/Slightly off topic self-indulgant rant
In our road we have a few parents who regularly buy their kids crisps and biscuits. I never did, couldn`t afford it even if I`d wanted to. My kids would have a proper breakfast, packed lunch (cheese sandwich, packet of crisps, fruit/yoghurt, and squash, not the healthiest packed lunch, but hardly a hanging offense!). In the summer the neighbours would often let their kids snack on the crisps and biscuits and allow whichever kids they were playing with have some too. I didn`t mind, I was happy enough with my kids diet, and they were not fat and unhealthy. However, my kids realised they were on to a good thing, because they had access to treats I don`t keep in the house so started to lurk in the hope they`d get some `goodies` :roll:. Result? I was reported to the social services for not feeding my kids properly. This coincided with the fact that I`d mentioned to someone that I was able to feed the family on 30 quid a week. After this was seen as me skimping on their diet, I started to show off my receipt to proove them wrong. Sad but true.
Feeding the family on 30 quid a week was NOT easy, but at the time it was a necessary evil. We stuck to Tescos value porridge in the morning (2 x 49p for the week) sausage casseroles, pasta bakes, pizza with salad, beans on toast, etc etc. I always made sure they had at least one piece of fruit a day, and they always had cooked veg or salad with a meal. All but one member of the family are also big milk drinkers. Every Sunday we had our roast, and a full english brekkie in the morning. My trolly was always filled with blue and white stripes, but we have always been a strictly three meals a day family, with little else needed in between.
These days I`d find it pretty difficult to do it on 30 quid a week, but I can do it on the cheap, although sometimes I do do the odd week of the Iceland meal deal crap, sometimes I just need a cheap and easy week. It doesn`t kill anyone because we don`t make a habit of it.
Oh, and the social worker? She had no problem with us. She visited when all the kids were off of school with a bad cold, and found them lined up on the sofa, under a duvet, eating a cooked breakfast. They looked far from starved. She was pissed that she`d even been called.
I do find fruit horribly expensive at times, so the kids are restricted to having it in their lunch, they can`t come home and help themselves to the (non-existant) fruitbowl, but salad is cheap. If I buy chicken burgers and chips, I have no problem with that. I do like to make it a proper chicken burger with salad inside, or sometimes I serve baked beans with them undressed, last I heard baked beans are actually pretty healthy. If they get hungry before mealtimes they are told to make toast, although the girls like to nuke a spud and have a jacket potato.
I`ve done the whole chopped cheese and grated carrot thing with raisins, time consuming and annoying, and has proven to be unnecessary in our house. My kids are pretty much being fed as my mum fed me.
So in general, I`m not anti-junk food, just anti too much junk food. There should be a balance, and there are areas I will not compromise on. My kids are not allowed to leave the house without breakfast inside them, I think that staves off much of the urge to snack on crap.
Ok, I`m `s a rant in there somewhere, you just have to look for it :wink:
Venusxxx

Forum