"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?

Pasta is not UPF.
Not all ready made soup is either.

Hi OP - I’ve gone through your list with some easy swaps. It’s ok and there’s a good range of fruit but not much veg and quite a few of the more hidden UPFs.

Yesterday
Breakfast: Cheerios and whole milk - shredded wheat
Lunch: cheese toastie (warburtons seeded loaf) and Heinz tomato soup try Jason’s bread or sourdough from a bakery. The organic version of the soup is probably better
Snack: rice cakes with humous homemade houmous as has been suggested
Raspberries and strawberries
Dinner: tuna sweetcorn pasta (we had ours with spinach leaves etc which he didn't want) Cup of milk. Yoghurt. depends what the yoghurt is - swap flavoured for full fat greek

Today
Breakfast: porridge with mashed banana, ground almonds and chia seeds
Snack: fruit salad
Lunch: chicken soup (probably UPF - there are non UPF versions), cheddar cheese cubes, mini pretzels (skip these - they’re just crap), humous, yoghurt (both see above) raspberries and strawberries
Dinner: half chicken burger with humous on brioche bun (see bread swap above - this will be full
of sugar and upf), corn on the cob, green beans hot "chocolate" (warm milk with a sprinkle of cocoa powder on top)

Thanks. Will definitely have a bash at making bread when I get a bread maker at some point. For now it's bread from our local bakery, and warburtons seeded.

All soups are homemade except for Heinz tomato which we all love with a toastie and I don't begrudge him. Yoghurts are always free of sugar and sweeteners and any other junk. I don't mind things like mini pretzels/mini cheddars/breadsticks etc. I'm happy with the balance.

This list was the last two days from when I wrote it. He eats enough veg at the moment that I don't despair: corn on the cob, broccoli, baked beans and green beans. Nothing else, but soup is my saviour as he'll eat all sorts in soup. Fruit, as with all toddlers it seems, is much easier: berries, melon, bananas etc.

As predicted this evening, he didn't eat any of our curry so his dinner was rice and poppadoms followed by a banana 😑

Sounds like you are doing a decent job OP. My children are all teens now and I despair at the rubbish they eat which I can’t control.

We always have a home cooked dinner with tons of veg but the rest of the day can be pretty bad. They can buy it themselves if they want it which doesn’t help. They do eat weetabix but add some sugar to it. This still feels better than some of the sugary cereals though.

They also hate brown rice and whole meal pasta meaning I buy white rather than listen to them complain and leave it. I should probably have stuck to my guns more but for us life is too short for grumpy meal times every day!

I remember the constant junk I would buy with my own money as a teenager 😬 and zero appreciation of it being dreadful for me because I stayed skinny no matter what. Wish that was still the case!

@Pontipinecity’s post is the perfect illustration of what I meant - once the kids get older you lose control of what they eat and their diets will almost certainly get worse, so I think parents of toddlers and children should do their best to feed them
properly while they can.

I often see parents of small kids (not saying you OP, just generally) saying that they’re only young, they’re fussy etc…that might be true but if you are providing them with unhealthy food that is designed to be addictive then they will obviously develop a taste for it and prefer it to the healthier alternatives. (Special needs aside which is obviously a different scenario).

I also weirdly often see people in older generations who are desperate to feed them crap. My parents and in laws were constantly encouraging me to feed my toddler stuff like chocolate and biscuits “for a treat” when he was perfectly happy with eg strawberries and cream (which is delicious!!). I think also as adults we have absorbed marketing messages like chocolate = treat without thinking about it and then impose that on our kids unquestioningly. Probably a topic for its own thread!

Homemade soup sounds great - a very good way of getting lots of veg in.

On the mini pretzels/cheddars etc - if you are happy to give UPF snacks then it would still be worth looking at ones aimed at kids. Mini pretzels/cheddars are extremely salty and should be avoided for small children. There is a lot to think about!

@harrietm87

desperate to feed them crap. My parents and in laws were constantly encouraging me to feed my toddler stuff like chocolate and biscuits “for a treat”

Completely agree with this. My mum can't seem to see my son without getting him a biscuit. I let it go and ask that it's digestives or rich tea so that at least he's not scoffing chocolate every time he sees her. He loves seeing her already without biscuits added. But then I grew up on ricicles and Frosties for breakfast and 20p in my pocket for the school tuck shop which was all penny mixture sweets and empire biscuits. The 90s were insane for sugar. Sunny Delight in the lunchbox with a blue riband or a club biscuit 🤷🏻‍♀️ we ate sweets every day. You could buy so much after school with only 20p. 10 penny sweets and a Freddo.

@ParentsTrapped

it would still be worth looking at ones aimed at kids. Mini pretzels/cheddars are extremely salty and should be avoided for small children.

Fair point. Mini cheddars are very much a toddler staple among everyone I know. I mean, he's not eating them every day. Maybe once a week. He's equally happy with rice cakes dry or with various toppings, or breadsticks and humous.

I don't buy snacks marketed for toddlers because they're just so unbelievably expensive I think it's a total racket.

Yeah I also grew up in the 90s and enjoyed a variety of gross sweets! But we know more now. It was also fine in the 90s to smoke indoors and blow it all over children and we don’t do that these days thank goodness.

What is most annoying about it is that we have all been completely manipulated by marketing into linking these products with emotional states. The companies deliberately set out to do this, and it works! Food and coming together over food is a massive part of human culture and we all want to be like our peers (hence I’m sure your comment about everyone giving their toddlers Mini cheddars…must make it ok? Or so your child won’t feel left out? Or even if it’s suboptimal at least you’re not alone?). It’s worth interrogating these things.

@harrietm87

I've often thought about what the hell was going on in the 90s. It's so strange that we had a school tuck shop with nothing but sweets. We had access to it every single day. Bizarre.

hence I’m sure your comment about everyone giving their toddlers Mini cheddars…must make it ok? Or so your child won’t feel left out? Or even if it’s suboptimal at least you’re not alone?). It’s worth interrogating these things

I don't think everyone doing it makes it ok. It was just an observation. I genuinely don't have a problem with my toddler having mini cheddars occasionally. For example today in his nursery lunchbox he has a handful of raspberries, a few strawberries, a banana, some cheddar cheese, 4 mini cheddars, a sugar and sweetener free yoghurt, and a tuna sandwich. He'll eat all of that and he'll be chuffed with his little mini cheddars. I don't mind.

There are plenty of things that seem to be normal among other families that I don't agree with: snacks marketed specifically for toddlers at extortionate prices, haribos or lollipops in party bags (I bin these), puddings after every meal, lots of biscuits like custard creams and jammy dodgers, actual hot chocolates for toddlers (we do hot milk with a sprinkle of cocoa on top). Not to mention certain choking hazards that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole: popcorn, hotdogs, marshmallows.

I wonder why you made the observation though?

Not having a go at all - it’s just interesting to question these things. It seemed like it was made in defence of your decision but it may have been the other reasons I suggested. It won’t have been for no reason at all. People do tend to make choices in the context of the people around them - it’s totally normal. I do it too.

But that’s why I think it is really important to challenge the impact that the food industry has on society as a whole. The book is really worth a read as it shows the complete stranglehold that the food industry has over government and policy. Most of the main scientific research on UPFs is funded by the food industry.

It seemed like it was made in defence of your decision but it may have been the other reasons I suggested. It won’t have been for no reason at all.

Well, yes I am in agreement with everyone I know, that cheddars are a fine snack for toddlers/children. In the same way that I think rice cakes, humous, yoghurts, an occasional biscuit, breadsticks, and a slice of toast and jam in a café are also good snacks.

It seems to me that some people (always on Mumsnet, never in real life) see "Cheerios" or "toast and jam" and invent in their head that the child is eating a large bowl of cereal every day and scoffing jam constantly. Whereas, in the past fortnight my toddler has had Cheerios once, cornflakes twice, and porridge or a cooked breakfast the rest of the time. He has had toast and jam once in I think about 2 months when we were in a café.

I don't mean it in the sense that anything everyone else has is automatically fine. I see a lot of toddlers drinking diluting juice. I don't agree with that every day, but I don't mind my son having it at parties. But I don't care how many parties have lollipops, he's not getting one. It's a balance. I don't cook anything with salt for my toddler so I don't think the occasional cheddar biscuit is going to cause any problems whatsoever. He'd have to be eating a packet every day for it to come close to being a problem. Bearing in mind our generation ate an apple and a packet of crisps every day for play piece and spent our money daily on penny sweets and everyone I know is fit and healthy.

I think the level of scrutiny some people have over food is over the top. Cheerios and cheddars here and there in a healthy diet really aren't a problem. My toddler isn't eating mars bars and haribos every day.

With your update I think you are doing fine. And I say that as someone who fed my DC exclusively on curry!

Wish I could convince my toddler of the joys of curry!

We are Asian, that's the only reason. easier to feed them what we were eating.
They did have biscuits, jam on toast and cocopops sometimes. They are now both underweight young adults.

Yeah I agree a little of eg processed cereal or salty processed snacks etc is better than a lot of it.

Of course, none would be better than a little, but it is really very difficult when you’re surrounded by it. It is described as a “food swamp” in the book. My kids didn’t eat mini cheddars or processed breakfast cereals or really any crappy food at age 1-4, but they do now at primary - it’s really hard to change it.

It shouldn’t be a race to the bottom though - comparisons with the past (when we didn’t have the info we do now) or people who make poor choices (again probably because they are uninformed or can’t afford it) don’t really serve anyone.

I suppose I don't see it as "crappy food"

I have fond memories of certain UPF foods from childhood. Some were utter junk (I could never stomach those disgusting lunchables even when I was a kid), but some were just normal foods that people have eaten for decades and are nice to eat along with everything else: a blue riband or wagon wheel whenever I visited my granny, an ice cream from the van on a summers day, tinned pears served with hot custard for pudding, a hot dog at the primary school disco.

I don't think it's all bad.

What would be childhood be without ice cream? In moderation. I had plenty of it and so did my kids. We are all slim ( I do have a menopaunch) and nobody binges on it as adults. It's an occasional treat.

There's quite a lot of manufactured food options, eg canned soup, rice cake, brioche, pretzels, burger ... is lunch always soup? If so homemade soup perhaps?

It's far easier however to be critical than actually live your life! Try to balance healthy food with what you can realistically manage.

I'm just dropping off this recipe for homemade bread - it was really easy, although you have to prep it the day before which is a pain. But so simple, and it came out crusty and delicious. I manage to do this about once a week, and then mix that up with shop bought bread because I'm not a superhuman who can do this shit every day!

www.theclevercarrot.com/2013/03/no-knead-artisan-bread/

@Hopeisintheair the things you mention are really crappy from a nutritional perspective…absolutely awful. Just because you have fond memories of having them in the past and that you see them as “normal” doesn’t change the nutritional content.

However, of course it’s ok to have them once in a while. I completely agree with @CharlotteRumpling that ice cream is part of childhood - I’d never ban that for my kids - but that’s why I try to make sure their staples (eg their bread, their cereal) are solid, so that I don’t worry about the odd ice cream or biscuit here and there.

Can you tell me which things I'm feeding my child from my posts on this thread that are "absolutely awful" and not "normal"?

My dd loves a cheese sandwich with tomato soup for lunch sometimes. The Covent Garden type ie tomato and basil rather than "cream of".

So I batch-made my own tomato soup partly to save money and partly so it has a bit less salt and sugar. It took over an hour, and in that time I was sort of emotionally neglecting the kids iyswim (not playing with them, barely talking to them).

She point blank refused my home made version. What a waste of time and resources! I could have been playing with them and interacting with them! I really wish I hadn't bothered!!

I've since decided, I'd rather spend quality time with them than just plonk them on a playmat in the kitchen with some toys while I spend hours meal prepping.

I do do home cooked food, but only quick fry stuff like stir fry, or things I can get dd to help with like the fish cakes.

I really empathise with this. The slow cooker is my saviour. Throwing all the ingredients in for a curry and leaving it to do it's thing, I feel less stressed when it comes to dinner time and he only eats the rice as I haven't spent too much time and effort on it.

At least with the slow cooker I can eat lunch at the table with him and then while he's still eating or having a yoghurt or "hot chocolate" I can get the slow cooker going.