The Convenience Truth

Keeping the small people well nourished is an exhausting, time consuming and ridiculously messy process.

As a new mum, I gladly jumped onto the ‘home-made is best’ band wagon. The hand-blender became an additional limb and like a baby food alchemist, I turned every type of fruit and vegetable known to mankind into a dizzying array of colourful, nutritious purees.

Despite all my good intentions however, my resistance to convenience food inevitably started to crack, as the reality of providing endless meals for increasingly fussy mouths started to hit home.

It started innocently enough with small tins of baked beans. Then fishfingers showed up in my freezer, swiftly followed by oven chips. Soon, my shelves were straining under the weight of spaghetti hoops and the bigger bottles of ketchup are now starting to look like much better value for money.

It is, however, with much regret and head held low, that I confess to taking a convenient step too far - I took the kids to McDonalds. There, I’ve said it, and yes, you may well shake your head in despair. But, hang on just a minute.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the McExperience. They now have choices other than nuggets and coke (I haven’t totally turned to the dark side just yet). Fishfingers, fruit, milk and raisins were scoffed merrily by the boys while donking each other on the head with the McBalloons they were given. There were, of course, McFries and plenty of McSauce consumed, but it wasn’t the nutritious McNightmare I'd imagined and had silently condemned other parents for in the past.

I won’t necessarily be rushing back under the Golden Arches anytime soon, and I am making a wholesome fish pie for tea tonight to counter-balance my residual feelings of guilt, but once every three and a half years isn’t so Mcbad – is it?

The Convenience Truth