Fast Food Frenzy as Mums Confess Kids Mealtime Planning is More Stressful than finding Childcare Cover

Turkey twizzlers, chicken drumsticks and fish fingers. Bring back memories? These frozen dinner staples have long been used to get parents out of a squeeze at dinner time, but how many parents still resort to making these uninspired choices when it comes to mealtimes for their kids?

New research* from Salter Cook found that a staggering 27% of mums find planning menus for their children more stressful than finding childcare (24%), showing that the issues of providing fresh and original meals is still a huge concern for many. One in ten mums admitted to physically dreading mealtimes because of complaints they’ve faced and 30% say they don’t’ have enough time to make a meal from scratch. Perhaps a good indication why fish fingers are still an enduringly popular mealtime choice…

The fear of running out of mealtime inspiration has also led to 43% of mums resorting to takeaways at least once a week, 17% admit to feeding their children the same meal more than three times in the same week, and 16% finding planning family meals the most stressful part of the day! Despite these disconcerting numbers a lot of mothers desperately want to do better, with 40% of mums admitting they would be willing to go bare-faced for a whole year in exchange for their own personal chef, and over a fifth would give up watching TV for a year! A whole season of Game of Thrones in exchange for some culinary freebies, that’s a serious claim.

Over half of mum’s surveyed (54%) say they plan their meals for the week in order to provide a wide variety of food. But only 28% said they enjoy experimenting with new food trends, ingredients and recipes. Despite all of these best intentions, just 3% of mums can claim that they never get takeaways for their children. A very select few indeed…

For further information on Salter’s connected devices and app, please visit the Salter Cook website.

Salter Cook App is free to download from the App Store and Google Play. The Salter Cook Bluetooth Recipe Scale is £79.99 and the Salter Cook Bluetooth Thermometer is £49.99 available from Argos, John Lewis, Steamer Trading, Amazon & Salter Housewares.

*1,000 UK mums aged 18 and over were surveyed by Salter through independent research company, Atomik Research.