Kids’ snacking research is hard to digest

A report out this week says that kids under five should get just one square of chocolate, half a plain biscuit or five crisps a week as their treat. Who wants to break that news to the trick or treaters?

• TIMING is everything isn’t it? That’s why I didn’t find it terribly helpful to read about new research released in the past few days that revealed how 25% of calorie intake for Irish primary school kids is from foods like biscuits, chocolate, soft drinks, and savoury snacks. Heading into Hallowe’en and trick or treating, when kids will be basically 98% jellies, I feel I’d have been way more receptive to this in, say, January. I don’t need another stick to beat myself with right now, thanks very much. 

• For sure, though, I think the ‘treat culture’ is something that probably needs to be addressed – in my household anyway. I spent hours lovingly pureeing organic fruit and veg for my daughter as a baby and she couldn’t get enough of them. It was a joyful time for all of us. Avocado, squash, sweet potato, courgette … every Annabel Karmel combination under the sun, she guzzled it down with glee. How I congratulated myself for producing such a little foodie! How I dreamt about the dinners we’d enjoy when she was older, the fun we’d have experimenting with ingredients (organic, of course), the time we’d spend browsing recipe books and markets, bonding over celeriac. Yeah, so that was a nice fantasy while it lasted. Now mealtimes are more like a survival of the fittest: as in how long I’m prepared to sit it out, before admitting defeat and letting her leave the table after just ‘one more bite’ … of the ketchup-covered potato waffle, or the old reliable pasta pesto. 

• The thing is, if I’m on my own (which is usually never), I’ll  just as happily eat a toasted cheese sandwich on my lap for my dinner. But when I go to the effort of making a nutritionally balanced meal (which is most nights), if small people don’t sit down and eat it, things can quickly escalate into a ‘situation’. Walk by our house any evening at dinner time and you’re likely to hear me saying (in slightly raised tones): ‘That’s it, I’m never wasting my time making dinner again/think of all the starving children in Africa/granny would never have allowed this carry-on when I was young/Santa is watching/I’ll have to talk to teacher about this.’ I won’t lie, the (oven) gloves come off and things can get dirty. The gas (not at all gas) thing is that most nights she’ll still have the nerve to ask for ‘something nice’ (yes, a treat) afterwards. And what’s worse, is that sometimes I actually give in. 

• When we were kids it was different. I had a charmed upbringing, but we regularly had such atrocities as liver or steak and kidney pie for dinner, and you didn’t dare leave the table until you at least made a good stab (eugh) at it. It wasn’t negotiable. It was the same for treats – that was Saturday night only and it was always a packet of crisps and a can of 7Up. Were parents just better at parenting in the 80s? Although if memory serves me right, we usually enjoyed the Taytos while watching Dallas so look, it’s swings and roundabouts really!

• I’m a bit late to the table to talk about the contents of Leo Varadkar’s fridge, but I can’t quite let it go. I’m referring to the picture he shared on his Instagram stories last week of containers of his prepped meals for the week: unappetising looking chunks of ham, eggs and sausages.Poor Leo! He needs to learn that Instagram is all about the aesthetics, and you have to keep reality well and truly out of the picture. There’s absolutely no way I’d post a pic of my own fridge contents. A quick stocktake on any random day reveals around three browning apples, each with a few bites taken out of them (if you live with a small person you’ll get this); a jar of beetroot that has been there so long it’s got squatters’ rights, and a jar of sourdough starter, a lockdown legacy, that I suspect will start talking to me soon. There’s also a mini mountain of cherry tomatoes with some on the bottom layer looking a little, well, furry. What else … lots of eggs. Of course I know that  pancakes for tea every night isn’t parenting at its best so I go for an old-fashioned soft boiled egg the other nights while ignoring that voice at the back of my head that says you’re only meant to eat three (two?) eggs a week. There’s no alcohol, but only because I drink red, and austerity means a long-guzzled bottle of gin has not been replaced. 

• There’s obviously lots of milk. It’s a real sign you’re a grown up when you become obsessed with supplies of milk and bread. I often wake up in a panic at night wondering if we have enough of both, and my most frequent text sent to my husband isn’t ‘I love you,’ but ‘bring home bread and milk’ (depending on the day of the week that can also be code for ‘wine and crips’).And finally, there’s multiple containers with leftovers from dinners, things like carbonara, mashed potato and broccoli, stuff that deep down we all know will end up in the food waste at the end of the week, but that we pretend we’ll rustle into a tasty mid-week supper dish. 

• By the way, for anyone interested, the report said going by current national healthy eating guidelines, a child over five should get a fun-size treat once or twice a week while for those under five only a tiny amount is recommended and no more than once a week. It recommended something like one square of chocolate, five crisps, half a plain biscuit or three soft sweets. I’ll just let that there for you all to digest and if you want to horrify yourelf more see www.makeastart.ie