Gwyneth Paltrow and avoiding carbs for kids - what do you think?

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hi,

You may have read news stories today about Gwynneth Paltrow avoiding carbs for the whole family, including her children aged eight and six:

"Sometimes when my family is not eating pasta, bread or processed grains like white rice, we're left with that specific hunger that comes with avoiding carbs."

We'd be interested to hear what you think about this story.

Does your own diet influence the way you feed your children?

Thanks,

MNHQ

I'm fascinated by vegetarians who claim with a straight face that humans have not evolved to eat meat, although we have specific enzymes for digesting it and have teeth more adapting to cutting food (like carnivores) than grinding it (like herbivores). And also the fact that we are perfectly capable of digesting meat, of course.

The same people are also prone to claiming that we digest some beans and seeds (digested by bacteria in the gut, if at all) so much better than meat, which I expect would be laughable to anyone who has wiped them off a toddler's bottom fully intact.

Perfectly put Cote.

i think those in favour of eating well should form common cause against the tsunami of processed junk children are fed every day rather than squabbling between themselves.

I think home economics, combined with nutrition, in schools would be a huge step in the right direction. For every parent on here who cooks good, fresh food for their children, there are probably three parents who don't, so the cycle continues, unless these children are helped. There are some that break the cycle, but clearly many don't. This and portion control too. I am shocked by what some people eat in one sitting!

I think the squabbling is necessary. If we want to seriously combat the obesity problem we need to be realistic. Telling people they can fill up on double cream and cheese, rather than macaroni isn't feasible. Even if it wasn't the cost I simply only ever have double cream (or any cream) once in a blue moon. I also wouldn't serve up chicken with cauliflower in a very rich sauce in the same meal-and again it doesn't make sense on a budget.
If you seriously want to stop people gorging on burgers, deep crust pizza, fish, deep fried in batter etc you need to stop vilifying to potato, rice, pasta etc and concentrate on how they are cooked and portion size.
The idea that those living on junk food are going to change overnight to a slow cooked shin of beef (as suggested on here) served on a selection of vegetables (some of which they have never heard of) is laughable. (and many health conscious people don't want much red meat)
At least Jamie Oliver is working in the right direction -and he hasn't found it easy.

Very true exotic.

You also need to practice what you preach. GP saying that her DCs don't eat carbs and then letting them be photographed eating packets of crisps in the street rather negates her message!

Yes, but the poor could eat as I do. A nice meal is a tin of sardines some brown rice and a raw carrot. That is not an expensive meal. It is not that hard to eat well cheaply on unprocessed food.

No, a nice meal is not a tin of sardines, some brown rice and a raw carrot. It really quite strongly very much isn't.

Mind you I am descended, on my mother's side, from generations of people from the Indian sub-continent who do not and never will eat brown bloody rice. It's an affectation of the Western middle-classes, brown rice. I may be affected and middle-class, but even I draw the line somewhere.

Xenia-get real! You think you are going to get your average unhealthy person to change to brown rice, sardines and a carrot? and my DH says that I see the world through rose tinted spectacles............
If you want change you have to be realistic. I should think they would tell you what to do with your suggestion and it wouldn't be polite!
If it were that simple we would have a nation of very healthy people.

Even I wouldn't like it as a meal.

It's an affectation of the Western middle-classes, brown rice.

Nail on head there-most of the world hasn't got the luxury of fussing about what they eat.

The person that I know who is always banging on about diet, is a vegan and so extreme she couldn't eat out anywhere. She knows all about nutrition and what she needs to counteract lack of calcium in her diet etc and yet she is the one who has just had a hip replacement and yet she is only 4 years older than me and I am the one who has run half marathons!

A tin of sardines, some brown rice and a carrot is not a meal, it's a crime against aesthetics and the taste buds.

I tell you, Xenia, if you want a boyfriend you had better learn to cook

I love what I eat and I'm lucky never to be ill (so far touch wood). Some people think that only junk food is what they will ever like but it's just a question of that to which you are used.

Anywa if the poor want to eat themselves to death I suppose at least it will save their long term care bill from 75 - 100, which may be a great deal higher than a few years of diabetes and an early death.

If I owned a restaurant and wanted to attract food lovers I would not be putting brown rice, sardines and a raw carrot on the menu (just trying to imagine what restaurant reviewers would make of that one.
I can see that I might eat it myself, in that it is easy and cheap, but I wouldn't serve it up to guests and definitely not children. You need to enthuse them about different foods and flavours.

It's a false dichotomy to pit 'junk food' against the brown rice/carrot/sardine diet.

I produced a black-eye bean and spinach curry last night, with a cucumber raita (and, admittedly, white rice. Like I say, generations of Asian ancestors. Traditional diet, innit). Easy food. Nice food.

I was giving a suggeston for a very simple cheap quick meal for the poor, that's all.

What I think does distract people is arguing over small differences when you really have two side - the junk food brigade - ie most British people and those who try to eat well who may well be all kinds of eaters - vegetarians or whatever. All those on the latter side tend to be healthier and happier.

As for restaurants they are part of the problem we are mostly all so fat because British people moved from mostly eating smaller portions they cooked at home to eating foods prepared by others will all sorts in them and massive quantities.

It isn't a 'meal'. It is a somewhat random assemblage of food items. If you said 'sardines on brown toast', or 'carrots grated and mixed with a garlicky vinaigrette replete with grain mustard' the word 'meal' might start being applicable. (Or 'sardines with pasta and salad', of course, but given that this thread appears to consider pasta on a par with rat poison I suppose that' wouldn't do.)

Xenia-either you really want to change things or you don't.
If you do then you need to be realistic and gradual.
You sound rather like Marie Antoinette with your talk of 'the poor' or the lady of the manor distributing largesse around the parish!
If I was 'the poor'- I would be very affronted and unwilling to listen to any message whatsoever. ('the poor' are like everyone else-an entire cross section-including the intelligent and those who have a very good understanding of healthy food-'the rich' are also a cross section and some are remarkable stupid, and some are obese and some have appalling lifestyles)
Being bossy and telling other people what is good for them never works.

Poverty is tough enough without people making you eat brown rice and sardines.

I really like brown rice.
I really like sardines-tinned and fresh.
True what MI says though-thought of someone on the Indian subcontinent eating brown rice is hilarious.
The mounds of rice I see eaten in Bangladesh have to be seen to be believed.
It's about all there is for many though.

Orwell made all these good points in OTRTWP about how when you are poor and life is siht, the last thing you are gonig to do is buy healthy stuff.
You will blow it all on fags and sweets.

I was in a school where a chef came in and did cooking with a class for a few weeks and he enthused them all-they tried all sorts of things that were new to them, and cooked in an imaginative way. They all loved it. I don't think he would have got the same with the sardines and brown rice-no one is going to sit down and really enjoy the experience-it is just a question of fuel for the body.

I'm actually laughing at Xenia's cookery tips for the poor!

But, I was once given a delicious sardine risotto in Sicily which consisted of not much more than rice, sardines (tinned in tomato sauce) and peas. I think there was some garlic in there and maybe fish stock and white wine. Was delicious and I have had various attempts at making it at home and its always been quite tasty.