The anxiety of what to feed our pride and joy
From Shelley Jofre, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Panorama reporter:
I remember all too clearly the anxiety and uncertainty as a first-time mum about what to feed my daughter five years ago when it was time for her to move onto solid food.
There seemed to be so many rules about what little babies couldn't or shouldn't eat but very little advice on what I should give my precious Orla. There was one person above all others who I turned to for advice then -
I found her recipes for baby food invaluable and I am not alone. She has sold more than 3m recipe books over the years and has made her name promoting nutritious, homemade food for babies and toddlers instead of jars of bland, processed baby food.
I may chuckle now at some of the more exotic recipes I earnestly followed (like apricot and tofu pudding!) but, at the time, they boosted my confidence that I was giving my growing child a varied and balanced diet.
I must admit to not thinking much about Annabel Karmel again until after I had my son, Joe, 15 months ago. Around the same time I was planning my return to work, I noticed a new range of chilled ready meals in the supermarket that were apparently specifically designed for toddlers.
They were from Annabel Karmel. But could a ready meal - by its very nature - be healthy? I wanted to find out more.
Ready meals in general have a reputation for being high in salt and sugar - two things we are told that we should be eating less of.
The latest scientific evidence suggests that the die may be cast for our children's health before the age of five. So, if we feed pre-schoolers too much salt and sugar we could be setting them up for diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and heart disease in later life.
Sobering thoughts for all parents trying to do their best for their kids.
My first step in this investigation was to buy some of Annabel Karmel ready meals and look at the labels. Unlike many ready meals aimed at adults and children five and older, they do not come with at-a-glance guides on the front of the pack to tell me whether the meals are high or low in sugar.
I had to work it out for myself - harder than you might expect do as you stand in the supermarket aisle.
On the back of her kiddies' beef lasagne it says one meal contains 1 gram of salt and nearly 12g of sugar. I did not know if that was high or not.
Back home I checked the website - not something I imagine most parents have the time or inclination to do.
It told me a one to three year old should have no more than 2g of salt in a whole day, and recommended I shouldn't add any salt or sugar to my home-cooked food for my toddler.
If we're all meant to be weaning ourselves off salt and sugar, then why add them to ready meals meant for toddlers whose tastes are still to develop.
I asked Annabel Karmel why her toddlers' lasagne is more than twice as sweet as an ordinary supermarket lasagne and nearly as salty. On both counts, it's down to taste she told me:
"I deal with mums all the time who have children who won't eat, and in order to get a child to eat, it needs to taste good."
However, she told me she is planning to remove sugar from all her ready meals. In future, her lasagne will still be sweetened, but with fruit juice. She has no plans currently to reduce the salt content, though, which she doesn't believe is excessive as part of a balanced diet. She said:
"I think if it was a very bland meal then the child won't eat it."
For me, though, that seems to be at odds with the advice health professionals are trying desperately to get across to new parents. I remember in the '70s my own well-meaning grandmother dipping orange segments in sugar to get me to eat them...open my mouth now and I have the fillings to prove it! Would I really not have eaten a sweet, juicy orange without a thick sugar coating?
The most interesting part of making this week's Panorama was having the opportunity to watch my daughter and all her classmates learn to cook.
All the ingredients they used were fresh and healthy and the end results were bursting with colour and flavour.
Not only did they enjoy the process, they even tried different tastes and foods they previously thought they didn't like.
It made me wonder whether it isn't us parents who're misguided in thinking children still need a spoonful of sugar - or a dash of salt - to make the medicine go down.
I'd be very interested in hearing from other parents on this topic, please feel free to add your thoughts to our Panorama blog on the challenges of feeding your young families and any handy answers that you may have come across.
Comment number 1.
At 25th Jan 2010, Sue Thwaites wrote:Encouraging your child to eat a healthy diet is best done by example. If you never eat brocolli - why should you expect your little one to eat it? Having my own two children, and being an interested observer of other dinner plates, it is clear that if you cook well and eat well, your children do too.
Cooking skills are at the heart of the nutritional dilemma - if you can cook and understand food prep and nutritional values it helps you to make better meal choices. If cooking is no longer a skill that can be learned at home it is essential it is offered elsewhere and parents who cannot cook strongly encouraged to learn.
One thing that has always bothered me - portion sizing. Just what portion size is appropriate for children (or indeed adults), more information about portion control would make feeding children a well balanced diet easier to achieve.
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Comment number 2.
At 25th Jan 2010, Sarah wrote:Is it really a surprise that a ready meal is a less healthy alternative to freshly prepared home cooked food (even if it is targeted at toddlers and produced by a chef/writer who has the respect of millions of Mums)?
Isn’t the point here that parents should be using common sense and discretion when feeding their children? Isn’t part of the job of being a parent to be informed of what is appropriate and know how much salt, sugar etc your toddler should be getting in their daily diet? If you do not have the ‘time or inclination’ to find out what your children should be eating or want the hassle of ‘working it out for yourself’ don’t buy a ready meal, only give your child home cooked food where you know exactly what has gone in to it. On the other hand if you would like the convenience of giving your children a ready meal every once in a while, make the effort to find out what is appropriate. Some responsibility has to be on our shoulders.
A balanced diet should mean just that, balanced. Everything in moderation. I assume these meals are not meant to be a substitute for home cooked food or given to a toddler everyday. (I make this assumption purely based on common sense.) But is every once in a while going to seriously damage their health? And surely that’s the point here. A childs relationship with food is as important as the food its self.
It would be lovely to turn the clock back to a world where we all work until 4.30pm and can prepare a home cooked meal every night of the week, but that is not the society we live in. Part of educating our children to eat well is to teach them how to cook, show them where food comes from but also to make informed decisions about food which isn’t healthy but never the less is still going to exist when they become adults and capable of making their own selection. Teaching how to become an ‘intelligent consumer’ is also part of a parents remit these days. Lesson 1 being; don’t just blindly trust the advertising hype or pretty packaging, use your common sense.
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Comment number 3.
At 25th Jan 2010, GEM3001 wrote:this all raelly annoys me! especially for someone like annabel karmel to be promoting bad eating habits to children! before this programme i thought she would've known what she was talking about! i was outraged to hear her say that salt and sugar help get kids to eat! i have a 3 1/2 year old daughter who enjoys nutiotous home made food every day with no added suger or salt and she never complains and considering all her food has to be made gluten free to! it is very easy to make health well balanced food and it doesnt have to be epensive either which is the other excuse alot of people use for feeding their kids rubbish! im on benifits and im asingle mum and i manage to do it! far to many people choose eay over healthy! one of the ways i make sure we have healthy food everyday is to batch cook meals and freeze my own homemade ready meal so that even if ive had a busy day and am tired there is always a decent meal for my daughter!!!
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Comment number 4.
At 25th Jan 2010, Lynne Kirkpatrick wrote:I don't understand how people say they haven't time to cook meals for their children. I am a mum of 2 year old twins and stood even when I had little sleep to cook them a meal. I used Annabel's books and still don't add salt or sugar to their meals. They are great eaters and very healthy and i believe it is also down to routine.. we don't let them snack too much between meals and ensure all main meals are in their chairs and at a table. I was surprised to see Annabel's meals in a shop and to hear tonight that they are high in salt. I sometimes have M&S kids meals for emergencies and just checked them and they seem within guidelines. I must admit I do give them Fruitflakes now and again but they never get chocolate or crisps( unless at a party)and eat a lot of fruit so I am happy they will be ok as they grow up. Tonights programme was very informative and I hope it makes other people stop and think about their kids health.
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Comment number 5.
At 26th Jan 2010, lavendersugar wrote:Bravo, an excellent programme and well done for confronting Annabel Karmel, her comment about middle class parents was crass. I spend time working in schools during health weeks (often in the so called hard to reach areas), cooking with real, raw ingredients as a route to a healthier diet: the fat, sugar and salt content is usually visible. I couldn’t understand why Annabel Karmel, who had spent years, through recipe writing, encouraging parents to cook with their children, has now entered the corporate world of ready made meals. It is an uphill battle encouraging parents to cook, when the local shop is stocked with sad looking vegetables and farm markets are miles away. Folk who live in areas like this won’t find Ms Karmel’s expensive packets on the shelves anyway, but then these parents aren't the market that she is catering for. Food is a huge class divide and it makes me very angry. Every child deserves an equal food choice, and in my view, school is the way to get the healthy eating message out there. We need simple nutrition and basic cookery skills on the primary school curriculum.
I was interested in the salt comments, having had contact with CASH and been commissioned to develop recipes for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland’s Beechgrove garden in partnership with the Scottish government (no added salt remit). As a direct result of this, my children’s recipes (Kids’ Kitchen, published by Barefoot books 2009) have no added salt. I tested the recipes with geographically isolated children in a primary school, on the Outer Hebrides.Teachers have found some of the no cook recipes, useful in after school clubs. For more information www.stirrinstuff.org.
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Comment number 6.
At 26th Jan 2010, Rob wrote:If this report is to reflect the reality of the majority it is totaly off. At one time we are told 80% of toddlers are not fed right, the next there is no need for tooler milk if kids have a perfect diet.
talking to people in the office today, this show was mores confusing for average people, most comments reflect smug comments, they dont touch reality of life in the UK
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Comment number 7.
At 27th Jan 2010, lavendersugar wrote:Somebody emailed me this
Annabel Karmel's response. I'm not sure that it really answers my question about her ready made food range.Just because folk aren't cooking, it doesn't mean that we can't persuade the next generation, through cookery on the school curriculum.
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Comment number 8.
At 1st Feb 2010, Mossy36 wrote:Having watched the programme, I have to say that whilst there were snippets of helpful information, instead of spending the full 30 minutes telling parents what we are doing wrong, and attempting to discredit Annabel Karmel, who has helped millions of parents to provide nutritional and balanced meals for babies and toddlers, wouldn't Panorama have been more well placed to HELP parents by suggesting a healthy nutritional daily / weekly menu. What a shame that Panorama did not take the oportunity to advise parents on what a good healthy balanced diet would look like.
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Comment number 9.
At 6th Apr 2010, U14392874 wrote:It is annoying that the iPlayer wont hold back programmes - this sounds like an episode well worth seeing
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Comment number 10.
At 6th Apr 2010, U14392874 wrote:A carefully chosen diet is essential to prevent early onset of high , diabetes and various other conditions. This site for example highlights the perils of too much salt .
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