Childrens diet...

Tea-and-Cake_3

My mother in law drives me crazy moaning about our families diet..."Too much sugar/white flour/not enough veg..." I don't think we're untypical of most families in the uk so I'll post an example and see what you think also interested in what you all eat.

Breakast: Porridge made with milk and water, sweetened with brown sugar/honey. Banana. Wholemeal toast with spread and jam.

Lunch: Beans on toast, yogurt, fruit.

Dinner: chicken, potatoes, green beans. Apple crumble and custard.

Snacks are fruit or crackers occasionally a sweetie or crisps. Drinks are dilute juice/fresh fruit juice/milk.

Is this so bad?

peachyprice

Is your family overweight and/or unhealthy?

TBH, that does sound like a lot of food for an average day to me, but none of us are big breakfast eaters and if we do occasionally have breakfast we would then have something light at lunchtime and we only have heavy desserts like that once a week, the rest of the week it's yogurt or fruit for dessert.

Wicked_witch

It is a lot of sugar- remember baked beans are full of it too and yoghurt tends to be very high (especially low-fat as, like most low fat options, they put in extra sugar for flavour). I am very aware of all that though as I recently developed diabetes!

As long as your children are healthy, active and not overweight I'd not be too worried.

flipper_72

Seems to be a lot of sweet stuff at breakfast, sugar gives you a rush but then a big fall. What type of bread do you have? this would be a way to improve fibre if you are currently on white then try 50/50? It certainly doesn't seem bad but there are areas you could change/improve.

Mine are 4 and 7, when they have porridge it is made with milk and have either pureed apple (I freeze it in ice-cube trays) or frozen blackberries added to flavour it and also cool it down to eating temp.
Toast is either wholemeal, wholegrain or malted grain, they tend to have peanut butter although jam is available. Mine tend to have toast or porridge or cereal (Weetabix, shreddies, rice crispies).
mid morning snack is fruit and milk (at nursery/school)
Lunch is a wrap or sandwich with ham/chicken or cheese, fruit juice, chopped veg (cucumber pepper carrot and tomatoes), piece of fruit and a biscuit or cake.
Afternoon snack depends on activities but is flapjack, crumpet, teacake or crackers.
Dinner is cooked from scratch, doesn't always involve meat, they eat a lot of pulses, curries, chillies, pasta. if they want pudding it is custard, yoghurt etc. but probably 4/7 they don't bother.

securityguy

Tea-and-Cake wrote: »

Breakast: Porridge made with milk and water, sweetened with brown sugar/honey (sugar). Banana (sugar). Wholemeal toast with spread (salt) and jam (sugar).

Lunch: Beans (sugar, salt) on toast, yogurt (sugar), fruit (sugar).

Dinner: chicken, potatoes, green beans. Apple (sugar) crumble (sugar) and custard (sugar).

Snacks are fruit (sugar) or crackers occasionally a sweetie (sugar) or crisps (salt). Drinks are dilute juice (sugar)/fresh fruit juice (sugar)/milk.

Is this so bad?

What makes you think that, for example, brown sugar, honey or the sugar in fruit is any different to white sugar? There's only one fresh vegetable per day in there, which seems pretty grim.

heretolearn_2

Sounds fairly average to me but it's hard to say just from one day.

Agree there is a fair amount of sugar - honey/jam/brown sugar are all sugars, and lots of fruit = lots of sugar too.

One thing that sticks out to me is that there is only one vegetable all day...veggies are important as well as fruit. Could some of the snacks or lunches be carrot sticks/pepper strips/baby sweetcorn/sliced tomato with dip/humous instead, and have 2 veggies at dinner? (potatoes don't count). And sneak a veggie in with breakfast or lunch. Veggie soup?

Breakfast - wholemeal toast is good but you are topping it with sugar really. How about marmite or peanut butter/egg/pate (good to add a bit of protein to start the day).

I try to think of my 5 a day, with 3 veggies and 2 fruit.

pigpen

Try sweetening porridge with fruit rather than sugar.. it still has sugar but fructose rather than refined stuff and would be a lot less.

Beans on toast could be substituted for a salad with a small piece of chicken for protein with skin removed etc. with fruit if needed.

For dinner we are a typical meat and 2 veg, pasta and mince/meatballs or mash and meat type family.

The children have a yoghurt after the evening meal most often though sometimes have ice cream and fruit .. definitely not a carb heavy dessert like a crumble or anything.

My youngest son has diabetes so we do try to restrict carby desserts and make sure it is mainly wholemeal stuff.. it may sound crazy but the whole families diet has improved massively since he was diagnosed 2 years ago so he didn't feel like he was being singled out or I was having to cook 2 meals we all just adapted to his meals.

neverdespairgirl

Tea-and-Cake wrote: »

My mother in law drives me crazy moaning about our families diet..."Too much sugar/white flour/not enough veg..." I don't think we're untypical of most families in the uk so I'll post an example and see what you think also interested in what you all eat.

Breakast: Porridge made with milk and water, sweetened with brown sugar/honey. Banana. Wholemeal toast with spread and jam.

Lunch: Beans on toast, yogurt, fruit.

Dinner: chicken, potatoes, green beans. Apple crumble and custard.

Snacks are fruit or crackers occasionally a sweetie or crisps. Drinks are dilute juice/fresh fruit juice/milk.

Is this so bad?

There's a lot of sugar in there, I think - brown sugar / honey, banana and jam for breakfast, probably in the beans, almost certainly in the yogurt and fruit, and sugar again in the crumble and custard, not to mention sugar in the fruit juice and diluted fruit juice.

I'd say it was a bit heavy on sugar, and alarmingly light on vegetables.

By comparison, my son (aged 8) had yesterday:

Breakfast - rice crispies without milk, water

Lunch - rice with tofu, raw red and green peppers, raw red cabbage, and various spices, apple, soya beans, water to drink

After school - 2 slices of fruit tea bread, cup of tea with milk

Dinner - chicken breast cooked in tomato, potatoes, spinach, sweetcorn, glass half apple juice, half water. After dinner he had a mini magnum-type ice-cream lolly.

Any

Not too worried about the sugar. I wouldn't eat unsweetened porridge if I had to die. And sweetening it with honey - good move.
And sugar from fruit questions- are some people for real?? Lets eat dust. Then it won't have any sugar;-(
But is that all for breakfast? That is a lot. Or was it to show the different things?

Can you show more lunch variety? Surely you don't have beans every day.
Any salad stuff? Tomatoes, cucumbers, raddish...?

Dinner is nice. Again, I would like to see more variety of what you have to be able to judge. I am sure you also eat rice? Also I would put more veggies in there. carrots and beans. brocolli and carrot. parsnips and carrots... I mean - more then 1 variety on the plate.

Gigglepig

This does not sound unusual for the UK, but at the same time IMO is not great, as others have pointed out, very few vegetables (aim for 5 a day which should mainly be veg) and quite many sugary things.

Your MIL probaly wants to be helpful/caring in her own way, even if it is none of her business what you cook for your kids.

pigpen

Any wrote: »

And sugar from fruit questions- are some people for real?? Lets eat dust. Then it won't have any sugar;-( .

refined sugar is actually addictive! They add it to foods to make you crave more of that food so you buy more and their profits are boosted.. That was figured out a LONG time ago! It is apparently more addictive than cocaine!!

Fruit and vegetables also have these bizarre things called vitamins and minerals which the processed sugars don't.

So yes.. sugars from fruit/milk etc are better than refined sugar.