Is there a website which advises on the healthiness (or not) of food?

[jamiesam]

Sorry if this sounds like I can't think for myself.

But there's just so much to know. Unless you take the view that NO processed food will cross your threshold, then what is it we're feeding our kids? Sometimes, I look at the ingredients list and wonder WHAT THE HELL is that? I often have no idea if I'll be feeding the boys something that's the equivalent of salt (ie harmless in small quantities) or a potential carcinogen - or both.

For example, facetiously, why are turkey twizzlers so bad? Which is the best alternative.

Slightly more sensibly, I've taken to buying my boys yogurt covered raisins but wonder if dark chocolate covered raisins would be better for them?

Sorry if this done to death on millions of other threads, had a quick search but didn't find what I was looking for...

Organix website has a list that they call the dirty dozen which are food aditives that are a completely no no for children. I think that you only need tocheck at the ingredientes to see if things are good for example if you buy chicken fingers and it says that they only have 30% chicken, what's the rest of the stuff?

dirty dozen

From the organix web site:

These additives have been linked to hyperactivity, asthma, and more serious health problems and are common in fizzy drinks, ?diet? products, sweets and savoury processed foods.

The Dirty Dozen of artificial additives are those additives commonly seen in children?s food where there are proven risks to the health of children. This is the list:

COLOURINGS

1. Quinoline Yellow E104
2. Brilliant Blue E133
3. Sunset Yellow E110
4. Carmoisine E122
5. Ponceau 4R E124
6. Indigo Carmine E132

ARTIFICIAL SWEETEENERS
7. Aspartame E951
8. Saccharine E954
9. Acesulfame K E950

FLAVOUR ENHANCER
10. Monosodium Glutamate E 621

PRESERVATIVES
11. Sodium Benzoate E211
12. Sulphur Dioxide E220

Mind you, Monosodium glutamate is omnipresent!

-gulps-

the can of diet doctor pepper I'm drinking has both aspartame and acesulfame! Good job I don't let ds drink it!

yeah, until recently, the boys were having quite a bit of robinsons no added sugar squash. Chock full of aspartame and saccharin. Now have very very dilute fruit juice. I guess I thought that as they grew up they could have more 'adult' stuff. But then I remember that ds2 is only 21mths and ds1 never had squash so young.

Sorry, forget to say thanks for that Chandra

but, but, but... as it happens, I've never bought frozen chicken thingies, but I do buy the boys crisps, sausages, pizza, for once a week treats. Have vague feeling I've read somewhere that crisps are bad bad bad but can't remember why - given that boys are allowed more fat than me, and I can buy salt free crisps. Also, seem to remember that for preservatives, frozen sausages are better then fresh - but then wonder if ingredients not likely to be so good in frozen. There's loads of this stuff swimming round in my head and I don't know whether it's true/what to do with it. I do know I'm not going to go down the 'no processed food' route, but wish I could get reliable information to compare. When I'm at the supermarket, the boys just aren't going to cope if I spend ages trying to work out which yogurt has the least sugar in. When they KNOW that they want Thomas yogurt only

Sugar is not a baddy. White processed sugar doesn't cause behavioural problems - it's very pure. It's the other stuff that's in sugar laden food that causes the problems. Okay it rots teeth and it's empty calories, but limited to meal times, good brushing and lots of running around it's not as bad as people think.

Crisps are "bad" because the oil often has a preservative in - and a lot of oil means a lot of preservative. Flavoured crisps are chock full of all those E numbers shown below. Some crisps are healthier than others.

So ignore "low fat", "low sugar" labels as these are often full of something else to make up for it, and instead buy the product with the least or no preservatives.

Sue Dengate has written some good books which debunk the sugar=bad philosophy. Apparently Amazon have them.

I recently got an email called 'Aspartame - the Silent Killer' .... it is long but I can copy and paste it if you like. Bloody scary stuff and would make anyone think twice about eating or drinking anything with substitute sugars.
We never drink or drink anything with preservatives in them if we can help it ....

There is some controversary about this (see refutes on the World Sugar Organisation website ).

But high Sugar diets, esp. sucrose (what you mainly have in white sugar) especially, are implicated in heart disease (some say it's as bad as high a fat diet ). And dental decay and obesity , and cancer ... lots of bad things , really.

Risks of high-fructose/dextrose/similar intake .

Crisps are high in salt; high salt diets are implicated in high blood pressure, early kidney failure, other bad health indicators .

(but I would rather give my children real sugar, too, rather than asparatame... just don't see it as a perfectly safe option, either)

I don't think allowing some processed food is a disaster.

That being said, if I want to work out if something is actual food, I read the ingredients. Are they all things I recognize as food?

Then I look at the nutritional information. I want the sugar value to be reasonably low. I like food with a reasonable amount of protein and/or fibre.

Kid's site for good/bad foods.

Netmums .

This too .

I don't think there's a lot of difference between chocolate & yogurt covered raisins, myself....

Thanks, especially lljkk - that's a serious linking habit you've got there! Am now off to read it all for the next three weeks....

Its a minefield trying to buy good food for kids but also trying not to go OTT by banning all processed food etc. I can remember eating all kinds of junk as a kid so would like dd to be able to enjoy her childhood in the same way but at the same time am worried about the effect of the food on her. Have to say tho that I think that the reason I remember sweets etc so fondly is that as a child we didnt get them that often and only every got a few (sharing between 6 means not many each)so I think Ill be doing similar with dd. Actually thinking about making fudge this weekend if I get time mmmmmmmmmmm.

I suppose that I do want spoon feeding a bit on this. I know most of the foods that are likely to be potential baddies. I think sometimes I get a bit pissed off when I realise I've been had by the labelling - along the lines of the '90% fat free' = 10% fat = high in fat.

Tarantula - sounds like you're going into mass baby production? Spiders do have big families don't they.

lol js Just reread my message I have NO intention of following in my mum footsteps. Im sticking with 1 (and dss pt). Ill just be rationing the sweets on the basis of 5 to me and 1 to dd to get round her being a single. Sounds fair to me.

Ghosty, I would like to have a look at the Aspartame article. (anything to makeme leave my addiction for diet Coke!)

There was a debate about this subject on the radio some time back. Two points that the nutritionist made really stuck in my memory as being good common sense:-

1. that burgers and chips are not a bad diet; what is bad is burgers and chips EVERY DAY.
2. if you don't have the ingredients in your store cupboard (or could find them in the supermarket) then they're probably not a good thing. Also, the Food Standards Agency has quite a good website \link{http://www.food.gov.uk}

It is really really long Chandra ... shall I CAT you? Then I can email it to you .......
I can cut and paste it if you prefer!