarket ready meals often contain hidden ingredients that would not enable one to lose weight easily..

Yeah it’s definitely healthy. I usually make it unhealthy by adding bread and butter on the side but hey ho.

Yes, it’s healthy, a well balanced filling nutritious meal. But it’s not ‘diet food’ and for some people ‘healthy’ = ‘diet food’. I too come from a family where a filling nutritious meal cooked with whole foods, from scratch, with carbs and healthy fats would cause anxiety. But all sorts of ultra processed foods and a weight loss shake would not.

Crusty sourdough with real butter on the side 🤤

Yes it's healthy Which meals would your mum cal healthy

People have eaten stews for hundreds of years and were perfectly well, strong and healthy. It's not stew, nor the potatoes, that makes an unhealthy lifestyle. Bread and butter aren't unhealthy either. Unless you're like me and could eat a loaf to yourself! 😁😁

What you make sounds more like a soup. For a stew or casserole you cook the meat and vegetables together on one pot. Why does adding raw meat make you feel sick? All meat is raw until it is cooked and it is well cooked in a stew or casserole.

Agreed. The OP's method makes sense as a way of using up leftover roast chicken, gravy and vegetables, but not as a way to use raw ingredients. It would be so much quicker and easier (and tastier) to cook the chicken with the veg from the outset without putting in all the extra steps. Chicken breast doesn't need much cooking. Chicken thighs, which are tastier, need a touch more, but are still a lot quicker than beef or lamb.

Of course it's healthy. Calorie content of a food or meal is immaterial in general. It's the speed at which the carbs are broken down and absorbed that is crucial - it's called the Glycemic index. High GI foods/meals get broken down quickly and cause a spike in BSL, low GI foods do it more slowly and cause less of a spike, thus reducing the amount of insulin needed. By the way (food fact coming up) if you cook potatoes/rice/pasta twice, cooling it down between cookings the calorie content is reduced!

I love that this thread has become a MN stew-recipe off.

OP, it sounds healthy and delicious to me. The sourdough and butter on the side sounds good too! I think your DM is wrong to be so hung up over potatoes and slimming. It really depends on your approach to losing weight. They are a free food on slimming world for example.

@Whoarethoseguys it's not a soup. It's a stew, get over it

Who gives a shit if she calls it a stew or not 😂, why is everyone falling over themselves to put the OP in her place and to show they they’re superior cooks? The question was whether the meal she cooks would be considered healthy.

If the whole thread is about a stew and whether how it's made and what it's made of is healthy or not, it doesn't seem wildly unreasonable to comment on how it's made and whether it's a stew or not.

Rubbish. People just like to feel superior. In the opening post, the OP is clear that she’s asking whether the meal she cooks is healthy, as her mum says it isn’t. What it’s called is entirely irrelevant.

Actually @TheGrinchIsComingToTown this is a good question.
What does your mum recommend?!

Stouwp

She thinks low carb and low calorie = healthy, she won't eat anything fatty (even butter or something like that), her meals are mainly some form of protein and pickled vegetables

She does, however, indulge a lot in things like mince pies, biscuits etc., but ignores that she's eating them and thinks her meals are healthy!

Pickled veg is usually high in salt btw

She also says things like avocado on sourdough toast with eggs (usually poached, somethings scrambled with a little bit of real butter), is unhealthy, because of the bread

@ChickenNuggetFromSpencies everything's high in something, it's not the end of the world

I know. But you can fire it back when she moans about your potato😉

@ChickenNuggetFromSpencies I'd rather fire the potato at her 🤣 just thought I was going mental because how on earth is chicken, veg and potato bad for you

I get you. I look down at potato haters.
It has good fibre, vit c, potassium etc!
Only issue might be for diabetics if it is overcooked as the glycemic content changes.
It's ine if the most versite things out there!
Mash, roast, boil, fry, make vodka😂

I honestly don't understand the glycemic thing, I'm trying to nail down just basic nutrition first and then go from there 🤣

Sounds healthy to me. It’s not carb free though so maybe that’s what she means.