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Is a Marmite sandwich and an apple good enough for a child’s lunch? (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 5 days ago by Dave to c/politics

51 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's suggestion of a Marmite sandwich and an apple for lunch wouldn't keep a child full or feed their brain sufficiently, according to local health and education experts.

"If you're just doing a Marmite sandwich and an apple, you're probably not meeting the protein requirements [which depend on age and gender]," paediatric dietician Jenny Douglas explained to RNZ.

"Ideally it would be a Marmite and cheese sandwich at least," she said, noting that the high salt content of Marmite, which could shape one's palate, giving a child a taste for salty snacks like pies and chips early on.

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[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah the food safety aspect of packed lunches is really another reason why providing them at the place of learning is better for everybody.

Having said that, I sometimes feel that western food safety standards are overly broad most likely due to litigation in the former leader of the free world. Take rice for example, its a huge no-no in the west to even contemplate letting rice sit around warm after its cooked, and there are some reasons for why, but I've talked to plenty of people who grew up in south-east asia where that was common.

Probably the best home-school-lunch-makers answer to food safety & variety from protein etc is cured meats :) Get your kids a prosciutto sandwich everyone!

[–] Dave 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Well this is going to turn a bit dark but processed meats are loaded with nitrates (normally sodium nitrate, listed as "Preservative (250)"), which is one of very few things on the WHOs "definitely causes cancer" list. So I try to avoid it if possible.

Outside of occupational risks (and biological ones, like HPV), the "definitely causes cancer" list is very short. The main ones are basically smoking, alcohol, and processed meat.

So it's not a case of "everything causes cancer" and more a case of specifically avoiding processed meat in lunch boxes/in general.

The list is here: https://monographs.iarc.who.int/list-of-classifications

Group 1 is the definitely causes cancer group. I find it easiest to download and filter in Excel.

The list of groups is here: https://monographs.iarc.who.int/agents-classified-by-the-iarc/

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, IIRC the science on that & the dosage required isn't quite as settled as the WHO warning suggests. But in any case, you can always cure your own using just salt! I think mostly the nitrate is there to keep it pink.

[–] Dave 1 points 3 days ago

You can buy bacon without nitrates, but the nitrates are the yummy bit... it does make it pink but if you taste bacon with no added nitrates it's not the same.

In terms of dosage... this isn't really a case of benefits outweighing risks. I'm not aware of any health benefits of eating highly processed meat (that you couldn't get from the unprocessed equivalent). Easiest to minimise consumption to reduce the risk. I'll still eat it on a burger in the same way I'll still have the occasional beer even though alcohol is a known carcinogen, but I don't want processed meat to be an everyday food.