Tasty New Food Parcels for Hungry Students

Foodieboxes-whole box First year students moving into halls of residence or flat sharing for the first time will all appreciate a ‘Student Foodiebox’ arriving at their door, an immediate emergency supply of tasty Scottish goodies, including chocolates, biscuits and a fantastic student cook book, ‘Beyond Baked Beans’. So parents can then relax knowing that their son or daughter will be eating some wholesome Scottish produce in addition to the inevitable fish and chip shop suppers!

Foodieboxes are exciting new funky hampers – luxurious black boxes filled with all sorts of Scottish tasty treats. The range includes: Wee, Medium and Large Foodieboxes packed with goodies such as organic biscuits, oatcakes, luxury chocolates, Perthshire honey, delicious jams, relishes and chutneys. There are also specialty boxes such as the BBQ, Wee Sweetie, Coffee Morning, Tea Lovers and Porridge Foodieboxes, all with a mouth-watering selection of different products.

Foodieboxes box  produce Speaking about the products, Peter McLean commented: “Scotland has a range of fantastic and forward thinking young food companies, manufacturing high quality produce. There’s a growing awareness of the importance of eating local, seasonal produce and reducing food miles. And we want to spread the word about all the Scottish food and drink products we have on our doorstep.  Our aim is to support smaller Scottish food producers and bring the food hamper concept right up to date by delivering the taste of Scotland in a funky Foodiebox!”

Have a look at the fantastic range of Foodieboxes on the website.

Free school dinners for Scottish pupils

books_02 The announcement follows a year long pilot scheme which ran in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire, Fife and the Borders. The scheme involved 35,000 pupils and cost £5m, however, it saw an increase in pupils taking school dinners from 53% to 75%.

If this kind of increase can be replicated across Scotland, there is no doubt that there will be an improvement in the health of primary school pupils across the country. However, the Scottish Government is not funding the county-wide scheme, local councils are expected to find the money to roll out the initiative from within the funding settlement already agreed.

With council charges already under heated debate, any increases, even to support this great scheme, could prove it’s very undoing. Councils will have to find the funding somewhere without making the whole thing an unpopular, costly exercise.

The Scottish Government has made a further promise, to offer free meals to all primary and secondary school pupils with parents or carers in the lowest income brackets.

We are becoming all the more aware of how important healthy food and good nutrition, are to the development of children, so a scheme like this can only do good as far as education is concerned. I just hope that the funding is found to do a really good job of it, but not at the expense of other worth-while causes.

Source: BBC News

Plum baby food

Plum Plum is one of my food heroes; I love their recipes, everything the company stands for and the founder Susie Willis gave us some wonderful insights when I interviewed her a few months back.

Now, Plum is back on the Eating Britain menu with a great range suitable for seven months plus. The varieties have been created to keep up with the insatiable appetite of the nation’s babies who are asking for more (confirmed by parents at a series of consumer research panels!).

All the recipes have been created by Susie Willis, using carefully selected organic ingredients, celebrated for their nutrient rich content, to create simple, wholesome, delicious recipes. They are perfectly balanced to satisfy a growing baby’s protein and energy requirements and have a unique ‘fork mash’ texture that can encourage babies to chew and make the step towards self-feeding.

There are three varieties which I asked a few of my yummy mummy friends (and their babies!) to review for Eating Britain.

Red Cabbage with Apple and Chicken

Organically reared chicken is combined with juicy apples and red cabbage to deliver a wonderful blend of sweet and savoury flavours. Parents who lacked time or confidence to prepare food using these ingredients requested this recipe.

Spinach with Salmon and Parsnip

Salmon is a firm favourite with parents who view it as a key superfood, rich in essential fatty acids and omega 3. There is currently only a limited choice for mums looking for fish dishes and this innovative recipe combines fish with a wonderful root vegetable and nutrient dense green leaf for a taste and texture sensation that will satisfy growing appetites.

Parsnip, Carrot and Cheddar Mash

Cheddar mash with superfood root vegetables offers an exciting vegetarian meal with a true homemade flavour and texture that appeals to babies and toddlers alike.

Available as convenient, ready-to-eat, re-sealable pots from Tesco, Waitrose, Ocado, and Boots. RRP £2.29 / £2.49 in twin packs of 2 x 100g.

PlumBaby

I asked my friends to consider the following when feeding their babies with the Plum Baby foods:

  • Packaging and portability
  • Taste, colour and texture
  • The organic nature of the ingredients
  • Price

One of my friend’s babies refuses to eat anything that isn’t home made, causing a lot of extra pressure on his mum, who understandably was far from enthusiastic about trying these Plum dishes. But she said she’d give it a try, so I gave her some samples and a few days later she asked “Where can I buy more?!”. Her baby absolutely loved them!

The yummy mummies really liked the clear information on the packaging and found the pots very easy to take anywhere. In particular, they felt the lids meant a lot less mess.

All the babies loved the flavours and their mums thought they tasted good too! They were particularly impressed with the ‘adult’ nature of the dishes which contain herbs and spices, and are not bland at all – “very refreshing to see”. The babies and mums really liked the texture as it wasn’t too smooth.

The organic ingredients were extremely important to some mums, as they are trying to feed their babies with only organic foods. But one mum in particular was just happy that her baby ate them, whether they were organic or not was not the most important issue to her.

All the mums said that they applauded the whole ethos behind producing a really fantastic baby food of extremely high quality, but they just wished the price was a little more reasonable. That said, they also said the foods were fairly priced considering the quality of the ingredients and the thought that had gone into producing a completely nutritionally balanced meal.

Overall, these Plum Baby foods were a roaring success with all the little plums that tasted them.

For more information about Plum Baby, take a look at their wonderful website.

Thank you very much to all the yummy mummies and their little plums for taking part in this review.

Teenagers risk development by skipping breakfast

BreakfastCerealInfoServ Research released by the Breakfast Cereal Information Service shows that, although the majority of UK adults understand the importance of breakfast for improving physical and mental performance and believe it to be the most important meal of the day, 40% of teenagers are still ignoring the benefits.

When they do eat breakfast, four out of five teenagers opt for a bowl of breakfast cereal, which is also the way the majority of teenagers consume milk. However parents report that a number of factors are consistently preventing their teenage children from eating breakfast in the morning, with:

  • Just over half of teenagers claiming not to be hungry
  • Almost half getting out of bed too late
  • More than two in five complaining that they can’t be bothered to eat breakfast

As a result, experts warn that teenagers are missing out on important nutrients.

Prof. Tom Sanders, Head of Nutritional Sciences at Kings College London, comments: “There is a worrying trend for kids to skip breakfast and not consume milk. A cereal breakfast makes a major contribution to some key nutrients such as fibre, riboflavin, folate and calcium that are often in short supply in the overall teenage diet. These nutrients help maintain health as well promote growth and development.

“Breakfast cereal with low fat milk makes a good start for the day especially during the exam period because a carbohydrate rich meal in the morning improves mental performance.”

Dr Judith Bryans, Director and Registered Nutritionist at The Dairy Council, said: “Calcium requirements are highest during the teenage years as the majority of our bones are formed during this period. Unfortunately, the most recent diet and nutrition survey suggests that many teenagers do not get enough calcium. Having a bowl of breakfast cereal with milk would help them to increase their calcium intake along with many other nutrients their bodies need for good health.”

Reassuringly, the data also shows that nearly a third of adults are eating breakfast more regularly than they did 12 months ago. Over a third of these people claim this is because they have experienced the benefits of eating it.

Prof. Sanders concludes: “Although most parents now understand the benefits of breakfast, it’s imperative that they pass this message on to their children. The good news is that a nutritious breakfast of cereal with milk is a quick and convenient breakfast option, which can be easily fitted into the daily morning routine.”

For more information on the health benefits of breakfast cereal, visit www.breakfastcereal.org.

Research conducted by YouGov between 25th April – 1st May 2008

Celebrity Chef Lesley Waters offers advice for parents dealing with fussy kids

lesleywalters 21st century kids are fussier than ever about what they will and won’t eat, posing problems for mums and dads who want to ensure their children eat well.

Almost half of parents admit to feeling under pressure from a fussy child to put certain things in their lunchboxes. Obliging your child might avoid a temper tantrum but almost two thirds admit to including the same foods in their children’s lunchboxes from day to day, raising more worries about healthy eating, just as ‘black market’ tuck shops are popping up in schools all over the country.

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