Hikikomori: Why S Korea is paying young recluses to leave home
Money only "touches the surface" of a deeper problem, former recluses and youth workers say.
2023-05-27 05:00
Football transfer rumours: Arsenal step up Toney interest; Real Madrid monitoring Cucurella
Tuesday's roundup of transfer rumours includes Arsenal's interest in Ivan Toney, Real Madrid watching Marc Cucurella, Luka Modric being on the shortlist of Inter Miami and more.
2023-09-26 16:20
Camila Cabello hits the gym after epic date night with Shawn Mendes at Taylor Swift's concert
Camilla Cabello was also spotted leaving Shawn Mendes' Manhattan apartment on the night of May 25
2023-05-31 00:01
Australia rules out Quad summit going ahead in Sydney without President Biden
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled out a so-called Quad summit taking place in Sydney without President Joe Biden, saying the four leaders will talk at the Group of Seven meeting this weekend in Japan. Albanese said Wednesday he understands why Biden pulled out of the summit to focus on debt limit talks in Washington since they are crucial to the economy. The summit including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had been scheduled for May 24. “The blocking and the disruption that’s occurring in domestic politics in the United States, with the debt ceiling issue, means that, because that has to be solved prior to 1st June — otherwise there are quite drastic consequences for the U.S. economy, which will flow on to the global economy — he understandably has had to make that decision,” Albanese told reporters. Biden “expressed very much his disappointment” at being unable to come to the Sydney summit and to the national capital Canberra a day earlier to address Parliament, Albanese said. The four leaders will soon be together in Japan for the G-7 summit in Hiroshima and are planning to meet there, he said. “The Quad is an important body and we want to make sure that it occurs at leadership level and we’ll be having that discussion over the weekend," Albanese said. He suggested Modi still might visit Sydney next week, noting the Indian leader was scheduled to give an address to the Indian diaspora at a sold-out 20,000-seat stadium on Tuesday. “We’ll make further announcements about that, but Prime Minister Modi would certainly be a very welcome guest here next week,” Albanese said. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide
2023-05-17 11:36
South Africa Bond Auction Sees Strongest Demand in Two Years
South African attracted nearly $1 billion of orders at Tuesday’s weekly auction of government debt, the strongest demand
2023-11-14 20:37
China's BYD offers subsidies, discount for some models in December
BEIJING China's electric vehicle giant BYD Co Ltd on Friday announced subsidies for some models and a discount
2023-12-01 20:26
NBA Twitter is already ablaze over Game 7 referee announcement
The NBA's elected referees for Game 7 between the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics were not taken kindly by fans.The Boston Celtics are a game away from doing the unthinkable and becoming the first-ever NBA team to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs. It would cement them alongside th...
2023-05-29 22:14
Ref show: Giannis draws weak ejection after dunk and stare-down
Giannis Antetokounmpo was ejected from Wednesday's game for taunting after he stared down Isaiah Stewart.
2023-11-09 11:18
My kids don’t have sushi in their packed lunches – does it make me a bad mother?
I’m standing outside my local cafe in west London, looking bedraggled as I’ve been up since 6.45am making the dreaded school packed lunch. It’s nothing exotic – margherita pizza for Lola, who is a fussy eater, and plain pasta with cheddar cheese and corn on the cob for Liberty. There were all the snacks to pack, too – sadly, no chunks of carrot, just Pom-Bears and breadsticks. I am buying a croissant to add to one of the lunch boxes when I bump into the mum of one of my daughter’s friends. “Oh darling,” she tells me, “it’s all ‘white food’. Not good.” I shrug my shoulders knowingly, then stupidly ask her what’s in her kids’ packed lunches. “Sushi bento box,” comes her instant reply. “Crudites and organic hummus. Japanese panda crackers. Seaweed crackers. Dim sum. Oh, and sandwiches cut into little shapes – I do hearts and stars.” Right. That’s a good start to my morning; I now feel totally inadequate. When it comes to my children, I am a slave to the packed lunch. But gone are the days of stuffing a hard-boiled egg, a jam sandwich or processed cheese triangles into a box – as was the case when I was a child. Even apples have been voted a prehistoric lunchbox item by 17 per cent of parents. Instead, packed lunches are now a status symbol. The actor Hilary Duff, for instance, gives her son caviar for a snack – and it’s not that unusual. One in 10 parents (9 per cent) choose sushi and, according to a recent survey by Amazon Fresh, 26 per cent of parents take a photo of their children’s packed lunch for Instagram. A third (33 per cent) have also admitted they’ve taken a sneak peek inside another child’s lunchbox – and believe me, it’s often to silently snack-shame another parent. I can’t help but wonder if food and snacks are a kind of modern litmus test of parenting. But does it really make you a better parent if you give your child home-cooked wild keta salmon and wholemeal rice in a thermal container for lunch? The playground politics of packed lunches are complex. Parents are constantly criticised for sending inappropriate lunches to school. The TV chef Jamie Oliver once said unhealthy packed lunches are tantamount to child abuse. At the other extreme, parents are finding the time to stamp cucumbers with flowers and dice dried herbs into them for their kid’s bento boxes – then post them online. There seems to be no middle ground. Christina (not her real name) is a 40-year-old PA and tablescaping specialist whose child attends a prep school in west London’s Notting Hill. She makes all of her daughter’s packed lunches from scratch, and it’s always organic produce. “I always wanted to go that extra mile,” she tells me. “My motivation to do this was never to be ‘Queen Bee mum’ – it was to make my daughter happy and proud of me.” The “presentation” and “the taste” of the packed lunches, she says, is “super important” – to such an extent that it needs to be “Instagram-worthy” and “fun” in order to encourage her daughter to eat healthily. One of her lunch box specialities, she adds, is mini American hot dogs “decorated with a little flag and a drizzle of ketchup”. “I know it is always going to be flagged by other mothers because the school is very competitive,” she continues. “This dish goes around the mums like wildfire because mums always want to outdo other mums.” If I put out a post saying how much fibre children should be having, I get people replying saying that ‘it’s unrealistic’ and ‘we can’t do that as well as everything else’ when it comes to kids’ foods. It ends up with parents pitting themselves off against one another with food Charlotte Stirling-Reed, child and baby nutrionist While school playground rivalry among parents used to be about pigtails and bows in your children’s hair, Christina says, now it’s about lunch and snacks. “Kids have a much more sophisticated palate,” she explains. “They’re exposed to a lot more than a ham and cheese sandwich. The playing field has widened, and the bar has been set higher due to social media, and Deliveroo and Uber Eats – everything has become more instantaneous.” For other parents, it’s about making a packed lunch as wholesome as possible – something my children would scoff at. Ella Mills, the founder of the plant-based food brand Deliciously Ella, tells me she has found “batch cooking” easiest for her daughter’s packed lunches at nursery. “It’s a real rush getting everyone dressed, ready and out of the door each morning,” she says. “Plus, thinking of something to cook at 7am that’s got no nuts, no sesame in it [due to possible nut allergies], that I’ll know they’ll eat, and that doesn’t take a little while to make. So I make huge batches of veggie bolognese, bean chilli or sweet potato and chickpea stews plus big batches of grains, then simply heat a portion up and pop it in a thermos. Something that’s pre-made makes a world of difference.” Other parents call in the professionals. Chef Meryem Korkut Avci of Mary’s Mobile Chef Services does “meal preps” for elite customers in west and north London. She sends over an ingredients list and will then come to your home once a week and cook for the whole family – a two-hour session is £120 for six dishes (on the seventh day, her clients usually get a takeaway). For packed lunches, she says gluten-free muffins are popular. “Also egg or chicken fried rice, chilli con carne with tortilla, little mini puff pastry rolls with cheese – or sausage rolls.” She’ll even wash up – and says clients use her because “they don’t have time” or are “bored of their own food”. Dr Megan Rossi, a gut health scientist, bestselling author and founder of the website The Gut Health Doctor and The Gut Health Clinic in London, says an ideal packed lunch would contain something from each of the super-six plant groups: “Legumes (such as chickpeas), vegetables, whole grains (such as oats and barley), fruit, nuts and seeds and herbs and spices. Hitting all these is a tricky one but for optimal health, the goal is for them to have at least one from each of these most days. It’s a great target to have in mind!” She advises “hiding legumes and whole grains in sweet treats like black bean brownies with porridge oats,” and says that “while not a long-term strategy to keep plants a secret, it can help build some confidence and comfort with those plants (as well as training childrens’ taste buds) for you to reveal when the time is right.” For chocolate lovers – like my daughter, Lola – Dr Rossi also suggests “making your own chocolate bars with dried fruits, popcorn, seeds and nuts included for extra dietary fibres and a more satiating treat”. I personally can’t see how I would fit that into my schedule. But for many parents healthy eating is a full-time job. Children may need to be offered a specific food “around 10 times” before they accept it, according to research, while Dr Rossi adds that it means nothing to a child if you merely tell them food is healthy or unhealthy. “Try explaining to them from a young age about the importance of their gut microbes,” she says. “Tell them they need to feed the little pet bugs in their tummy with broccoli, for instance, to help keep them strong.” I often feel ashamed that Lola is a fussy eater – though I find solace in the fact that her younger sister isn’t. Dr Rossi claims that what mums-to-be eat during pregnancy may also affect the kind of food your child will have a taste for. “That could play a part with fussing eating,” she says, but adds that she’s not keen on “mum guilt”: “Pregnancy is hard enough without the added pressure of nutrition.” Charlotte Sterling-Reed, “The Baby and Child Nutritionist”, runs a fussy eater course, and assures me that “parents are not bad parents if they are struggling with a fussy eater at home”. She says she is currently witnessing a backlash from “defensive parents” who are fed up with being told to live up to the “ideal” of being a perfect parent. “If I put out a post saying how much fibre children should be having, I get people replying saying that ‘it’s unrealistic’ and ‘we can’t do that as well as everything else’ when it comes to kids’ foods,” she says. “It ends up with parents pitting themselves off against one another with food.” An extravagant lunchbox is also not realistic for the majority of parents, she adds, “whether working or not, and nor should it be – there is a way to find a balance”. She says that a middle ground is possible. “As parents, [we can] pick something that is balanced but that also works for the family situation. This constant comparison between two extremes on social media makes us feel like we are failing in multiple aspects of parenting.” I don’t think I’m ever going to be posting my kids packed lunches on Instagram. I also know that sliced pepper fingers won’t get eaten even if I arrange them in the shape of a smiley face. More than anything though, I won’t feel guilty about my kids’ food habits any more, or the lengths I sometimes go to to get them to eat healthy – I once told my daughters that if they didn’t drink their freshly squeezed orange juice, their legs would fall off. And, you know what, it worked! Read More Keir Starmer is keeping his children out of the public eye – but that won’t stop them being privileged I’m a jellyfish parent – my run-in with a tiger mum was terrifying Kate Moss credits her stress-free life to ‘moonbathing’ – can eccentric wellness regimes help me too? Vasectomy and British men in their twenties: ‘Young, none and done’ Why taking a mental health day could be bad… for your mental health What the world’s happiest children tell us about where Britain is going wrong
2023-10-19 13:30
Trudeau says 'credible allegations' link Indian government to killing on Canadian soil
There are "credible allegations" linking India's government to the assassination of a Canadian citizen and prominent Sikh leader, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged on Monday.
2023-09-19 04:41
Yeezy shoes are back on sale — months after Adidas cut ties with Kanye West
Some of Adidas’ remaining Yeezy shoes are back on sale — months after the German sportswear company cut ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West
2023-06-01 02:26
Williams Says Fed Is Data Dependent, Leaves Door Open to Pause
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said he is monitoring how strains in the banking
1970-01-01 08:00
You Might Like...
Who sang the theme song for 'Friends'? Track has had over 1.3M streams across Spotify and YouTube since Matthew Perry's death
UK Geothermal Sites Near Financial Close After Auction Win
Lewis Hamilton crashes out of final practice for Monaco Grand Prix
Ukraine reports 'particularly fruitful' few days in counteroffensive
China’s Stubborn Manufacturing Slump Drags Down the Rest of Asia
Bluesky, championed by Jack Dorsey, was supposed to be Twitter 2.0. Can it succeed?
Pirelli says operating profit rises 9% in Q1, confirms FY forecasts
De’Longhi Debuts New Cold Extraction Technology to Fulfill Consumers’ Growing Desire for Iced Coffee Beverages
