Junk food junkie

Junk food wasn’t so scary when I was a kid. Well, I ate plenty of scary junk food, but I wasn’t scared of it. I voraciously consumed it with absolutely no concern for its effect on my health. I was reminded of my junk addiction when a friend reminisced about the sausage rolls on buns they served at his school canteen. I responded that I was more of a meat pie sandwich girl. Yep, a pie and tomato sauce wedged between two slices of white bread. Closely followed in my affections by potato crisp butties on buttered white rolls (Did wholemeal bread even exist in the ’70s?) Every Saturday was KFC night at our place. On Thursday nights, Mum and my sister worked, so Mum bought a family meat pie from the Lovin’ Oven for dinner. Dad and I would nick over to Adamstown for our side dishes: a serve of hot chips and a carton of special fried rice. Best. Dinner. Ever. School holidays were spent at my grandmother’s hoovering up so much fat I’d get heartburn. I’d arrive to a tray of caramel slice with dairy whip on top and a kitchen crammed with potato chips, devon, biscuits, lollies and ice cream. Nan would have a pot of curried sausages bubbling on the stove, thickened with Gravox (progressively lumpier as she got older). Every day, she’d roll out lunches of fried fish and chips, crumbed sausages, crumbed cutlets, roast beef and yorkshire pudding … As a cadet journalist, my favourite snack was potato scallops from the nearby takeaway. Potato scallops, oh how I miss you! Now, as a parent, I fret about every morsel of junk that passes the Sprogs’ lips. On Tuesday afternoons, I take Sprog 1 to art class (add that to the list of extravagances that should be removed – but haven’t – from our new constrained budget). Previously, the nanny took Sprog 1 to art class. On my first trip post-nanny, I asked the Sprogs about their normal routine. They explained that the nanny got them an ice-cream from the corner store before class. Really? Not wanting to come second to the nanny in my children’s affections, I stuck to the routine. The Sprogs extracted these terrifying double-choc-biscuit-mega-block thingys from the ice cream cabinet and I crept shame-faced down the street as they ate them, silently begging each parent I passed not to judge me. Well, we were walking past a school with a dietician’s office directly across the road from it (its that kind of area). The only McDonalds consumed by the Sprogs is when their grandparents sneak it into them (much to Husband’s horror). Why am I so protective of their diets when mine was so unfettered? Why do I feel like the devil when I buy them a lemonade at yum cha? I know, I know. It’s because too much “sometimes” food is bad for them. And me. I just wish it didn’t taste so good.

TONIGHT’S MENU: Latina ravioli & veg (because I’m going out, again!)