The Food Our Children Eat: How to Get Children to Like Good Food. Joanna Blythman

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      BREAKFAST CEREAL AND MILK

      The typical ‘children’s cereal’ favourites consist of highly processed and over-refined grains stuck together with sugar in one form or another, and many are also high in salt. Prominent added vitamins give an aura of health but are only an attempt to replace the goodness that has been refined out of the processed grain. These are overwhelmingly sugary foods. The nutritional goodness of the milk (protein, calcium and vitamins) can’t compensate for that.

      BURGERS

      Mass-produced burgers of the type aimed at children have a very different composition from ones you might make at home. They tend to contain much more fat, and include a number of chemical additives to improve flavour and consistency. They are generally made with meat that represents the lowest common legal denominator in terms of cuts allowed and the source of the animals.

      SAUSAGES AND SAUSAGE ROLLS

      Similar objections to burgers except that the amount of meat is often lower and there are more chemical additives. Sausage rolls have an additional layer of fatty pastry which makes them even less healthy. They are often served inadequately reheated from frozen and this, combined with the poor quality of the meat, makes them a likely food poisoning source.

      POULTRY OR FISH IN BREADCRUMBS

      Any food in breadcrumbs is automatically much fattier than its unbreaded equivalent because the coating holds fat, even when it is grilled rather than fried. Apart from whole fillets of poultry or fish, the minced poultry meat in products such as Kievs and nuggets represents a very low-grade mulch of intensively produced meat, held together with chemical additives. They seem cheap but they represent poor value for money given the ingredients used.

      FISH FINGERS

      Many contain just a fish and additive sludge. Some more expensive fish fingers do contain only fish fillets – even if this is at a vastly inflated price – but they are a less healthy alternative to a plain fillet because of the coating.

      CHIPS

      A very fatty food, even oven or lower-fat chips. Processing can result in a loss of vitamins.

      TINNED BAKED BEANS

      Beans offer useful fibre, some protein and beneficial vitamins. But tinned versions usually contain surprisingly large amounts of sugar and salt. This makes them less healthy than we might think.

      TINNED TOMATO SOUP

      The healthy nutrition offered by the tomatoes is outweighed, or at least cancelled out, by the unhealthy amounts of sugar. Another ‘savoury’ food that is usually surprisingly sweet.

      PIZZA

      A disc of highly refined bread dough with a very thin smear of sweetened tomato concentrate and some rubbery processed cheese, most kid’s pizzas are temporarily filling but low on any positively beneficial ingredients.

      SWEETS

      Children’s chocolate confectionery is basically a mixture of chemically hardened vegetable fats, vast amounts of sugar and small amounts of cocoa solids, with chemical flavourings. Fruity sweets consist mainly of sugar, mixed with sometimes natural but mainly chemical flavourings, colourings and other additives.

      BISCUITS

      Typical children’s biscuits consist overwhelmingly of highly refined flour, generous quantities of sugar and chemically hardened vegetable fat. Healthier-seeming versions prominently featuring ingredients such as oats and dried fruits often contain even more sugar than the standard biscuit and surprisingly large amounts of fat.

      CRISPS AND EXTRUDED SNACKS

      Crisps are both fatty and high in salt. Flavoured ones nearly always contain chemical additives and sweeteners in various forms, too. They are not filling and offer little good nutrition, so they will leave a hungry child dissatisfied and most probably thirsty, too.

      Extruded snacks come in shapes such as hoops, flying saucers or wafers, not slices. They are called extruded because they are made from a mixture of dehydrated potato, starches, emulsifiers and a number of chemical additives which is forced out (extruded) in a particular shape. They tend to contain even more additives than crisps.

      FIZZY DRINKS

      These are basically water that has been carbonated and then flavoured with artificial – or occasionally natural – flavourings. They also contain other chemical additives such as colourings and huge amounts of sugar or smaller amounts of chemical sweeteners. The routine presence of certain chemical preservatives and flavourings is now being linked to allergic reactions of all sorts, but particularly oral disease causing puffy lips, mouths and swollen jaws. These drinks contain nothing that is beneficial for health; instead they include ingredients that are known to attack good health. A typical can of cola contains the equivalent of seven teaspoons of white sugar. Drinks with sweeteners may have fewer calories and won’t attack tooth enamel but some scientists believe sweeteners may pose a risk to health.

      SQUASH

      Squash in its many forms often presents a healthy image based around the goodness of fruit. Some do contain real fruit juice in very small quantities but otherwise their ingredients are similar to fizzy drinks, just without the carbon dioxide, and the same objections apply. Even when considerably diluted, they can acustom children to a level of sweetness that makes ‘real’ drinks seem unpalatable by comparison.

      ICE CREAM

      The more expensive ‘premium’ ice creams contain a lot of fat in the form of cream and a lot of sugar but there is some nutritional goodness to be had from the non-sugar ingredients and they are fairly naturally made. Cheaper ice creams aimed at children, however, are highly synthetic concoctions of air, water, milk powder, hardened vegetable fat and lots of sugar blended together with chemical emulsifiers, stabilisers, colourings and flavourings.

      The slightly wider range of popular children’s foods and their limitations

      APPLES AND BANANAS

      These are really nutritious foods and it is good that children eat them but they are the only fruits that many children eat. If they are given them all the time, they may get bored with them and decide they don’t like fruit in general.

      FROZEN PEAS AND SWEETCORN

      Frozen vegetables are a useful and nutritious stand-by. But peas and sweetcorn both taste quite sweet. Children need to get used to a range of vegetables with different flavours, such as the tartness of a fresh tomato, the refreshing quality of cucumber and the pepperiness of watercress.

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