Family dinners far from ‘ideal’

A survey of Kiwis’ dinner habits has revealed a big gap between what we see as an ideal evening meal and what really happens. New Zealanders are emotionally attached to the idea of a ‘‘family dinner’’, but our modern world can make that hard to achieve.

Survey participants were divided into three groups: young professionals with no children; mothers with children; and empty nesters. All groups said the ideal dinner was ‘‘special’’ with a wow factor but also effortless and easy. This image was clearly driven by cooking shows, cookbooks, and online recipes. Meals were prepared as clean, basic, simple food without preservatives and additives, but they remained delicious. . Survey participants didn’t read labels for information, more emphasis went on the food’s nutritional content and its ’’general goodness’’ rather than calories and energy content.

Many saw dinner as important family time, to talk and reflect on the day together. They had memories of past family dinners when they were children, or had children. Family was an integral part to what dinner meant to them.

But, and there’s a big ‘‘but’’, what really happened was often much different to the ideal.

Here are some reality check summaries of what they found:

Young professionals

This group has a regular, stable income and has moved on from the flatting situations when they had tight budgets and the emphasis was more on remembering to eat than eating right.

Now, more able to cook what they want, they focused on taste and enjoyed creative and explorative cooking. The biggest restrictions for this group were limited facilities and lack of time due to busy lifestyles.

This group was more likely to stray from meal plans to takeaways, eating out, or convenience cooking. But they were also more likely to try new things.

Mothers with children

For mums, dinner had to fit around busy schedules and getting children into bed. They mentioned the need to keep meals simple and quick - avoiding complicated dishes with lots of preparation.

They didn’t want to risk spending a long time creating meals that children would turn their nose up at. Often there were separate meals for parents and children, meals eaten in front of the TV, and challenges of getting children to eat.

Empty nesters

Empty nesters generally had a more laidback approach to dinner because they faced fewer constraints. They came closer to the dinner ideal of a relaxing, wind-down occasion where you eat what suits, when it suits. But they also let health concerns affect dinner choices. For those in this group who lived alone, meals were quite basic. This changed when hosting, underlining that dinner appealed more as a shared meal.

What the experts say

Dietitian Cathy Khouri, of private company Nutrition Care, said it was useful to know what really happened around dinners as it made it easier to help people plan to eat well in the real world.

The research showed that compared to three years ago we are cooking more from scratch and more aware of what we are putting in our bodies. However, this greater focus on food also brought more confusion and frustration over what was the right thing to be eating.

Khouri says much of the confusion comes from how people are getting their eating information, including TV cooking shows, celebrities, Google, friends and family, and infomercials. ‘‘There’s a whole bag of mixed messages.’’

The online survey was carried out by Versus Research and the results presented at the Dietitians National Day in Wellington.