This is the typical conversation most mornings and sometimes at weekends during snack time, between my wife and my 4 year old daughter.
"Mum, I'm hungry."
"What would you like to eat?"
"Egg sandwich."
She wants a fried egg, cooked in a small dab of virgin olive oil over moderate heat with a sprinkling of freshly ground pepper in a sandwich of freshly baked wholegrain homemade bread. I introduced her to eggs when she was a toddler. Eggs are easy to chew and should be part of a daily diet given to any child of one year old or older. I remember when my daughter as a toddler would eat the egg white first and then pop the whole yolk of a hard-boiled egg straight into her mouth. I still remember when I was a child and my mother used to give me a hard-boiled egg whenever I was hungry. What happened to the good old fashioned days when eggs were given as snacks?
Today, we live in an addiction-prone society. Of all the addictions out there, one of the most deadly is one that is most often overlooked: Junk food. We feed our kids junk food everyday without realising it. We are all guilty of doing this. It is easier to pull out a bag of crisps when a child is hungry rather than have them suffer pangs of hunger. This practice is acceptable for the rare occasions but the problem with our society is that we use this kind of junk food as a common everyday snack.
Did you also know that processed food is junk food? The first image that comes to mind for most people when they hear the term "processed food" is a wrapped burger and a sleeve of fries served over a counter at a fast food joint. But the truth is the very food you have in your cabinets is processed if it's boxed, bagged, canned or jarred, frozen or dehydrated and has a list of ingredients on the label. Processed foods have been altered from their natural state for "safety" and convenience reasons. Processed foods are more convenient, it's so much easier to bake a cake by opening up a box, pouring out a dry mix, and adding an egg and some oil than starting from scratch. Instead of making a dish with fresh ingredients, why not pick up a ready-made meal from the store? Isn't it easier to just pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes? No pots and pans, no mess! But processed food are laced with colours, those are often inedible, carcinogenic and harmful to the body. Studies have found that food colouring can cause hyperactivity and lapses of concentration in children. Chocolates, colas, flavoured drinks and snack are full of artificial colouring. These are not the only additives in processed foods. Don't forget the refined salt, sugar, preservatives, flavour enhancers and other so called "beneficial supplements". Children are especially vulnerable to these unnatural ingredients. Poor diets can slow growth, decay new teeth, promote obesity and sow the seeds of infirmity and debilitating disease that ultimately lead to incurable disease and death or worse make life insufferable.
Did you know that approximately 80% of mothers, who is usually the main parent controlling their child's diet, considered that their child's diet was 'very good/good/healthy' hence overestimate the quality of their child's diet. This is extremely worrying, since mothers who do not perceive that their children follow an unhealthy diet will not make the appropriate amendments to improve their child's dietary habits. Do not be one of these mothers, feed our children correctly and this can only be done by reducing your introduction of processed junk food into their diets. If you think you are one of these mothers who have already done this, think again. Do you feed your child bread from the bakery? Do you give them bottled "freshly squeezed" juice? Do you give them fruit yogurts? Do you spread their toast or sandwich with commercial butter or margarine? Do you use canned tomatoes to make your sauces? Do you feed them frozen sweet corn or peas? Worst of all, do you give them apples that you have not washed? This line of questioning could go on but if you answered "yes" to most of these questions already, your child has an unhealthy diet! (If you want to know more about the foods described above and why they are considered unhealthy read our research in "Is Your Food Killing You?").
How can a simple egg sandwich contribute to a healthy diet? A fried egg sandwich for instance, consists only of bread, egg and possibly butter and the oil used for cooking the egg. The benefits of homemade bread are described in our article "Wholegrains and their benefits". The benefits of homemade butter are described in our blog. The egg is a nutrient-dense food, containing high quality protein and a wide range of essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements.
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