The struggle to try to eat healthy while juggling a busy life is well-known to anyone, but when you are responsible not only for your own health, but also for your children’s, the stakes get higher and time shrinks even further.
Rhiannon Lambert is a registered nutritionist and a mum who understands the struggle very well.
While talking on BBC Radio London, she said: "I want my kids to have something different every day, but you just don’t have the time."
She shared her experience as a busy parent who still wants their children to be well-fed in the morning: "You have such a small window to make yourself ready and your family, I needed something I could make on the weekend that would taste almost like cake, but it isn’t cake, that doesn't have the sugar, that my son loves that contained a vegetable."
The nutritionist is very active on Instagram, where she shares her life, tips, and recipes with nearly 500,000 followers.
She has also written a new book, The Unprocessed Plate, which aims to help people understand food labels and improve their eating habits.
The processed food issue
"I don’t want to demonise food," she prefaced, "Not all breakfast cereals are the same, you are better off grabbing your standard Weetabix, standard brown flakes, than going for those protein-marketed cereals."
She then dived into the issue of processed food: "Up to 70 per cent of kids’ diet now in the UK is made up of ultra-processed foods, and there are health implications with that.
"When I say ultra-processed, I mean a lot of additives, preservatives, there is less fibre in it, so kind of stuff we are just eating out of packets a lot, and whilst not all ultra-processed foods are bad, the fact that our diet is so full of them [is the problem]."
All whole foods are superfoods
"We are all time poor, we are all trying to juggle, the cost of things is outrageous right now," she said, "Let’s not demonise, let’s not food shame.
"Every food has a place; it's often how you use it, what you pair with it." Talking more specifically about breakfast foods: "Breakfast cereal was designed to be part of a wider meal that is served alongside yoghurt, and fruits, and other things, but the problem is that in a cost-of-living crisis, that’s very difficult for people to achieve."
Many food trends have been dominating social media in recent years, making it challenging to distinguish between genuine innovations and marketing schemes. The word superfood, for example, is often misused: "All foods are pretty super, you don’t need green powder to be healthy," she said, "You don’t need to spend so much money, you need to get savvy and that means if you are going to buy fresh product, freeze it straigh away, bulk cook."
Snacking can be good for you
Talking to HELLO! in 2021, Rhiannon said: "It's very difficult to eat everything we're meant to eat in just two meals a day … three is the optimum and snacks can top up."
Feeling full is good, but the goal is to also feel satisfied with your meal: "If you are [satisfied], you're less likely to reach for other items and things that you don't need."
When it comes to snacks, the same rules apply: whole foods are always better than processed products. "A good example would be carrots and hummus," says Rhiannon. "Hummus has a lot of healthy fat in it, and protein from chickpeas combined with carrots - that’s fibre. So, [it’s] all about slow-releasing sugars."
But it’s important not to demonise food: "If one day all you can think about is chocolate, you have to have it, otherwise it's going to turn into something worse when you get home."