You know that list of foods you dish up at least a couple of times a week, as an alternative when something else is refused (see last post!), or when you’ve got other people’s kids over, or just for an easy life? I’m talking pasta with cheese, yoghurt, chicken, sandwiches, fish (usually of the fingers variety), chips & peas… the stuff that most mums agree all kids will eat, & anyway they’re good foods, right? Full of energy, calcium, protein, vitamins…? Well they can be. But then again, they can be not at all. Pasta can be lots of things, as can chicken, or a cheese sandwich. And not all of them are good.

Take pasta. If we’re talking wholewheat, buckwheat or spelt pasta, with a freshly made, tomato based, organic (preferably) sauce full of chopped fresh vegetables, & some good protein in the form of pulses, a little tuna or oily fish like sardines, or some grated organic, tasty (so you need less of it) cheese… then yes, that’s a great meal for growing kids. Slow burning carbohydrates for energy, protein, vitamins & minerals, antioxidants & calcium, omegas (if you went for the oily fish) – all good. If however by ‘pasta’ you mean white pasta with piles of ready-grated cheese of the sweaty, so mild it tastes of nothing rubbery variety, then that’s not so great. High GI, processed carbs for a blood sugar spike with a pile of additive-filled saturated fats on top.

Try fish & chips. We had these the other night. Fresh white fish cut into strips, dunked in egg & fresh breadcrumbs, potatoes scrubbed & cut into chunky chips, then roasted in the oven, served with some fresh green veg like broccoli florets or peas, or some salad. OR… ‘fish & chips’ could just as easily describe a plate of trans-fats, salt, sugar & colourings, plus a host of other preservatives & un-pronounceable additives of dubious ‘fish’ or otherwise origin.

Chicken – water-filled, hormone-injected & GM-fed? In a tub covered in some dodgy bloke with a beard’s secret recipe & bizarrely labelled ‘chicken popcorn’ (what IS that by the way? Cos it sure ain’t chicken). Or organic (or at least free range) real chicken cooked with vegetables, rice, potatoes, cous cous, whatever, so long as you can still identify how every ingredient started life & it hasn’t been pumped full of total rubbish to make it scarily cheap… BTW you know how they make it that cheap? What must they must feed a chicken (cheap GM soy from south America, grown on plantations where there used to be rainforests, that’s what… Sorry different rant), how it must live, how full of growth hormones & water must it be injected & fed, for it to be profitbale business to sell it to you for £2.50 / bird?

Now before I get lynched by the ‘I can’t afford organic chicken & fresh fish, I’ve got a family to feed & I’m a working mum’ brigade, hear me out. Because so am I. But if the food your family are eating is full of c**p, has had all the nutritional value sucked out of it, & is filled with water to make it look bigger than it is – is that really *saving* you any money? How about you have meat or fish one day less a week, make it the good stuff, fill out the meal with more fresh vegetables & know you’re all actually getting some benefit from the food you’re eating? Good protein doesn’t have to come from meat or dairy- you can make fabulous filling & child-friendly meals using chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans, cannellini beans… (incidentally if those suggestions leave you bemused & staring vacantly at an out-of-date packet of pearl barley, I’ll happily provide some extremely simple recipe suggestions in a future post!)

Couple more to finish off… yoghurt. When yoghurt is referred to by nutritionists as a great food, they mean natural (unsweetened), fresh, probiotic yoghurt – cow, goat or soy… (all these really should be organic). They don’t mean a pot of over-processed, very sweet gooey stuff with a few flea-sized portions of ‘real (well it was once) fruit’ in it.

Cereal… everyone knows this one I think. I read in a yoga book recently about ‘cereal’ being a key food, but somehow I don’t think it was referring to coco pops… Nuff said.

Read the labels on your food! Ingredients are listed in order of how much of that is in there. If sugar (remember sugar can also be glucose, glucose syrup, fructose, honey, high fructose corn syrup, & many more!) is one of the first listed – that means it’s one of the main ingredients. Even if it has got ‘low fat’ or ‘real fruit’ or pictures of the Tweenies on it.

But try to feed your kids (& yourself!) foods which don’t HAVE labels! Real food has a pronounceable names & bears some physical resemblance to a natural source.

Chicken popcorn anyone?