Ultra-processed foods and the burden on women

[Shedbuilder]

I've had two conversations this weekend with people who saw a BBC documentary on the dangers of ultra-processed foods. Both of them are mothers, both say that as far as they can see, the only way to avoid UPFs is to cook everything from scratch. Both of them are very food-aware anyway but both also work full-time. They talked about how they're going to have to be even more organised than normal, invest in an extra freezer to take even more batch-cooked meals etc. The stress in the air was palpable.

I know some men cook for the family but isn't this yet another burden that's going to be loaded mainly onto women?

I should probably have summarised that rant as just

Shame Nestle not Mums

I don't think a one income model is better

I can't help thinking that it's amount of time. In work that's the problem, not both parents working

Give people more free time but slow down travel etc if you want to help planet

2 parents each working a 20 hr week would be nice…

Agree OP. It is most definitely not individual women’s jobs to make up for systemic failings in our food industry and social structure

Yes this somehow, I'm.not sure how, but even when outsourced to other means, there is Still ever increasing need for input at home. Take school fir example. Teachers are busy all day. But somehow despite all this there's so a meed to spend god knows how long at home.on homework. We have moved on from just reading at home when I went to school to what is essentially a other school day. On top of keeping up the exercise and healthy eating etc its a school day on top of a school day on top of a work day . Except we then have constant reminders about making sure kids eat well.akd.sleep well etc but how? How do you get them.to.bed on time when there's so.much homework to do at home. How do they get enough exercise when you are meant to be home.cooking fir dinner and bed at a reasonable time.

No longer can we send kids off to school.or a sports class or whatever safe in the.knowledge that side covered when all.it ever does in increase what we have to then take.over at home?

Not saying kids shouldn't have parental input. But these external agencies seen to have had to take everything else on amd the actual reason for them.being there is then our responsibility.

Im a full time teacher and DH works FT from home in a senior position. He cooks every day and usually from scratch. I appreciate that I'm lucky and in return I do the cleaning, we share laundry and he does more childcare than me. When I go back to part time I'll take on more of the childcare and offer to cook but he likes doing it.

Sorry I'm.not school bashing befire anyone jumps on me. I just mean that their responsibilities have shifted to counter act what's being reflected in society now. Parents not necessarily having tine or money to parent due to work and responsibilities etc its now just a vicious cycle where no one can realky achieve anything. I bet the curriculum had a heavy make influence or people with zero responsibility to carry in life that we all do

@midgedude

I don't think a one income model is better

I can't help thinking that it's amount of time. In work that's the problem, not both parents working

Give people more free time but slow down travel etc if you want to help planet

In some cases two parents working pt can work, and if there was a way for example to combine those jobs into a single pension or extended health benefits etc, that would be also helpful.

But there are many types of work where that really is not practical, in a particular position, with regard to the type of expertise required, etc. There are always going to be a lot of jobs that are not really amenable to PT hours.

It was an interesting programme and i thought busy working people are going to find it harder to reduce their ultra processed foods but to be honest baking a bit of salmon, or a lamb chop doesnt take longer than shoving some nuggests in really. Veg is veg and a jacket potoato or rice isnt much effort compated to oven chips.
I think its more the brain space and fighting the whole industry thats the issue. And things like on a play date are you going to risk something fancy or stick to pizza

I think consumer pressure might possibly help a little.
There are for eg loads of resources for a nestle boycott.
The guy defending the food industry on that show was so smug about how he would keep prioritising profit until the government told him otherwise so maybe political pressure too.

I lived in Germany in the late 1990s and I think most households in my city were dual income.
People still ate way more fresh food than in a similar town in the UK.
In restaurants too.

Think salad-with-duck-breast as opposed to reheated pizza base with preserved ham product.

Some of this (feminism-wise) might be Liberal vs radical.
I am an old-fashioned radical feminist in a relationship with another old-fashioned radical feminist.
It is part of being a feminist, for us, to consider environmental impact and the ethics of food production and consumption. For eg we are both vegetarian and that's important to us for feminist reasons.
I chose to use cloth nappies and to breastfeed, as another eco example.

However, neither of us would give anyone hassle for doing things differently - just that we take a holistic view of feminist praxis.

For me (and for dp actually) our dads were the main household cook so maybe it's not such a loaded wirework thing.

Another angle might be the way that it's often men saying these things eg Jamie Oliver shaking up school dinners so that, for example, lots of children switch to packed lunches and there's more domestic work for women.

But I do think that ideally, people would be better off eating less highly processed food. It is a new thing and has been driven by industry. It's about making people crave certain products and then eating mindlessly.

It doesn't necessarily mean ending the purchase of all convenience foods.

I had a nosy at the aldi website and some pizzas have about 9 recognisable ingredients. Others have about 93 and don't seem as appetising.
Oddly the cheaper ones seemed OK.

So if people chose the simpler food that yielded the same convenience, the market might change.

Wow that was a multi-tangent ramble.

And things like on a play date are you going to risk something fancy or stick to pizza

I dont think this helps. This notion that kids don't eat anything. The uk and probably the USA must make an.absolute mint on kidd menus etc . Do kids in Japan or Germany starve and die because of no chicken nuggets.

I'm on a couple of zero waste groups on FB and they are 99% women too. I was on another one but got kicked off for saying it was OK to start a thread "can any other women share their experience of period pants" and she was told off for not being trans inclusive.
So this is all a women's issue even if some of them think they have avoided being women.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction

I think consumer pressure might possibly help a little. There are for eg loads of resources for a nestle boycott. The guy defending the food industry on that show was so smug about how he would keep prioritising profit until the government told him otherwise so maybe political pressure too.

I lived in Germany in the late 1990s and I think most households in my city were dual income.
People still ate way more fresh food than in a similar town in the UK.
In restaurants too.

Think salad-with-duck-breast as opposed to reheated pizza base with preserved ham product.

Some of this (feminism-wise) might be Liberal vs radical.
I am an old-fashioned radical feminist in a relationship with another old-fashioned radical feminist.
It is part of being a feminist, for us, to consider environmental impact and the ethics of food production and consumption. For eg we are both vegetarian and that's important to us for feminist reasons.
I chose to use cloth nappies and to breastfeed, as another eco example.

However, neither of us would give anyone hassle for doing things differently - just that we take a holistic view of feminist praxis.

For me (and for dp actually) our dads were the main household cook so maybe it's not such a loaded wirework thing.

Another angle might be the way that it's often men saying these things eg Jamie Oliver shaking up school dinners so that, for example, lots of children switch to packed lunches and there's more domestic work for women.

But I do think that ideally, people would be better off eating less highly processed food. It is a new thing and has been driven by industry. It's about making people crave certain products and then eating mindlessly.

It doesn't necessarily mean ending the purchase of all convenience foods.

I had a nosy at the aldi website and some pizzas have about 9 recognisable ingredients. Others have about 93 and don't seem as appetising.
Oddly the cheaper ones seemed OK.

So if people chose the simpler food that yielded the same convenience, the market might change.

Wow that was a multi-tangent ramble.

How is being vegetarian feminist??

@Whatwouldscullydo

And things like on a play date are you going to risk something fancy or stick to pizza

I dont think this helps. This notion that kids don't eat anything. The uk and probably the USA must make an.absolute mint on kidd menus etc . Do kids in Japan or Germany starve and die because of no chicken nuggets.

The thing is, i do a lot of scratch cooking and most visiting kids didnt eat it. So i agree that they wont die but i cant fight the whole of society. My marcaroni cheese was too cheesy, my tomato sauce had bits in it etc. I gave up. Even if their parents also scratch cooked, their mum didnt put peas in the shepherds pie or they cut their meat in strips not chunks. Wheras pizza, nuggets, dolmio sauce was consistent between houses and got eaten.

In Germany the kid menus are crap too

Also Italy

I was a bit shocked!

Ultimately the kids must not be hungry if they are refusing home cooked food though. So it's no big deal if they don't eat it.

@Whatwouldscullydo

And things like on a play date are you going to risk something fancy or stick to pizza

I dont think this helps. This notion that kids don't eat anything. The uk and probably the USA must make an.absolute mint on kidd menus etc . Do kids in Japan or Germany starve and die because of no chicken nuggets.

It's difficult with other people's children, especially as an anxious first time parent. I bought coco pops especially when DS had his first friend sleep over as I had no clue if the child would eat what we did. I was on a very low income so we usually ate porridge as it's cheap and nutritious, and it's just the two of us so we didn't have a variety of different options in the cupboard. In the end the child had vegemite toast and the coco pops went unopened in the cupboard until I gave them away (DS has never liked them).

@Mildredpuppy
The thing is, i do a lot of scratch cooking and most visiting kids didnt eat it.

Same here, lots of food went to waste!

I mean visiting kids, for pp.

Dp does all the cooking and meal planning in our house. He works from home, while I'm out all day and also have an eating disorder, so my food planning skills are... questionable. Threads like these always make me wonder afresh why we are so unusual.

Play dates have just been something else that's been almost dramatised now. If that's the right word.

Befire you'd just get a kid knocking on the door to go out and play. Then you wouldn't see them til dinner unless they crawled in fir a drink or a quid of the ice cream van.

Someone would perhaps leg it home quickly to ask of it was OK to stay fir dinner as Caroline's mum said it was fine. And you'd just get given something. My mum.used to get passed next doors child over the fence at short notice

Now it's arranged in advance people not only panic they wont eat what's fir tea so keep drawers full of orange food. They also worry the parents going to have a go that David didnt get any dinner.

Another burden we place on ourselves that's taken on a whole new level of hassle that never existed befire

In the olden days, convenience foods had to be canned and processed.
Now, supply chains are more sophisticated than ever. Getting fresh unprocessed, convenient food into the normal distribution channels is perfectly possible. It would be more expensive though because the shelf life of both the final product and the ingredients is much less forgiving. The incentive to present food as unprocessed when it actually is processed is high. We need some sort of kite mark.

OP - I totally agree. Excellent thread for discussion imo.

@MildredPuppy yes I agree about play dates - it’s not that the visiting child is unfamiliar with home made food - it’s just that it’s unfamiliar. Pizza all the way here in that scenario!

The thing is, i do a lot of scratch cooking and most visiting kids didnt eat it

See your looking at it from a hosting sense..

As a child even quite a young one we would have had to look.at it from a manners sense. Is this burden of having having entire meal eaten with enthusiasm unrealistic and unnecessary? Should we take away from this situation that the problem.is a kid being shy and quiet and in unfamiliar surroundings and its the cooking that needs to change. Or should we expect the child to make an effort to be polite and use the.manners hopefully they have been taught and that if they just eat sone garlic bread and ice cream and strawberries fir pudding you did your.job of providing food and if they are hungry they can eat when they get home. Why is it on us to solve the.entire problem at what could be a fair chunk.of extra expense akd freezer space fir the sake of a couple if hours after school.

I mean unless it's slugs and snails, some stuff might he a bit plain and boring like pasta or rice but not inedible or vomit inducing, it's not like an entire meal would be battery acid.

Most kids eat way too many snacks anyway so they just don't need a main meal.

The constant snacking culture is very unhelpful and also contributes to consumption of UPFs.

@ValancyRedfern

Dp does all the cooking and meal planning in our house. He works from home, while I'm out all day and also have an eating disorder, so my food planning skills are... questionable. Threads like these always make me wonder afresh why we are so unusual.

You're unusual, Valency, because prior to Covid most men didn't work from home and everyday cookery and feeding children was something that mothers tend to be expected to know about and have an interest in. Plus it's still women who are assumed to be the main everyday planner and provider of food.

Glad this has struck a chord with other women. I wonder whether anymen watched the programme, let alone worried about it. Family health seems to have been almost entirely delegated to the women in most families.

Yh grel

Of course they aren't going to eat homemade from.svratch food if they are a- full up.on.snacks.
B- too lazy to chew/work for the food/taste.

There's nothing wrong with being a bit hungry. We are meant to feel hungry. It's not some feeling feeling.be kept at bay by throwing food at the child every hour or 2.