Are You Up To The No Junk Challenge?

Something I feel strongly about – but need to work on – as a parent is making sure my daughter eats healthy food. Because she’s at pre-school five days a week, and eats healthy, freshly cooked meals there, we tend to let things slide a bit at the weekends. Her weekend meals usually consist of sausages and peas, microwave fish pie and broccoli or fish fingers and beans. Not the worst diet in the world, but I want to start giving her less processed food. In fact, that goes for me and Mr P too. We rely too heavily on convenience foods. And eat too many jelly babies and chocolate treats. So – this is why the Organix No Junk Challenge is right up my street.

What is it? Rising levels of obesity in kids, the high levels of salt, salt and sugar in foods targeted at toddlers and children, the amount of colourings and flavourings in processed foods and the fact that the food industry is currently self-regulated are all a huge concern today. Organix have launched the No Junk  Challenge which asks parents to watch a video, share it with other parents, and sign their pledge.

What should I be doing differently? The No Junk Challenge is simple – it’s asking parents to look at the ingredients of the foods we’re buying for our kids. If we don’t recognise any of the ingredients, ask ourselves if we really want to be feeding it to our children.

What difference will signing the pledge make? We’ll have a healthier family! Plus, Organix will then call on the food industry and the government to provide stricter controls on the levels of added salt, fat and sugar and artificial additives in children’s food. At the moment, no-one with a long term commitment is taking responsibility for what is in the public’s [and children’s] food. This has to change.

I’ll be making a real effort next week – and from now on – to cook proper, healthy meals for my three-year-old, and I’ll be checking out the ingredients on some of her snacks too… if you have any tips or recipes, please share them with me and I’ll let you know how I get on!

Big thanks to Organix for collaborating with Not Another Mummy Blog. For information on how I work with brands, see my Work With Me page.