how much and what kind of junk food/drink do you allow your kids? and at what age?

[sugarbaby]

Over Christmas I was at a party, nothing heavy just family get together, there wer a few kids there. I was horrified when someone else at the party poured her 3 year old son a glass of coke, but later when chocolates were offered she wouldn't allow him to have any because "it contains nuts and children shouldn't be exposed to nuts until they're 5"? The double standard of it all struck me somewhat, although I didn't say anything.

So I was wondering, how much junk food/drink do you allow your kids? and at what age? Personally my DS will not be allowed coke until he is much much older, but I do allow crisps/chocolate/biscuits, but coke just contains too much cafeen/sugar and is in my view, highly inappropriate.

Just a general question though

At 2.2. My DD is still on quite a restricted diet.

She is allowed 'sweets' but they are dried mango, apricots and raisins. She has not yet worked that one out, but I'm sure it'll happen soon. But until it does....

She ate chocolate for the first time just before she turned 2. She likes it, but I do not buy it for her. She will have it if other people have it, but I certainly don't keep it at home.

She eats crisps (the goodies organix type ones) but she has them on a plate at meal times, not as a snack. Ditto with Chocolate, biscuits and cake. They are puddings etc but not snacks (and not every day either!)

Her snacks are fruit / veg / those organic cheese portions /dried cereal / rice cakes etc. I try not to let her have delicacies as snacks in case she fills up on them!

Drinks are water or milk, except at meal times when she has diluted OJ. She has never had squash or coke or fizzy drinks.

She has been to Mc Ds and eats the fruit bags and chips. (we're veggie, so no meat!)

Last week, a friend came over with cream cakes. She asked to try some. I gave her a bit of mine, and she spat it out saying yucky yuck and went back to snacking on her tomatoes!!!

However..... all this is about to change! I've always had the policy that I would not be the person to give her these foods (why give squash when she is happy drinking water?) but at the same time I would not deny her either. So if she saw her friends eating chocolate, I would let her have some (she got her first taste of chocolate at a birthday party!). She is now just becoming aware of the less than healthy foods, and is starting to ask for things like crisps and chocolate. Now that she is asking, I will let her have these things in moderation as I don't want them to be totally banned, in case it makes her crave them more. So as she becomes more savvy about what she sees other children eat over the next few months, I expect her diet to change radically, and by this time next year, no doubt she'll be eating all sorts of cr@p!

But, I think I would draw the line at coke (and meat for us of course!!)

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This thread is making me hungry...now craving crips (sorry, don't know why they're bad except for lots of salt).

Erm, criSps.

Any treats: cake, pies, puddings etc I make from scratch so I know exactly what's in it. They are also allowed on occasion biscuits with their tea, chocolate, juice, squash. I try to make sure there's minimal if any additives.
They are not allowed: takeaway food (no MCD, KFC, PH etc) processed food (chicken nuggets, frozen chips) no fizzy drinks, nothing with artificial chemical sweeteners

Why do you keep resurrecting threads about junk food?

This thread was over a decade old!

Ohhhhh look what kids ate 10 years ago!!!

DD is 2.5. I try to make sure that her core diet is healthy, and not to get too hung up on the other stuff. So she'll have:

• Milky bar buttons (as reward for using potty, but we don't give her a whole pile, just two at a time)
• Those Bear brand fruit twirl things
• Diluted squash or juice, when we have it in, which isn't all the time
• Chocolate biscuits - when we're at someone's house who has them in (we don't, otherwise I just end up eating them!)
• Crisps - my weakness. I rarely buy her a bag, but if we're nibbling some at home, she'll help herself
• I have also let her try peanuts - very closely supervised!

We had to wean her off a bit after Christmas because there were just so many sweets and chocolates around every day.

We were in Spain recently and cafe owners keep giving her chuppa chup lollies. We let her have two over the course of four days. She also had her first ever sip of Coke there!

Ds1 is 8 and has the occasional fizzy drink, ginger beer at my grandparents so about once a fortnight and a lemonade/Fanta if we eat out maybe once a month. No Coke allowed. I allow sweets, chocolate, cake, ice lollies but some days he might have one of those some days he might have none. Dd (6) and ds2 (2) are the same although neither of them have fizzy drinks. Dd doesn't like them and ds2 is too young. I sometimes buy crisps but not very often, more likely when we have a picnic in the summer.

Occasional McDonald's, a few times a year.

Ds1 eats whole nuts, dd doesn't like them and ds2 is too young although they all eat products containing nuts like nut butters.

All these toddlers are at secondary school now! Maybe some of the older ones are parents themselves!

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