CT FM 010:
Quitting Processed Foods With Your Kids! Brought To You By: RecipeThis.com
Introduction Welcome to our tenth Podcast from CT FM. For our 10th Podcast I wanted to talk about quitting processed foods with your kids. Though first, thanks for sticking with us and seeing us through to 10 Podcasts – it is hard to believe that we are onto our 10th one for CT FM already! Okay so let’s talk processed foods. I don’t know about you but I was raised on them. I would come from school to a can of Heinz Macaroni Cheese. The closest it got to healthy was being served with some sliced tomato or a little bit of cucumber. This would probably be Monday, then Tuesday might be Campbells Meatballs, Wednesday might be Spaghetti Bolognese (again from Heinz) and then the week would go on like this. But do I blame my mum for presenting me with this when I came home from school? Absolutely not! We lived in an era when this was the norm. And talking to Dominic he got the same. And so did the majority of our friends. Kids were fed first when they came home and then the adults ate later. It was what happened and did it do use harm? Of course it did.
Look at those between the ages of 25-40 now! The biggest age range for obesity, teeth falling out to the huge amount of sugar consumed and a lack of general healthy eating or cooking knowledge. And don’t get me started about how many of them now have diabetes, high blood pressure and other related problems to do with processed foods. Plus I am not just talking about the processed foods that we associate with our lunch and dinner. What about the rest of it? We would also have sugary cereal for breakfast, snack on sugary cereal bars and have processed low quality meat & cheese in our sandwiches. Then there were the frozen ready meals and the chicken dippers. Over the week as children they would average that 80% of the food they consumed was processed food. Now as an educated 34 year old it makes me feel sick the thought of it and in the summer of 2015 we dropped our processed food consumption down to just 5%. We still have some processed foods but it is not like it used to be and it is not enough to do is any harm.
Processed foods = brands The majority of the times when you think about processed foods you are often talking about brands and this is where the problems start. As someone that has worked in marketing for a long time, I appreciate that brands are there to get their products out in front
of their audience and want to make it as interesting as possible. When I look at old ads for Poptarts, Rice Krispies and Frosties they were appealing to the kids so that the parents would be nagged until they bought them for their kids. When they were completely full of badness. Unlike a packet of cigarettes there is no label on them that says that they can harm you. So you ate them. The same went for the products aimed at the adult market. How often did you become obsessed with weight loss that when something said low fat or low sugar did we go and buy it? Rather than making our own from scratch and enjoying the fact that your food can taste better if you are involved in it.
What are processed foods? Well processed foods are not just the ready meals that you would associate with the phrase. They are also foods that have been altered from its original state. This then leads to you having added sugar, salt and fats to your processed food to make them taste better. This is why a lot of people eat organic as they know it is not a processed piece of food. If you cook from scratch you will know exactly what you’re eating and therefore don’t have to worry about the processed element. Processed foods can be associated with shop bought canned food, flavoured yoghurts, cereals, certain cheeses, crisps and fizzy drinks.
Though there are some cans that are actually good for you. Tinned tomatoes have been proven to be better for you for nutrients out of a can than fresh bought. Coconut milk and cans of tuna are also good for you.
What should you replace processed foods with? I should start by talking about what I would swap things for. If you are losing your cereal you want to know what you should have instead. Instead of the sugary cereal for breakfast, have a better quality breakfast cereal such as granola, weetabix or branflakes. Or instead of a cereal send your kids to school with a warm breakfast such as porridge, a quick omelette, freshly made pancakes or even make some homemade bread in your breadmaker. Then for lunch if your kids aren’t at school make them a rice or a pasta dish to fill them up until later. Before you start thinking from a time point of view, just bare in mind that my cheese sauce takes just 3 minutes to make and you can easily make a nice pasta dish in 20 minutes. We also spent the month of April focusing on 30 minute meals and these are prime examples of what you can do as a family without having processed foods in your life. Then for dinner having a family meal that has taken you a short amount of time to prepare and that is high on vegetables is perfect. My Spanish chicken is my favourite dish for doing this with. You marinate it in the oven dish in just a couple of minutes and then leave it to cook in the oven. It is full of fresh vegetables and chicken making it
the perfect dinner. The snacks part is my favourite. I often chop up fruit and put it into Greek yoghurt to make the ideal alternative to a regular yoghurt. I also like to make apple chips in the airfryer instead of crisps and baking biscuits from scratch means that you know EXACTLY what goes into them! Plus I love the smell of Dominic’s homemade chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen.
What processed foods do we still have? I am sure you are wondering what we have that still falls under processed foods and what we never quite managed to quit? Well weetabix and bran flakes probably still fall under processed but as a much better alternative. We also quit fruit cordial for water, but still have some Coke & Pepsi around, so we never managed to leave it completely! The boys still refuse to give up their mayonnaise and ketchup. I have quit them and make my own sauces from Greek yoghurt or quark. But I can’t quite wean them off the lure of the cheap jars of mayonnaise! Our cheddar cheese probably falls under processed foods too, but thanks to its rather large price tag here in Portugal we have it on a limited basis. We also have milk in our daily diet. Even though everyday milk and cream is considered as processed, it is considered to be a healthy option. It needs to be processed in order to make it safe. But stick to whole milk as it carries better nutrition values than semi or skimmed. And that is about it. I think that is really impressive considering we once lived out of the freezer and the cupboard!
This brings us to this Podcasts Sponsor:
For Podcast 10 of CT FM we wanted to bring to your attention Pinterest. It is full to bursting with ideas of what to cook when you want to cook from scratch. It will really educate you on your options and the quick dinners are amazing. Though, I can guarantee that you will get so engrossed with all the lovely recipe pictures that you can lose an entire evening! You can find all our recipes on there, along with the recipes we personally recommend at pinterest.com/recipethis.
Some would say this was not enough! I live in Portugal which in many ways is a rather healthy nation. They don’t have the same level of obesity as other places in the western world and food is celebrated as something that they love to do as a family. Unlike in America (well from what we personally experienced) a meal out is often enjoyed over a 2-3 hour period with a family enjoying wine in the sunshine after their meal. They eat at a normal pace and don’t over eat. The Portuguese also follow a rather healthy diet similar to the Mediterranean diet. This will include lots of meat, fish, vegetables and healthy fats. The only time I really witness obesity here is when the Brits or Americans are on their summer holidays and in winter I rarely see a fat person. But many of them are very strict in their routines. As a British expat I feel that based on the British diet that
if you could just give up processed foods you could be making a huge difference on your body. However the Portuguese will disagree and many of them only allow their kids to have coconut milk as a source of dairy and I doubt any of them have ever been in McDonalds. But for me I like fast food (well in moderation), I love my butter, milk and cheese and as long as I can cut down on processed foods as a family as much as possible then I feel I am doing my body a huge favour.
Over to you! You could of course carry on with processed foods. But there is a Plan B and it is much healthier and it will help you learn new ways in the kitchen and how inventive you could be. Instead of going into the kitchen right now and throwing everything out, slowly wean your family off their cupboard favourites and make new and interesting things instead. I find that when I go out for dinner it can sometimes be hard to stay away from processed foods but I know at home I can make a huge difference.
Round Up! Thanks for joining us in our Podcast and we look forward to sharing more of our cooking tips with you in the future.
Links & Resources Mentioned In This Podcast
Our month of one pot 30 minute meals 3 minute alfredo sauce Spanish Chicken Apple Chips
Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe This On Pinterest How To Get Involved In Our Podcasts
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Thanks again for listening and best of luck with your cooking.
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