Convenience Foods. Killing The Culture Of Cooking

                              1969-a mum doing her best in her tiny kitchen. (Courtesy Daily Mail)

Further to yesterdays post when I talked about how we have succumbed to children's faddy diets, I felt I should share some photos with you. These photos accompanied an article in the Daily Mail entitled 'Austerity? We don't know how lucky we are!'

These photos are most disturbing given the fact they were taken less than half a century ago. Today, when it seems few children go without a mobile phone or playstation, yesterdays austerity seems hard to imagine.

                       1971, A mother cooking over the living room fire. (Courtesy Daily Mail)

                        1970, a young boy wondering what's for tea. (Courtesy Daily Mail)

It's a real bugbear of mine when I hear parents claiming their children will only eat particular foods, it's strange isn't it, that those foods all seem to be convenience foods? Convenient for the parents who can't be bothered to cook.

Back in the 1990s when my son Bert was a young boy I had many of his friends home for tea. Most of the children I entertained couldn't use cutlery, would only eat finger food, expected to be able to sit in front of the TV or walk around whilst eating, refused to eat anything they didn't recognise and then wanted crisps and sweets because they were still hungry.

Clearly their parents were pandering to these demands! However, I never placed the blame on these children, they, after all, didn't understand the health consequences of their eating habits or realise that consuming this junk food was addictive.

How quickly our relationship with food has changed! As these photos depict, in the 1970s many families were still eating very basic meals, cooked from scratch. Women didn't have all the mod cons which we have at our fingertips today and cooking was a chore, nevertheless many women were resourceful and delivered wholesome family meals to the table.

Whilst I can appreciate working parents are often tired when they get home in the evening, I often found myself in a Tesco express en route home from work grabbing items that would be quick and easy to cook, I can't sympathise with parents who are prepared to feed their children on junk and then lay the blame on them.

Eating properly is a lesson in life that has to be taught to children. I didn't like brussel sprouts and would push them around the plate, but I was always reminded of the starving children in Africa. With perseverance I grew to like sprouts, other foods such as spam, which I just couldn't take to, would be omitted from my plate but I wasn't given an alternative, there were two choices, take it or leave it.

I can imagine some of todays generation would disagree with that kind of parenting considering it to be too harsh. Ironically there is a new term for parents who are too soft to impose rules or boundaries for their children, it is called loving neglect. This applies to lazy liberal parenting where parents use the guise of letting their children 'express themselves' rather than teaching them acceptable behaviour.

Giving children choices increases their expectations, the more numerous the options, the less satisfactory the end result. In our overflowing options world, children who are given choices and asked their opinions about everything grow up feeling entitled. Children who are practiced in the wants and needs of others learn to live in the condition of thank you.

We must be willing to have faith in children's ability to survive disappointment and frustration and not to give in to our first impulse to give the child what he wants. There is no better place to start than at the family dinner table. Whilst facilitating this great chaotic democracy of letting our children eat their way towards obesity, chronic illness and low self esteem, we have forgotten that we are the adults, we should be responsible for making decisions about what is good or not good for our children.

Eating habits are learned behaviours; they are not intuitive. What your children learn to eat at home in early life sticks with them well into adulthood.

We need to take back the reins where parenting is concerned and never more so than in what we feed our children. Not only is our lazy convenience food diet detrimental to our health, it is creating a society of children who are needy and feel entitled and have no understanding of food poverty, which even in the UK is still at a shocking level.

I would be interested to hear your opinions on this subject, please comment in the comments section below.

'The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.'
-Samuel Johnson

Love Donna xxxxxxxxxx