My Home Cooks’ Out of curiosity this afternoon I looked into childhood obesity. I was stunned to read that 1 in 4 Australian children (25%) are overweight or obese (aihw.gov.au), and in the UK today nearly a third of children aged 2 to 15 are overweight or obese (gov.uk). Yes, I double checked, and looked again! It’s remarkable that in a world so set on slamming parents for feeding their children something that wasn’t sugar free, or bottle feeding their children rather than breast feeding, that we have come to this. Our children are getting fatter by the minute, and their teeth are rotting faster than a corpse in the desert. Excuse me for thinking that this is possibly down to the plethora of “advice” from every which way. As soon as you pop out your first born, you are bombarded with horrifying stories of allergies, and incidents. Tales of someone’s uncle’s, brother’s wife who weaned her baby too early and now has an elephant for a kid who has thirty-seven allergies and an epi pen sellotaped to his forehead. You can’t eat this if you’re breast feeding, you shouldn’t buy that when you’re weaning, you must NEVER EVER let your toddler drink apple juice! It goes on and on and on. Even when your children start school and you’re making packed lunches, you pray that Justin’s mum isn’t on lunch duty, what if she sees that your carrots aren’t organic and you’ve not made your own hummus (shop bought is a no no these days).
This year I will be making lasagne as I love it, with pasta (full of gluten), rich red wine infused beef, and a mountain of crispy cheese of the dairy variety on top! 46
We’re bombarded with messages that ring in our heads like Big Ben at midnight; a healthy outside starts on the inside; Be smart, Eat smart. Grown men, dressed like broccoli, shout slogans at you from the TV, like “I’m always in the mood to eat healthy food”.