"Processed" food and toddler

[Hopeisintheair]

I keep seeing threads on Mumsnet about how dreadful UPFs are. I think a lot of it is the current trend in eating. There always seems to be some buzz phrase in around food.

I didn't think we ate too much processed foods but maybe we do by UPF definition. Shop bought bread and cereal is UPF. Does anyone struggle with this feeding toddler/children? Does it bother you? I'm trying to embrace the balance as I'm not about to start baking my own bread daily quite frankly and feeding kids is hard enough sometimes.

As an example this is what my toddler ate yesterday and today...

Yesterday
Breakfast: Cheerios and whole milk
Lunch: cheese toastie (warburtons seeded loaf) and Heinz tomato soup
Snack: rice cakes with humous. Raspberries and strawberries
Dinner: tuna sweetcorn pasta (we had ours with spinach leaves etc which he didn't want) Cup of milk. Yoghurt.

Today
Breakfast: porridge with mashed banana, ground almonds and chia seeds
Snack: fruit salad
Lunch: chicken soup, cheddar cheese cubes, mini pretzels, humous, yoghurt, raspberries and strawberries
Dinner: half chicken burger with humous on brioche bun, corn on the cob, green beans hot "chocolate" (warm milk with a sprinkle of cocoa powder on top)

Tomorrow I'm making a curry from scratch but he'll likely only eat the rice and poppadoms 🙄 I'll also make Bolognese from scratch this week which he'll eat with pasta.

I think this is pretty good going for a toddler. What's everyone's opinions on things like bread, pasta, cereal, tinned tomato soup etc?

Lots of easy switches- buy your bread from the baker. Plain yoghurt with chopped fruit if you usually buy flavoured. Chicken burger- easy to make if you usually buy. Hummus- easy to make if you usually buy it and so much cheaper.

I'm with you OP. My kids have similar diets to yours and are similarly poor eaters a lot of the time. I try my best but with both time and money are issues. I mean I bet the brands another PP mentioned are significantly more expensive than the supermarket own brand or at a push Warbortuns or Robertson's bread we buy, same for the wraps etc. We aren't a family with a high income and don't really have extra flex for our food budget.

Just curious how you manage this unless you live next door to a bakery? It never seems to last longer than a day when we buy it from the bakery and we wouldn’t have time to buy it every morning. A friend who lives alone freezes it but we don’t have much space left in the freezer.

My DS doesn't really eat carbs much (his choice) so things like pretzels, rice cakes, any sort of bread, breadsticks etc. he'd have no interest in.

He does eat weetabix or porridge with milk in the morning. He's brilliant with fresh fruit and pretty good with veg. He snacks on chicken, hummus. Loves Greek yoghurt. Likes cheese as well. He of course eats some less healthy options like some ham, kids yoghurt as a treat or some sweeter cereal, ice cream, dark chocolate etc. but his staple foods are pretty healthy and main meals are cooked from scratch. Personally I'd never feed him tinned soup as it's too high in sodium. I avoid them too.

That's 90% of the time. He totally has off days when he doesn't eat much and chooses less healthy options. It's just how it is with toddlers, they won't always eat perfectly. I take a view that creating good habits will go a long way and I'd like him to understand UPFs should very much be occasional choice, not a foundation of his diet.

Oh for goodness sake.
So most children are screwed then. Most children eat diets like this.

Please share what your children eat on a day to day basis and how achievable this is for the typical working parent?

Thanks for the suggestions. Genuinely wondering how much of a difference some of these ideas make though.

So for example, looking at the humous in the fridge the ingredients are: chickpeas, water, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt and potassium sorbate. Is it the preservative that's the issue, because the rest is what anyone would make humous with. We all eat it by the gallon and it's one of those things my toddler eats happily that I see as a healthy "win". When we have a bigger kitchen I'll maybe get a food processor to make life easier and try making humous in it.

The other example of yoghurt, my toddler loves Graham's yoghurt pouches. The ingredients in the strawberry ones are: 80% yoghurt with live bacteria, 7% strawberry purée, apple juice, water, lemon juice and cornflour. I'm failing to see the issue with these. I use cornflour in cooking often. We buy them (and similar brands) because they don't have sugar in them and are easy on the go in a backpack. At home we have Greek yoghurt.

God don't feel guilty

At the end of the day, they have to eat something!

@wishIwasonholiday10

Just curious how you manage this unless you live next door to a bakery? It never seems to last longer than a day when we buy it from the bakery and we wouldn’t have time to buy it every morning. A friend who lives alone freezes it but we don’t have much space left in the freezer.

I agree. We have a fantastic baker near us and we occasionally buy our focaccia and sourdough from there. The focaccia is eaten in one evening and the sourdough is usually at a weekend for bacon sandwiches or avocado toast.

But for through the week so that my toddler can have a peanut butter sandwich or some toast, it's the same warburtons seeded loaf as it lasts the week.

Honestly I wouldn’t worry and I wouldn’t listen to other posters talking about years of scientific research unless they themselves have conducted said research and can prove their credentials in this area (reading Ultra Processed People doesn’t count). There’s a dietician called Laura Thomas I follow who does a lot of myth busting around UPF, she’s on Instagram and has a Substack newsletter which presents a much more nuanced take than the hyperbolised headlines you see on the subject. It might help you feel more relaxed about things. Yes we’d all ideally be feeding ourselves and our children whole unprocessed foods the majority of the time. But a diet completely free of “UPFs” 100% of the time is unrealistic (and probably pretty miserable) for most of us

That's interesting. I'll look her up as I feel I'm only ever hearing the other side of it all.

I guess the point of my thread is I know that feeding my toddler a Greggs sausage roll and a box of Jaffa cakes for dinner isn't good.

But shop bought bread, sugar free yoghurts and humous? Can I really be bothered about it?

My rule of thumb is not to overthink but avoid anything in a packet

That yoghurt doesn't sound like UPF.

Potassium sorbate is one I would avoid though, if possible. I think it's a question of making your own choices. Agree that not all UPF is equally bad and you can benefit from cutting down without cutting out.

That is the whole point- you need to be eating fresh food. Omega 3 does not have a long shelf life- omega 6 does. So if you are eating food that lasts, by definition, it does not contain omega 3- which you need!

The best source of omega 3 is fresh greens - and this is really key

So basically, don't eat then.

I think you're doing a cracking job OP. Lots of variety in food groups, limited sugar, yes some processed food but I literally don't know anyone in real life who makes their own bread or cereal. You're clearly a mum who cares a lot about what they feed their child. My DD eats a similar diet to yours although I also constantly worry, but when I speak to mum friends she's probably average or maybe even slightly above average in terms of fussiness. I'm fretting about similar things to you and then I see other mums open a bag of salty crisps and give that to their child without a care in the world and think, hang on I'm actually doing a good job here.

I wouldn't give it any more thought, keep doing what you're doing!

Anything? I'd find that incredibly difficult. I mean obviously his strawberries, raspberries, cheese, chia seeds, porridge etc are all in packets but I know what you mean.

Thinking about things my son has had recently from a "packet":

Cheerios
Humous
Cocoa powder
A gingerbread man
Breadsticks
Rice cakes
Mini pretzels
Yoghurt pouches
Tomato soup
Cream cheese
Pasta
Jar pesto

He doesn't get bars of chocolate, pots of custard, sweeties, coco pops, microwave dinners and so on. Surely the above list is pretty normal and fine for children along with home cooked dinners and other fresh food?

Hardly;) fruit veg meat fish bread
Butchers grocers bakery can be inside morrisons doesnt have to be individual shops

No, there are plenty of foods to eat, that does not come out of packets.

some of the very worst possible UHP foods are margarine and vegetable oil. Not fit for human consumption in the opinion of many scientists.

@Canadan

That yoghurt doesn't sound like UPF.

I agree. It's in a pouch which makes it look like junk but there are a few brands of pouches we buy that have the same ingredient list as those ones. I think you can have convenience without it all being total junk food.

I think the Graham's yoghurt pouches are fine and can see the difference between that and a petit filous which seems to be a staple for a lot of toddlers despite the sugar content. But some people are very much "Greek yoghurt or nothing".

The only greens my toddler eats are brocolli and green beans. Thank goodness for them.

I blend spinach leaves into my Bolognese sauce 😂

Definitely avoid the potassium sorbate as there are plenty of brands that don't include it-
Potassium Sorbate: A preservative used to suppress formation of molds and yeasts in foods, wines and personal care products. In-vitro studies suggest that it is toxic to DNA and has a negative affect on immunity.

Cut the Cheerios and stick to porridge with lots of different healthy fruit in (we use a mix of fresh and frozen):
A 30g serving of Multigrain Cheerios contains 5.3g of sugar.

A single tin of Heinz Tomato Soup contains 2.2g, five times more salt content than a small portion of McDonald's fries. Combined with cheese that is probably a really high in salt lunch.

Does he eat a lot of processed meat? Chicken burgers, sausages etc? If so instead of curry have you tried just a chicken thigh or pork chop cut up?

Thanks for the advice about potassium sorbate. I'll have a look at other brands of humous and probably get a food processor once we've moved house and have more space.

A bowl of soup would be half a tin. I reckon he has tomato soup once a fortnight at the absolute most. This is what I mean about things balancing out.

He doesn't eat a lot of meat in general. He loves tuna in pasta or a toastie. He likes a bit of our bacon when we have some. Chicken he'll only eat in soup. I'm persevering with risotto as we've had success on and off with it. Usually with haddock or chicken. Loves my homemade Bolognese but also loves fish fingers. Chicken burgers are the kind with whole chicken breast so I can't get too worked up about it for now.

Those advising to buy bread from the bakery. Just be aware most bakery bread is bought in, not make on site and is often ultra processed. If you want to go down this route to avoid ultra processes foods check the ingredients being used.