Could
our children’s favourite choices be a key
to increasing
their fruit and vegetable intakes?
Jennette
Higgs
Public Health Nutritionist & State Registered Dietitian
Project Director, Health Education Trust |
Details
of new research findings on food and health issues are
reported through the media now on an almost daily basis.
Written by
professionals, they’re designed to make compelling
reading. Often however, the need to produce a readable piece,
in consumer-friendly format requires that the context of
each research story may be simplified too much. Nevertheless,
those who have an active interest in the links between what
we eat and our health may hang on every word of an article
and try to put the latest findings into practice, either
directly, or within the nutritional messages they impart
to others. It’s all too easy to become black and white
in ones’ interpretation of a healthy diet and despite
being told that ‘there are no good and bad foods’,
we instinctively feel more comfortable with some foods
and deliberately steer away from others, particularly when
it
comes to giving out advice! |
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Yet
how many of us rigidly practice what we preach? This is not
designed to precipitate feelings of guilt, at least not in
terms of the ‘practice’, since it’s quite
true that there are no good or bad foods. It’s the
preaching where perhaps at times, some go too far, with the
net result that we miss the most obvious opportunities to
improve our childrens’ diets the easy way, without
a fight, without depriving, and without taking away the enjoyment
of the whole eating experience.
We
still concentrate our attentions on a long list of foods
considered ‘bad’ for us, leaving less time and
effort for focusing on those foods we ought to be eating
more of to protect our health- i.e. fruit, vegetables and
salad.
The
wonderful thing about growing up is that children need plenty
of energy, so there’s more scope to include a few indulgencies
in a childs diet than there is, unfortunately as an adult,
when growth seems to be only widthways!
|
So
when you next try to persuade a child to have an apple instead
of a chocolate bar or packet of crisps, why not give them
both……….after all, we all enjoy a chocolate
or two!
And
why give both? Serve a young child a bowl with apple & satsuma
wedges, tossed together with squares of chocolate and they’ll
be eating fruit in no time!
So,
just how do we encourage our children to eat a healthy diet
when all they seem to want is chips? It’s chips with
everything at school and we know that removing chips from
the menu just encourges more children to vacate school at
break times and make for the local Chippie. Perhaps the solution
lies in a compromise. Chips seem to be one of those foods
we’ve instinctively placed in the ‘bad’ box,
yet there are NO bad foods! It’s the habit that’s
bad- we’ve allowed our eating habits to deteriorate
over the years from 3 square meals (which traditionally always
included some vegetables and fruit), to ‘grab and go’ snacks
(that provide little automatic inclusion of fruit & veg.,
sandwiches and wraps aside). The result is that our children
today have no concept of what a balanced meal should be.
Fortunately most of us would still always expect a Sunday
lunch to be served with at least one vegetable other than
potatoes, but even the traditional Sunday lunch is becoming
a thing of the past for many, so what hope for our children
when they aren’t growing up instinctively believing
that vegetables are a fundamental part of a meal? We are
aghast that they are happy with chips and gravy for lunch,
yet that’s their norm. |
We ‘preach’ that
everyone should eat their 5-A- day, although from a child’s
perspective, there is such an abundance of deliciously attractive,
preparation-free foods on offer, they’re going to continue
to want the most attractive and tasty choices. So we blame
the manufacturers, retailers and caterers for putting temptation
in the way- it’s a copout!
Could
the solution be a compromise?
Take
the school menu for example. Could it still is possible to
have a healthy diet and include chips regularly? It’s
all about balance and variety. Consider this example: suppose
on a couple of days a week the chips option on the school
menu was replaced with a chip ‘n’ salad buttie*.
Could this actually encourage kids to try salad for the first
time?
| * Chip ‘n’ salad
buttie: 1/3 standard chip portion served in a bap with
salad and mayonnaise/salad cream (instead of butter on
the bread). Less fat than a standard portion of chips;
also provides fibre and vitamins; contributes to the ‘five
a day’ for fruit and vegetables! |
And
on the home front, experience with my own children has
proven quite convincingly to me that compromise pays off.
A bag
of crisps as an after school snack was only an option
if it was eaten as a sandwich with lettuce (try it, it’s
delicious!). My son, now a hungry teen will pack a hunky
sandwich with all sorts of extras -grapes, apple, sugar
snap peas, lettuce, cucumber, peach slices or tomato
and the crisps
might even be forgotten! Each
SNAGNewsOnline will include a practical look at children’s
favourite foods to examine ways to improve the balance on
their plates without a fight. We need solutions that will
enable our children to continue to enjoy their food, whilst
at the same time improve their diets to help protect their
longer-term health.
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This
issue, the spotlight is on chicken nuggets. Another of
those foods that many of us have relegated to the ‘bad’ pile,
yet they’re a favourite with children and consumed
in great quantities. Rather than try to persuade children
to have alternatives, could it in fact be possible to use
chicken nuggets, in effect as a ‘carrier’ for
some fruit and vegetables. Let’s face it, it’s
much easier to give children a smaller portion of their
favourites, than to deprive them all together and suggest
they eat instead food that they may consider to be boring,
disgusting or alien to them!
Chicken nuggets are about 50%
chicken with a breadcrumb coating that adds fat, carbohydrate
and fibre to an otherwise low fat,
protein food. Since the recommended aim is towards having a daily
diet of less than 35% energy from fat, it is clear from the
figures in table 1 that consuming chicken nuggets alone, or just
with chips would result in a relatively ‘fatty’ meal.
(With 47% of the energy coming from fat for chicken nuggets
alone and
49% of the energy coming from fat for chicken nuggets with chips
(see table 2)). |
So
what’s in chicken nuggets anyway?
Table
1
Chicken
Nuggets
|
Nutrient
content per 100g
|
%
Food energy*
|
Energy |
219
kcal
|
|
Total
fat |
11.4g
|
47%
|
of
which Saturated fat |
2.1g
|
|
Monounsaturated
fat |
3.8g
|
|
Polyunsaturated
fat |
5.5g
|
|
Protein |
12.2g
|
22%
|
Carbohydrate |
17g
|
31%
|
Dietary
Fibre |
3.4g
|
|
Sodium |
210mg
|
|
*This
is the percentage of total calories (i.e. 219) that come
from
protein, fat and carbohydrate |
|
However,
if we were to balance the relatively high fat chicken nuggets
with plenty of low fat, carbohydrate foods, as in the examples
below, then the total fat for the meal would not be too high
(around 8g for a 70g portion of 5 chicken nuggets) and, in
percentage energy terms, this means the total energy coming
from fat for the entire meal would be reduced from 47% to
closer to 33%, so meeting recommended levels (see table 2). |
Balanced
meals with chicken nuggets
• Nugget ‘n’ pasta
salad - toss cooked, coloured
pasta with a little olive oil, and mix in a
selection of chopped tomato, cucumber, sweetcorn,
peas, apple cubes, grapes, celery, Satsuma
segments, chopped peppers or grated carrot.
Finally mix with hot chicken nuggets (or bury
the boulders!) and serve with relish if desired!
• Volcanic
nuggets on autumn mash volcanoes -
cook potatoes with carrots and add chopped leeks, 5
minutes from the end of cooking. Drain and mash the
mix with some low fat soft cheese, a little butter
and milk. Make volcano shapes on individual plates
and press cooked nuggets into the top and sides to
resemble the rocks and lava! For a spectacularly colourful
finish, top with some ketchup!
• Pic ‘n’ mix -
nuggets, grapes, Satsuma’s, apple wedges, carrot
sticks & breadsticks- great for picnics (keep cool
with icepack)
• Plain
and simple -
chicken nuggets, a few oven chips, peas, sweetcorn
and baked beans. |
|
Table
2
| |
Chicken
nuggets & crinkle cut chips |
Nuggets ‘n’ pasta
salad |
Nuggets
on autumn mash volcanoes |
Pic ‘n’ mix |
Nuggets,
oven chips, peas, sweetcorn & baked beans 1 |
Energy
kcal |
534 |
375 |
392 |
359 |
377 |
Total
fat g |
29 |
13 |
15 |
12 |
13 |
% Energy from fat (aim for 33%) |
49% |
32% |
34% |
29% |
30% |
Protein
g |
17 |
19 |
19 |
17 |
23 |
Carbohydrate
g |
54 |
47 |
48 |
50 |
46 |
Dietary
Fibre g |
2.8 |
3.3 |
4.9 |
4 |
67 |
Sodium
mg |
451 |
934 |
741 |
589 |
1110 |
Vitamin
C mg |
16 |
19 |
28 |
23 |
20 |
1: reduced sugar & salt
All meals include 70g portion chicken nuggets |
|
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All
of the above ideas are well balanced meals. By adding vegetables
and a carbohydrate component (bread, potato, or pasta), we’ve
effectively ‘diluted’ the fat and improved the
vitamin, mineral, fibre and overal nutritional balance of
the meal. In practice the portion size of the chicken nuggets
may need to be smaller when served as above, than if they
were served on their own or merely with chips. This makes
room for the fruit, veg and carbohydrate (potato & pasta)
accompaniments, which are also filling foods!
It’s
all about BALANCE!
So,
if your children could be persuaded to eat more veg, salad
and fruit using chicken nuggets as the star attraction, can
we really say the nuggets are bad? Embrace today’s
kids favourites and make use of them to encourage better
fruit and vegetable intakes. Chances are, tomorrows favourites
will have changed for the better!
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