Calling all parents: Please Help Me; Opinions on Childrens diets for research ass please!!!!with cherry on top!!!!

[foxd]

I have a research ass due in on mon so furiously typing away this weekend to get it completed.

My research question has been: What are the factors preventing children eating balanced diets? and What can be realistically acheived taking into consideration modern lifestyles?

Pleae could you spare a few minutes and give your opinion and points of view that anyone has about this topic.
Also have just read an article from the Daily mail archives stating that in a poll 80% of readers believed parents were responsible for the rising childhood obesity epidemic? does anyone have any points of view regarding this?

It would be much appreciated and I promise to buy every one a drink who posts a message, in the 'Come into my bar' thread tonite.

Ooh yes,you've escaped from Wales haven't you hmb! (Traitor )

HMB - I worked in a pub in a small Welsh village when I was 18 and the local greengrocer classed peppers as exotic veg which we would have to order in advance (2 weeks!).

The childhood diet you describe was very similar to mine but with hindsight was actually very healthy. Apart from our meals there was nothing around to snack on so we had our three square meals a day and a slice of toast before bed.

Dh is a Transport Planner: Tesco's and the life have them over a barrel, they do not stand a chance against the B&Q's and ASDA's as they will always find loopholes in the Planning law to get developments through and as the County Councils are run on a shoestring, Tesco's will always get their planning applications through one way or another - we are dependent on cars to live our lives now, like the US.

Central Government needs to put into place policies which will stop the spread of large out of town developments - Adsa's etc getting planning applications through to enlarge existing premises, which is killing of town centres, as the Councils need power to stop these Supermarket chains bleeding smaller buisnesses dry

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Pruni,there's a British woman here in this Turkish town (only about 15 British people in all!) who is obsessed with finding bloody bottled white sauce! She is on a permanent quest and keeps on meithering me,asking if I've seen it. Why fgs???!!!
We're in one of the top places in the world for food and she's moaning about nothing having some vile Dolmio thing. (She aint young either!)

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HMB - you're into GI and a science teacher! Aargh! I didn't know you were Welsh too.

(Carmarthenshire by the way.)

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I think they all pay lipservice to the stopping out of town shops issue, but it carries on relentlessly anyway.

FIMAC,are you saying that councils are helpless in the face of these companies. What do you mean by 'one way or anothe'? How come most of the roads into Llandudno have to be changed just because of bloody Asda? It's not right!

Yoyo,lol at the pepper story. Remember my father being tickled to see ginger on sale in Caernarfon in the mid 80s! (he's lived abroad for years-Wales is permanently in 1963 in his head!) That particular greengrocer has closed now-of course.

Yes, I crossed the boarder 25 years ago. the accent is still there. In fact my kids tell me that biology doesn't sound 'right' in an English accent .

Mum was an astonishingly bad cook, except that her pastry was wonderful. And her Welsh cakes....for those you will have to see the other thread

Off to bed now....trip to Ikea tomorrow so need to build up my stamina

Pruni,he's working on a big EU development project in what is effectively Kurdistan. Dealing with agriculture,so he does some really interesting stuff. Ethical food production is a subject very dear to his heart.

Just to make you even sicker,we eat out at least once every day here.Coasts about £6-8 for the three of us (well 4 but ds is only a baby.)

No apparently we were having a chat on this very subject last week!

Apparently the Tories relaxed all the Planning law back in the 80's when there was a huge unemployment problem hoping that it would lead to the new developments would lead to economic recovery, jobs created etc, SO the out of town developments are a Conservative idea - he was saying the out of town dev's led to in part, the decline in Manufacturing industry but forget why now

We forget don't we that there were some grim cooks around in the 60s and 70s! Anyone read Nigel Slater's 'Toast'?Has some cracking descriptions of dreadful meals dished up by his stepmother.

HMB - spookier and spookier as my mother (crap cook - cooks 3 lb chicken for 3 hours "it's falling off the bone. Lovely") makes fantastic pastry (with lard of course).

There's a bit of a conundrum here in terms of expectation/ good health etc. We all laugh at the idea of peppers being exotic and I now expect to be able to get fresh ginger every month of the year, but I'm sure there are issues about seasonality and food miles which are also tied in with the whole food thing. Living in London I got used to having coriander, lemongrass, coconuts, mangoes etc., as staple foods, sold in Lewisham market and I still get irritated by the fact that I have to buy "very lazy chilies" in order to have that supply in the house. I wonder how much of the variety of our diet is actually not such a good idea, and whether we should be eating more seasonally, with fewer food miles?

Yup, ma was one of them! But at least she put veg on my plate every day, even if it tasted awful!!!

Nos Da hmb. Keep away from those Ikea frankfurters.

My mother is the only person I know who mashes the green and white of a cauli together! Still veg though.

God, yoyo we must be twins! Beat this one cauliflower florets 45 minutes boiled!
Frozen peas 30 minutes!
Beaf cooked the night before to make sure it was 'done'
But her apple tart would make a french chef to weep with envy!

You may well ask why the roads are changed to fit in with Asda... bring it up with your MP? I am saying that for instance, when B&Q wanted to build there store on an already extremley busy roundabout in my town, they were going to build it there come what may and they probably had more staff on that one project in my town than were in the whole Coucil Planning Dept: These things can be referred to Central Gov if deemed serious enough, what I am saying is that quite often they do not have enough backing legally to stop applications as Central Gov does not have strong enough Planning regulations which the Councils work from, therefore stuff goes through.

Mine too!!!!!!!!

Moondog - Toast was so much about my childhood (the food part obviously). Loved the parmesan bit. Time for wine and bed. Goodnight all.

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Yes,yes and yes caligula. That's what I like about Turkey (this part anyway). Fascinating to see what pops up. At the moment everyone is mostly eating 'erik' (sour little plums) dipped in salt,something they jokingly call Kurdish banana (looks like rhubarb-peel off the outer layer and nibble the middle) a weird but delicious bristly little green vegetable a bit like endive and loads and loads of fresh thyme.