Well my "style" seems to be rare... or those of you like me are too shy to say it?

[velcrobott]

In the past few weeks I have posted on topics such as food, Mc Donald and TV....
Now Am I the only one who always cooks from fresh for her kids (because they enjoy the quality of the food and I like cooking), does not go to McD (they wouldn't like it as there is no way I am buying the "gift") and who thinks they have a far better time playing then watching tele.

I was quite surprised to read that several people (and I am sure thousands more) feel it's a treat to feed your kids occasional junk food... what has our society come to??? For those who have the desire, time and interest to not feed junk, allow much/any tele... is it normal that we are considered the odd ones out, the weird ones? It use to be like this (generations ago), it was the norm... now we're called all sorts of things but made to feel that we are too puritanical.

I am sure some of you are going to take this as a controversial thread, it isn't meant like that I want to know if anyone feels like this too.... I feel very lonely on Mumsnet with my more "puritanic" stance

TBH I do think that you have had a hard time velcrobott. I don't really buy the argument that you are denying your children valuable experiences by not giving them junk. Its really hard to get away from that attitude though.

BTW asked DS what McDonalds was last night and he said "I don't know", ditto Burker King. What do they sell at Burger King "I don't know". Some of the posts on here imply that I am a bad parent for not allowing him this experience of the world - although actually it is DH who has banned it.

Velcrobott, I've been impressed on this thread at how cheerful you've remained while being "got at". You could easily have thrown a wobbly and you haven't, so well done you. In the end, you are doing what you belive is best for your children - good on you. It's what we all do, just in very many different ways.

Have you seen this article on Children's tastes 'develop early'

Velcrobott I was the one who said you come across as slightly santimonious, but I am certainly NOT critising your parenting choices. It was simply the 'tone' of your posts. However in truth I wish I could do a little more like you, cook from fresh more often, not rely on convience/junk food and TV at times. I do try but often fail

I agree that others have also attacked you and your choices, but I think there is a lot of defensiveness going on. As I said on another thread, unfortuneatly guilt is born with teh placenta and herefore we all feel we have to justify our parenting choices. Sometimes the only way to justify our choices is to disagee with others I wasn't been personal about your choices.

Not got time to read all the posts, but in response to the original post -

No you are not the only one who cooks fresh food for their kids. I cook fresh food all the time, yes she has the odd shop bought lemon sole gougoun or a Blue Parrot range chicken nugget but always with fresh steamed veg and fresh fruit and only drinks water and so on. As a working mum I make as much as i can from scratch.

My DD has been to a McDonalds once (she's 3 and a bit) and she had a couple of chips and a fish finger, and some water (so what). I don't consider McDonalds a treat. A treat in our house is a white chocolate covered apricot or raisin or a prune juice lolly or something.

We do watch telly inbetween playing together or being out together and I put a DVD on for her so I can make some fresh food etc.

BTW - I don't think you're sanctimonious, I just think the tone of your 'am I the only one who gives their child a healthy meal and doesn't do TV' thread was a bit off. No you're not the only one, and anyway each to his own aye.

You said 'Why is it right for some to question my parenting style', isn't that what you were doing and what you were 'setting' yourself up for in the way you worded your post?

I'm pretty puritanical about what my kids eat, too, Velcrobott. Maybe not quite as strict as you, but pretty close.

All that said, I'm not sure that "occasional" junk food is so bad, but it really should be "occasional" -- more like once every 2 months, whereas plenty of kids (see JOliver's series) get junkfood daily.

One thing, My children get "a treat" usually biscuits, sometimes hot chocolate or even Zinc lozenges (their choice!) if they eat neatly all their tea up. I scrupolously avoid hydrogenated fat in the shop-bought biscuits.
Supposedly if you give a treat as a reward for eating vegetables, children will choose to eat only junk as soon as they are old enough, but I'm convinced that I'm conditioning my children to want solid, complex carb and healthy filling food & lots of vegies for their main meal. My 5yo complains nowadays, is very disconcerted in fact, if "we don't have tea!" -- meaning a meal with lots of veg in it.

Big sigh, would love to be puritanical but just haven't go the energy. My ds eats such limited substances, despite me shovelling every form of pureed veg known to man down him as a baby and my dd eats like a sparrow.
I want to weep when I prepare homecooked meals and I listen to whining, tantrums and watch as one forkful of food is consumed under absolute duress. Ds has been known to go without food for nearly 24hrs rather than eat something he doesn't want to.

I would also like to say that my children don't watch much tv - but given that I find playing with them like some hideous form of torture, unless they organise themselves - then they watch tv.
So, I would love to be the happy, homecooking mummy with my children contended, playing with their creative toys - but in my house, it just doesn't happen!!!!

I don't know why any parent would brag about feeding their child crap tbh. Of course the odd burger/sweets/bag of crisps isn't going to kill them but equally, I think anyone who thinks a pile of minced bollocks (well, you know what I mean, sorry, minced bones and mechanically recovered meat) is a treat has fallen for the propaganda from the fast food and processed food industry. There's more money in selling additive ridden, e number laden, food filled with cheap sugar, fat and salt than there is in selling fresh, unadulterated fruit, veg and meat. So the food industry wants people (but parents especially) to buy crap, because it's more profit for them! Not because it's any good for our children, it just isn't.

Felicity Lawrence, who is a writer, says of chicken nuggets "Many have removed the fat and skin, but they have replaced it with some chicken breast and have still added starch, water, sugar, flavouring and additives - all cheap ingredients - to bulk it up. When you buy these products you are paying, essentially, for water and highly processed starch."

From the same article here "...concerns over chicken nuggets do not end there. Last December, the Pesticide Action Network published a survey of foods contaminated by dangerous pesticides; chicken nuggets were found to contain chlormequat, a plant growth regulator"

What a treat that must have been for the child that ate it! I object to the idea that anyone who refuses to feed their child crap is sanctimonious too. I don't see why it's offensive to decide not to feed children crap, I really don't.

PS How do you find the time to do all you and work full-time, I am impressed

Was that to me crunchie? I'm not working full time atm but I was and dp was a sahd. When either of us is a sah we don't consider cooking part of the 'job', the job is purely childcare, we behave as if we're nannies I suppose! If it was to me I'll tell you!

Do spare a thought for those of us whose children eat elsewhere during the week! Yes I could vet the Inferiorettes' diet totally, and/or send them along with their own food, but honestly I don't want them to enter that sort of social apartheid.

Crunchie, on the days when they're eating at home, I find a freezer and a not particularly varied diet do the trick

I spend about 3 hours a night in the kitchen after i get in from work, that's how I find the time! I cook things up at weekend and freeze them.

Beetroot - LOL - yes other than water and milk she drinks prune juice now and then, it helps iykwim. She's never had anything other than a prune juice lolly so as far as she's concerned they're fab, she devours them!

Been following this thread for a while and so far resisted posting but it is now irritating the hell out of me.

1. Each to their own - it seems a lot of people don't understand that concept and are always looking for a right and wrong when in actual fact there isn't one.
2. Everything in moderation.
3. Why do the people who are most strongly opposed to McD's and the like, spend so much time spouting off about it. If you don't like it, don't go there, don't take your kids there, forget about it. Why waste precious time worrying about it?
4. Working full time and being a mum does not = unhappy children with poor diets. See point 1).

BTW, I do work full-time, I do cook healthy home-cooked meals from scratch every evening (apart from a Friday when dh & I have our weekly treat - a take-away curry), both dd and I eat chocolate/sweets/McDs etc occasionally, in moderation, I do at least 1 hours strenuous exercise every day - I am happy, dh is happy, dd is happy because that particular lifestyle works for us. I would not for one minute assume that it would work in exactly the same way for the next person and quite frankly don't care about the next person as long as me and mine are happy and healthy.

WWW it was directed at Velcrobott, but it took me a long time to post!!

3 HOURS in the kitchen cooking?!?!

Don't you want to spend time with your partner/children/book???

I will have a big cook every now and then and freeze piles of stew, bolognese, cottage pie, but most of the time it is 30 mins preparing food at the very most. I like doing other things more I guess.

Can I ask what kind of budgets everyone has? Mine is very very tight, and I am on pretty much value everything, and bulk cook to stretch out the ingredients. It is very very hard to do fresh decent meals with a teeny tiny budget. Maybe it is possible with a 3 hour kitchen stint, but most of the time, the cheap stuff is the unhealthy stuff

Just got back from the superstore and to my amazement people are buying differently ! Crappy sausages are still there and at reduced prices trolleys are loaded with more healthy food stuffs !!!! by george a change may be on its way !!!!!!!!!! good time to open a organic butchers eh there isnt a plain bog standard butchers near me !!

It was an exaggeration actually sorry, i don't actually sprend 3 hours in the kitchen every night! I didn't make it clear, sorry for exaggerating and not making it clear. It just feels like that sometimes. Blimey 3 hours every night, I'd be mad, and a very slow chopper!
Of course I want to spend time with my DD/DP etc, and i do. I spend time with my DD every night before she goes to bed, reading, singing etc, then whn shes in bed i prepare a meal from scratch with my DP or we take turns and the other sits at the kitchen table and we chat etc, and at the same time as preparing our dinner from scratch for that night, Lottie's lunch and tea is prepared for the next day.

I don't really budget on food, I'm not that organised and just spend till it's gone! We're not well off just not organised! I guess I spend about £80 on average a week, sometimes more. TBH, I never pay that muchg attention, but it's about that.

i am on a tight budget as a sahm but we have
sun - roast chick
mon - chick curry
tue - liver
wed - mush rissotto
thurs - spag bol
fri - tuna bake
sat - chinese
all fresh with loads of veg = spinach
and i have a lunch menu how sad am I !!!!
ds 3 dd 8 month all eat the same. full shop is approx £50. with naps + milk i am the budget queen fresh healthy isnt expensive i just pad it out.
did anyone need to now that ??? sorry

Thank god for that!!! Sorry - long day, so I might have read it less seriously had I been more awake

Thought you were nuts!!!

I think no menu is where I get into problems... I lose track and it all goes wrong!

Try to do as much as possible from scratch but don't beat myself up when it is impossible. We all eat tonnes of fruit and veg. DS is known to choose grapes rather than chocolate although once a week gets milky way stars.
The only time my dd was ever taken to a MCDonalds (by a relative)she was violently sick. We are brainwashing both our children to laothe McDonalds and all that it stands for
Don't tend to ban things other than Mcdonalds but ds & dd have a wide and varied diet and given the choice will choose other things instead of processed foods. We try to eat seasonally and with food sourced locally but sadly have found we haven't the money or the local shops to do much of our grocery shopping away from the supermarket
Don't feel sanctimonious but do worry about what we all eat and what we are doing to our planet.

I plan ahead like that, it's the only way I can do it. I go through cookbooks over weekend and on a Sunday or a Monday lunchtime go and buy all I need for that week.

Monday we had grilled chicken breast with tagliette and a ricotta, garlic & sundried tomato sauce that was made from scratch (the sauce not the pasta)

Lottie had packed lunch - wholemeal bread and cheese sarnie, carrot sticks and houmos, home made banana cake and some grapes. Tea was a sausage casserole

Tuesday we had salmon fillets which had marinated all day in a nat yoghurt, fresh ginger, turmeric and garlic with loads of steamed veg

Lottie had lnch compliments of nana, bread and cheese and fruit and stuff i expect, and tea was pasta and a fresh sauce and fruit

I absolutley can't remember what we're having tonight but it involves a chicken breast, i'll have to wait till i get home and see what page on my cook book i've marked!
lottie had a little bowl of sweetcorn, some oat crackers, breadsticks and cream cheese dip, dried apricots, grapes and tea will be shepherds pie.

Don;t know if anyone needed to know that either just joining in with you haggard

Fair play Thomcat I find planning the way to go.