Buying stuff in supermarkets for packed lunches

Fire_Fox

A._Badger wrote: »

I do take your point and I think we are in complete agreement about the over-reliance on processed foods and the appalling lack of knowledge about food and cooking in general.

For that reason, I'm very happy to see cookery being taught in schools (and it must be taught to boys as well as girls).

But I draw the line at banning packed lunches. The government's 'healthy eating' guidelines, as is becoming clearer by the month, are coming under serious fire from researchers and there remain many unanswered questions. I, for one, wouldn't want any child of mine stuffed full of pizza because of faddy junk science about carbs, or fed refined processed vegetable oils in place of the animal fats we have evolved to eat.

But even if that weren't the case, this is a dangerous step along a road which is already being designed and planned by health Nazis - whereby what we all eat is governed by what orthodoxy happens to dictate at a given point in time.

I don't think that is somewhere we, as a society, really want to go.

The healthy eating guidelines are generalised minimums/ maximums designed to provide a minimum amount of all the nutrients the body needs, no health professional I have ever worked with pretends they represent ideal or optimal nutrition. Many criticisms that are levelled don't take into consideration the FULL and detailed guidelines, just the headlines, nor do they take into consideration that they are designed to be manageable, achievable, have a chance of adherence. It is disingenuous to cherry pick and pretend that defines the entire system.

You are not actively advised to eat refined wheat or vegetable oils, you are actively encouraged to eat starchy carbs certainly, AT LEAST half of which should be whole which clearly leaves room for them ALL to be whole unprocessed starchy carbs. I'd like to see beans and lentils in the same category.

As far as fats are concerned we are encouraged to eat reduced amounts of certain fats not simply no or low fat, including ANY added fats and higher amounts of saturated animal fats. Humans evolved eating primarily fish, seafood such as molluscs and relatively lean game/ wild animals including the offal not big lumps of muscle meat from fattened farmed animals, butter, blocks of cheese nor cheap mince deliberately produced from the absolute fattiest cuts. The guidelines permit eating some saturated animal fats within meat, cheese and whole eggs but IMO this really should be balanced with DAILY intake of seafood little of which contains saturated fats.

We also evolved doing plenty of exercise and with no central heating - how many children do you know living like that? We are often encouraged to eat more foods which include fats in their natural forms - oily fish, nuts, seeds, avocados, olives for example. Foods which contain ADDED fats and sugars - yes including vegetable oils! - sit in the no more than 10% of daily calories guideline. Oh and a wide variety of different foods is advocated. Taken together I don't see how those fit in with your claims and that is not all of the guidelines nor the full detail.

I can assure you from working with the public those who exceed the official healthy eating guidelines are VERY few and far between, most eat a diet that contains way too much processed rubbish and way too little of at least one nutrient. Even many who opt for some form of wholefood diet combine these with personal tastes and end up with something that is far from balanced nutritionally. The reality is the (imperfect) healthy eating guidelines are a step forward nutritionally from the average UK diet and from many lay interpretations of low carb, and Public Health is looking at our nation's health at a population level.

And before you dismiss me as being 'establishment' I will say I have done plenty of research which I base my recommendations to clients and of course my own diet on. I do not push grains since most eat far too much processed wheat anyway, I encourage a wholefood diet based around produce, more fish, nuts, seeds, beans and lentils than many eat and really push the variety message which automatically prohibits reliance on processed wheat. Even being grain free can fit in with the spirit of the healthy eating guidelines since they are minimums, maximums, flexible.

Official guidelines are far more balanced and far more flexible and realistic than being a vegan or strict paleo for example, and a lot easier to get ALL the nutrients the body needs without resorting to supplements. If you could get the British public eating organ meats, seasonal green veg, oily fish and other seafood on a daily basis we could start advocating the sort of diet we truly evolved to eat not the sanitised-for-westerners supermarket prepack version. IMO there are ill informed health 'nazis' at both ends of the spectrum, often amongst those who advocate eliminating whole food groups.

A._Badger

rachbc wrote: »

The minister responsible categorically denied they are even considering banning packed lunches on R4 this morning so the Daily Mail brigade can go back to wailing and knashing teeth about some other perceived injustice

While perhaps the Guardian readers could usefully read the following

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9860537/Schools-should-ban-unhealthy-packed-lunches.html

Fire_Fox

A._Badger wrote: »

Frankly, Fire Fox, I really can't be bothered to argue with you. Your version of what is healthy is based on some very questionable data (you keep repeating the 'five a day' mantra as if you have read nothing at all in recent years about the challenges to the perceived role of antioxidants). This is worrying and your willingness to condone compulsion, using socialised medicine and its costs as an excuse is, frankly, chilling. That, though, is not an argument for this forum, as I'm sure our very keen-eyed mod will soon remind us.

If only for the sake of not boring other readers into a coma, I'm not going to enter into a debate with you. I will just hope that readers keep up to date with the rapidly changing state of knowledge and don't take on trust anything they are told by governments.It is usually, at best, several years out of date.

If you had bothered to read my posts you might actually note I do not repeat five a day, and the official message is not five a day anyway it is 'at least'. I encourage seven to nine a day. It's about FAR more than antioxidants which again, you'd know if you'd actually read my posts and some of the research you pretend to cite instead of polarising the discussion.

Edwardia

From what Henry Dimbleby was saying on BBC, the no packed lunch rule is likely but not carved in stone whereas the cookery lessons will happen.

He and his business partner are still working on their report and due to hand it over this year. The govt wanted to announce cookery lessons ahead of that though.

The remit ie what they are looking at can be found here
http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00211245/impschfood

I can certainly understand the POV that parents should have some control over the things that their kids eat.

BUT all too often, complete freedom of choice means that Horatio gets healthy stuff and Britney gets crisps and fizzy stuff.

I wouldn't say I'm particularly left wing but the playing field needs levelling where it can be. A bunch of organic Fairtrade bananas costs a quid in Lidl. If that was an aubergine, it would be useless knowledge if you had no idea what to do with an aubergine.

Bottom line, the children are our future and already, 25% of school leavers are overweight or obese and 15% of the 25% ie the majority are obese. Brits are the fattest nation in Europe and these kids are the first generation in the UK who will likely live shorter lives than their parents. To me, that's shocking.

Fifty years ago most all food was organic because we didn't have the technology and synthetic fertilisers and pesticides so the elderly we see around us today grew up as kids with a much healthier diet than we have now. A baby born today in the USA will have around 300 toxins in its cord blood, for starters.

To me, all kids and indeed all families should have access to good food, If kids aren't taught to cook then they can't pass on the skills to their kids.

I can understand parents complaining about paying two quid or more per child for stodge. That needs to change and fast.

An eminent doctor gave a lecture on public health to students at Harvard Law School and he said everything I'm telling you now will be old hat in ten years. The big problem is all this research doesn't help because we get conflicting advice which changes all the time.

A._Badger

The problem is, Edwardia, that the assumption keeps being made that a low fat, low sugar diet will cure our obesity problems.

Well, it may do. But there is little hard evidence and what there is tends to be epidemiological, which is a playground for charlatanism. The mantra 'corealation does not mean causation' is the first phrase any wannabe scientist should learn..

As you yourself say, the we keep receiving contradictory advice and the reason for that is because the answers are not yet in. We don't even know (as I have posted here before) whether the advice to consume high levels of fruit and vegetables to boost our intake of antioxidants may not be increasing our inability to fight cancer - something even the American Cancer Association has recently admitted.

Another example. Recently, research suggested that the switch to artificial sweeteners was implicated in the burgeoning rate of diabetes. In other words, doing precisely what the health lobby has been saying - replacing sugar w- as doing us greater harm. Of course, the health nannies weren't saying 'guzzle Aspartame' instead, but the point still stands. Innocent people, following what they though was good advice, were doing themselves harm

Sardines in sunflower oil? Healthy? Well, not necessarily. Ask a rheumatologist about the effects of sunflower oil - the 'healthy' oil, as it's so often portrayed.

Well intentioned the health freaks may be and, yes, Britney's mum isn't doing her any favours by filling her lunchbox with cola and Oreos. But we just don't know enough to start bossing people around. And if if we did, I would suggest we shouldn't. But that's a different argument.

johanne

Bananabrain wrote: »

I did a brief stint as a midday supervisory assistant [posh name for dinner lady]
I'd say on average about 50 per cent of what is served ends up in the bin. And that's on a good day.
I was quite frankly appalled at what I saw. Parents are paying good money for rubbish quite frankly. The local council produce glossy pamphlets extoling the virtues of school meals, but in my experience what is advertised and what is actually served bear no relation to one another!
My son had packed lunches:rotfl:
I subsequently learnt that in Italy, the school cooks make fresh pasta every day. From what I saw, the cooks in my son's school lack even the most basic skills.
.

i can second that - last academic year i also worked as a lunchtime supervisor. The school had "HEALTHY SCHOOL" status so chocolate/sweets/fizzy drinks were banned....

This meant i was told by my superior that the child with a muller yoghurt with the chocolate balls in the corner had to have her yoghurt conviscated - but when i questioned the rest of her lunch was told her monster munch crisps and mini swiss roll were fine for her to eat as they werent banned?!!

Another child proudly showed me the homemade chocolate chip cookie he made the night before with his mum and so i pretended not to see it - only for me to see 5 mins later one the other dinner ladies take it off him and bin it as it had chocolate in it! - but the kid sat next to him could keep the 6 jammie dodgers he had (so he shared them with his friend!) ??!

Then there was the children on hot dinners who hated what they were given so would daily ask for "the alternative" instead which was a sandwich . The sandwich choice was always the same cheap white bread with a sprinkling of orange grated cheese or a dollop of goopy tuna mayo. If they were lucky sometimes some reformed ham would find itself onto the dry bread as an alternative - the kids actually got excited if ham was an option! the parents were paying £9 a week for their children to eat this.

We would hand out lunches to the tiny reception children instead of them collecting them themselves from the queue - i was horrified that the "portion" of salad for the children was 3 strands of shredded iceburg lettuce one wafer thin slice of tomato and if they were lucky 1/2 a wafer thin slice of cucumber. i remember the cook saying she was expected to use one whole cucumber to feed the whole school each time! bowls of fruit salad for pudding were one segment of orange 2 grapes and 2 slices of apple.

Half the hot dinners were scraped into the black bins as the kids simply didnt like them as they were "burnt hard" (from reheating) or just plain "horrible"!

One dinner that stood out to me was them serving up a bowl of stodgy obviously overcooked white rice with one ladel of korma sauce (which the cook told me was so runny because she'd had to water it down more than 50% because it was the last jar in the storecupboard and budget cuts meant they couldnt get anymore jars till the following term so she had to make it last) and each bowl had about 3 chunks of chicken in it and they plonked half a slice of the cheap white bread onto the top for the kids to soak up the curry/water!!

I was genuinely shocked at what i witnessed and i couldnt believe the school had a healthy eating status!

Suffice to say when my own daughter started reception class (at a different school) this year i made the choice to put her on packed lunch - at least i know what and how much shes eaten and im not paying £9 a week for her to scrape her dinner into the nearest bin and go hungry as i saw so often in "my" school!

Edwardia

I'd argue that Britney's mum is already being bossed around, because the supermarkets pay lip service to the notion of healthy eating and continue to pile not just small quantities of meat into products, but also large quantities of stuff like glucose-fructose syrup and preservatives.

If ASDA was able to sell the same cut and same pack weight of pork at the same price as Tesco, without adding 11% water, sodium citrate, sodium acetate and dried glucose syrup then Tesco didn't need to sell me 89% pork loin steaks with three additives, it was a business decision.

There is enough evidence, to show that emphasising low fat and higher carb diets has done us no good whatsoever but governments will only change the advice piecemeal to avoid class actions.

I never understand why sunflower oil is seen as being so healthy, because if it's heated, the molecular structure changes to something which isn't all that. Rapeseed oil was toxic to humans before the Canadians developed canola oil in the 50s. I won't use either of them.

I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2007 and tried a low GI (glycemic index) diet with all the supposedly healthier carbs like quinoa, spelt, lentils - and it carried on getting worse. In 2010 I went low carb and cut out processed food, sweeteners and non veg carbs. That worked for me.

But I have a dysfunctional pancreas and someone with a normal one may be able to eat all of the above and be healthy.

Dr Robert Lustig MD, the professor of paedatric endocrinology, is pretty anti fruit juices. He's also not particularly pro fruit calling it fructose + fibre.

I look at carbs as VfN (value for nutrition) ie is is worth eating for the other nutrients or not or can I get those from something less carby.

It does seem to me that the approach of a little of everything which my grandmother believed in, might expose us less to health advice seesaws.

johanne I'm not surprised that you gave your daughter a packed lunch having seen that !

I found the School Food Plan website www.education.gov.uk/schoolfoodplan/
If you wany to tell Henry Dimbleby what schools are doing right ow where they are going wrong you can email school dot plan at education dot gsi dot gov dot uk - you know to put . for dot and @ for at

Fire_Fox

Just oh dear. Do your own research please guys, not commercial sites and commercial diet books.

Edwardia

Hmm.. if that was directed at me, I've never been on diet in my life and yes I DO my own research and have emailed with specialists and researchers.

The Glycemic Index was developed by the University of Sydney to show which foods provoke the highest and lowest insulemic (spelling ?) responses and a diet was developed from that. I don't see anything wrong in using the index merely to prioritise which veg I eat, cross referenced with nutrition info from govt sources so I only eat carby veg if I can't get better nutritional value elsewhere.

Personally I'm against Weight Watchers, Slimming World and even Atkins. I don't believe a diet works long term, the only thing that does is changing the way of eating permanently. If you're going to classes, eating rep;acement meals etc you're just pitting money in the pockets of companies which frankly, don't need it.

But changing the way you eat is never as easy as diet plans make it out to be.

Fire_Fox

My comments were not aimed at any individual poster, apologies Edwardia.