Oh and I also stress that I'm much too young to become a granny.

FD that outs it all into perspective really. food regimes really take a back seat compared to all the problems that can arise. I just try and make sure they have some food lining their stomachs before they go out drinking copious amounts of alcohol and try and persuade that beer or wine is preferable to spirits

I enjoy the anti-fruit shoot threads and the constant discussions as to what constitutes juice.

DD2 [2] would sell her soul for chocolate buttons. DD1 [12] would sell her soul for Edward Cullen. Not really comparable.

Sorry sunburntats but that wasn't really in the light hearted spirit of the piece was it? If I wanted a serious discussion I'd be adding my bit to the weaning pages. This is for parents of teenagers who are more concerned with weaning their children off alcopops and keeping them away from the opposite sex until they're old enough to buy the said alcopops. Sweets and chocs are not the sort of threat my children respond to. They turn their noses up at carbs or fat now. Think more mobile phones, MSN, grounding, withdrawal of funding, threats to show their form teacher a photo of the state of their room etc. I would agree that revolting food is more available than previously, but it was always there at the bottom of a freezer in a shop near you if you looked.

I know what you are all saying but out of desperation i conducted an experiment with my 5 year old when he was about 2.
gave him water or milk to drink, dont buy organic, too expensive. but just spent 2 weeks concentrating on what he ate.
he was considerably calmer. saw it with my own 2 eyes.

now as long as he has fruit and veg every day, i allow him to have a flump, or something of that description.

for want of a better bargaining tool, sweets and chocs are great for curbing bad behaviour and for using as a threat.

I think that it is also the readily available junk that is every where you look nowadays.
there were no macdonalds in the 70's, there were sweet shops and i could get a large bag of them for 10p, but i dont remember having them willy nilly iyswim.

common sense tells me that some foods are just not good. although dh lives on spam (bowk) and are not serving as a healthy future for my child.
i want him to live a long and healthy life, if i set him up well now, then i think he will be alright.....then when he is able to make his own choices and he grows an ass as big as mine, it shall all be in vain...sigh

I am rather enjoying this. I can look back now at the bringing up of small children through the rose tinted spectacles mists of time. I don't remember worrying about party bags and I don't think they'd even invented mother and child parking spaces. There was no issue about vaccinations- you just got on with it. Boden was not available and designer labels hadn't become mainstream so there was little pressure to dress babies in fancy gear. One pretty dress with smocking was enough to please Granny, Laura Ashley was still affordable and M&S still stocked stuff that wouldn't look at home in a lap dancing club. Those were the days.

"over analysed"

Actually I think that sums up Mumsnet perfectly

Ironically because I have health issues and have been at home a lot ds has been mainly fed a fairly organic healthy diet just because I quite enjoyed cooking it.But he has no idea and it was never discussed just something I did a bit of and more so if we had the money.But school lunches paties weekends etc were a bit of a free for all!Ds has no idea really what he had and most of his friends all eat the same rubbish when they're out.It all seems so stressful now ond over analysed!

no the Moon, I've done birthday parties for my 3 over many years (and that would be a bit later) and have never been told of any food intolerent child. I know there is more prevalenc now (althpugh I think MN is a distortion of real life, so it's not that bad ). I do wonder how it's all ome about.