AS a kid, you were probably told that you had to eat you main before getting desert.
One woman, however, was mum-shamed after her daughter ate lunch in the ‘wrong order’ – and she had an incredible response.
Ironically, mum Caroline runs a kids’ lunchbox company, Pezzi, so she knows a thing or two about making nutritious lunches for little ones.
The brand also makes mealtime utensils for small children, but this didn’t stop its founder from being ‘mum-shamed’ by her daughter’s teacher.
Taking to Tiktok, under the username @pezzi.shop, Caroline explained how her daughter had been told off for eating ‘bad foods’ (a cookie) before she finished her ‘good foods’ (a sandwich and cucumber).
Shocked by what the pre-school had said, the mum decided to sit down with her tot and explained that there is no such things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods.
In the caption of the viral video, she wrote: “I felt a little frustrated by the antiquated instruction from the teacher, but I told my daughter: ‘Well that’s silly. There are no good foods or bad foods. Food is just food’.
“Three years old. At three years old someone has told her that foods are good or bad.
“I am so proud that she had sensed something was off – to know that was not right enough to tell me about it. We talk about it all the time at home.”
Continuing, she added: “If you only eat carrots or broccoli your body won’t have the protein it needs to grow strong muscles. If you only eat chicken, your body won’t have enough energy to do things like run and play all day long.
“We need little bits of everything to make sure that we are able to learn and play and grow all day long.”
In fact, the business owner was so frustrated with what had happened that she decided to write a note to her daughter’s teacher.
Leaving the letter in her daughter’s lunchbox, it read: “Hi! Evelyn has our permission to eat lunch in any order she chooses. None of her foods are ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”
After uploading the short clip, the video began to go viral with over 51,000 people seeing the short clip so far.
In the comments, many have praised the mum for how she responded to the teacher with many arguing that classing foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ could have negative consequences.
One impressed viewer wrote: “Your response is the 100% right. The narrative of ‘good’ & ‘bad’ food can actually encourage harmful eating habits to develop.”
“My first graders always ask if they can eat dessert first and I always tell them they can eat the food in any order they want as long as they eat,” revealed an educator.
Others also revealed that they’d had similar experiences to Caroline’s daughter when they were in pre-school.
A third commented: “Way back when I was in kindergarten my teacher sent out a letter encouraging parents to only send healthy ‘good’ food & to limit ‘bad’ food & ‘treats’ to only 1-2 lunches a week.”
“My mom purposely sent a lunch entirely of ‘bad’ food in response.”
With it being notoriously difficult to get kids to eat their veggies, we are just impressed that Caroline’s little one finished up her lunchbox.
