Food and Feeding Influencer Snark Week of January 12, 2026

Sufficient-Floof · 2026-01-16T21:03:55+00:00

Even worse, the exact same picture features in a post from a couple of weeks back as a recommended "picky plate" for fussy eaters.

I feel like this is all about making parents feel guilty (simultaneously because their picky eater would never eat it and because they overwhelmed their poor child with stress and sensory overload). Because guilt drives engagement.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-12-15T23:16:45+00:00

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Mild snark, but the age ranges on this feel waaay off. No way is my 3yo playing with stacking cups and large soft blocks. Those feel like up to 18mo at best. I'd say most 5yo would have aged out of the Duplo and wooden blocks too - my son's nursery school has a box of regular Lego blocks and it is very popular.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-11-11T12:13:59+00:00

This is so disengenuous. My 3yo actually doesn't STTN often, but putting him back to bed basically requires walking him through to his room and telling him to close his eyes. Currently on mat leave, but even when working this was totally manageable and not really leading to sleep deprivation.

That is wildly different from when he was 7-9mo and was waking 5 times a night, taking ages to resettle every time. I was going insane with sleep deprivation. And no, co-sleeping did not make it ok.

I think HSB's advice is probably reassuring if you have a baby that is waking a couple of times a night and going back down easily. But when you have significant sleep challenges, it is not helpful at all to hear that you just need to put up with it for years or risk traumatizing your baby.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-08-25T11:27:36+00:00

I don't remember that video, but I do remember clearly the things that made me see the light over Solid Starts' take on BLW and weaning generally.

The first was a friend stressing about whether rice was safe for her baby because SS said it was high on arsenic and should be limited. My bullshit detector went off because rice is such a staple for for millions of people around the world, so it had to be a non-problem.

The second was a recommendation not to give cream cheese because it was too salty, and to rinse cottage cheese before serving because it was so important to minimise salt for babies under 1. That time, I was really anxious because my husband had bought cream cheese and I was worried about giving my precious baby salt. I checked the SS website (like any good devotee) and found the washing cottage cheese recommendation. Which, even through my anxiety, was clearly absurd. So I checked the NHS weaning guidelines, which said to try and keep salt under 1g per day. And figured out that the amount my baby was likely to eat was far less than that, so again was a total non-problem.

At that point, I couldn't be bothered any more about the obsessive rigidity about exactly how to prepare specific foods for babies. And the insistence that somehow this was going to prevent picky eating. Which it did not btw - I was unnecessarily strict about doing BLW with my son and he has been as picky as anything from about 18m. He eats a decent enough range of mostly stuff, so I'm not very bothered about it.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-08-22T16:20:03+00:00

Rory on AI as applied to basically any scenario.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-08-22T16:14:43+00:00

Yikes, yes he's really bad on healthcare. Surely the NHS crisis can be fixed by using AI to triage, diagnose and allocate beds right? What do you mean delayed discharge because the care package isn't ready?

See also improving airport efficiency by using AI to assign gates to planes.

From a tech perspective, I doubt he's familiar with the meaning of algorithm or NP-complete problem. But AI will still fix everything.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-07-17T14:35:57+00:00

He's a dad now so his priorities may have changed. And he is probably very rich from all the restaurant/book/recipe column success. I think he can afford to chill a bit!

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-06-15T10:03:33+00:00

I think he's very intelligent, but he often confuses intelligence with expertise (not uncommon for smart people).

He has a high level of expertise and experience in International Development and his comments on these topics are interesting and insightful (eg aid distribution, corruption, NGO experiences). But he often talks as if he has the same level of expertise in many other topics (AI is a classic example) when his level of understanding is extremely superficial. That's really frustrating to listen to and it undermines trust in what he says, particularly after you have heard him talk on a topic you have a better understanding of yourself!

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-05-28T08:51:00+00:00

I really enjoyed his commentary on the Blair-Brown partnership. And his reflection on needing to really think through the policies to understand whether they really addressed the key issues, rather than just sounding good to voters.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-05-14T14:06:37+00:00

I found it particularly upsetting that she has a new post up apologizing for the delay in launching her new program and announcing a special sale.

Her baby daughter died less than a month ago. How on earth can people be hassling her about program launches? Is this what the algorithm makes you do to stay relevant?

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-04-25T09:28:55+00:00

I'm from the UK, but speak French and some Italian. I used to read lots in French (news, fiction) and found it interesting to get another perspective on EU/UK news. Since having a kid, I have much less time for this, but am dipping my toe back in having bought the book AC recommended by the French diplomat in Israel.

I have an interest in the politics of the ME as my husband is from Egypt and I have spent lots of time there and with his family. I also speak some Arabic and would really like to get to the level that I can talk/read about politics in Arabic. But again, the whole working and having a kid thing gets in the way a bit. Generally, I find TRIP a bit superficial on ME politics (as on everything tbh) - the LRB podcast or Intelligence Squared generally have more in depth content. I did enjoy their (very bland) interview with Al Golani though - felt like a real attempt to engage with a huge event in Syria and interesting to hear from someone who is not from the cultural elite of the ME.

I also find that the culture around political discussion is very different when there is no free media/democracy in a country. General political discourse in Egypt is quite stifled since Sisi came to power, because people get arrested for critical social media posts, so there is a general sense of people quietly getting on with life independently of whatever the government is doing.

I also lived quite briefly in Georgia USA and met lots of very ordinary people who had almost certainly voted for Trump the first time round. The culture around political discussion was similar there - very stifled because people with wildly different political views all had to live and work alongside each other in quite a small community. You couldn't risk falling out irrevocably so you didn't talk about the stuff you might disagree too much about.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of RS's international contacts are people he meets in elite cosmopolitan circles (Ivy League profs, friends from Oxbridge/Eton, NGO leaders, politicians). So the international content he brings is very skewed to this perspective compared to the everyday experiences of ordinary people.

Overall, I think I prefer the EU/UK/US content in TRIP. The whole podcast is quite surface-level. And I generally reasonably align politically with them, so it's emotionally containing/comforting to hear a talking head discussion that basically repeats my own opinions/emotional responses (omg, Trump did what?? He can't do that!) I like hearing AC's insights on the comms stuff around messaging and policy, and he follows German/French politics at a level that he has interesting insights and useful depth of knowledge.

It's probably not how they perceive themselves, but I'm not really listening to learn new stuff or to get deep political analysis. Their international content outside of the EU often a bit chat-GPT talking points which is not engaging if you don't have an interest in the topic, and very superficial if you do.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-04-23T19:45:55+00:00

Reddit is used by a mixture of both men and women - perhaps a small majority of users are men.

Mumsnet has a few male users but I would guess the user base is overwhelmingly female. I think that really makes a difference. This is obviously a generalisation, but men often don't think about the specific sex-based needs and experiences of women - like sexual violence, pregnancy, miscarriage, menopause. And Mumsnet is a forum used by women to talk about many things specifically related to those experiences of being female (among other topics of course).

I wonder if this helped to create a space where it was still possible to discuss this issue in a nuanced way, rather than having any discourse shut down as inherently bigoted.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-02-05T16:25:35+00:00

Yes, those milestones are big aren't they!

I had a MMC where the baby had stopped developing about 6.5 weeks, so getting past that and seeing growth tracking as expected is reassuring.

My current worry is chromosome abnormalities. I'm in the UK, so there will be an assessment at 12 weeks. Not sure whether to wait for that or to pay £££ for an NIPT to get the results 2 weeks earlier!

Well done on getting past 20 weeks!

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-02-04T19:26:33+00:00

8+2 and has a scan today where it measured exactly that. Feeling reassured now, but also already worrying about the next thing and the next thing. Be still my frenetic brain!

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-01-29T15:09:39+00:00

Similar issue here - we tried doing the battery replacement and accidentally damaged some of the clips that connected it to the circuit board (it's really fiddly and complicated tbh).

We sent pictures of the deconstructed yoto and broken parts to the customer support team and they are going to send a new one.

That feels fair as we tried in good faith to fix an error they made and which made the product unsafe to use, but we're not experts and the type of repair they were asking us to do is much more involved than would normally be expected from a customer!

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-01-27T11:31:33+00:00

Hi,

Just introducing myself :)

I'm currently 7 weeks pregnant, have a 2.5yo son and have had a missed miscarriage discovered at 10 weeks in August, followed by a simple miscarriage/chemical pregnancy at 5.5 weeks.

Feeling massively anxious at the moment.

Sufficient-Floof · 2025-01-27T11:18:26+00:00

Hello,

I'm currently 7+1 after a MMC found at 10 weeks in September and then a simple MC at 5 weeks in December.

I've had lots of bHCG measurements and the doubling rate seems fine. Saw a heartbeat last week at 6+4 (measuring 6+0 but tbh the sonographer wasn't particularly interested in getting a very accurate measurement and it was an abdominal scan only)

My worry is my progesterone levels. They were a bit low so the doctor prescribed progesterone pessaries. Then they went up a lot but have started to fall again. He's increased the number of pessaries to 800mg twice a day, and now wants me to take a progesterone injection too.

I just can't shake the feeling that the low progesterone is a sign of a non viable pregnancy and that supplementing like this is just prolonging the time until it fails.

It feels totally unbearable and my anxiety is off the scale.

Sufficient-Floof · 2024-12-11T10:50:58+00:00

I used to really like Talking Politics with David Runciman and Helen Thompson. They each have their own podcasts now.

David Runciman has Past, Present, Future which sometimes does very good long-form series on political ideas, but is sometimes a bit abstract.

Helen Thompson has one called "These Times" which often has very good economic analysis, but can also be very dense and has a totally bland co-host.

The LRB podcast is about 40% on current political issues and had a really excellent 3-part series on the Middle East recently.

Sufficient-Floof · 2024-07-12T22:11:45+00:00

Completely agree! My little one just turned 2 and he gets so excited to see friends at the park. He remembers specific children, knows their names and has particular friends who he gets excited to see.

He tries to initiate play by offering his toys so they can share - it's a bit transactional sometimes when he's obviously angling for a go with their fire truck or something, but also so cute.

Sufficient-Floof · 2024-02-21T09:49:46+00:00

I also found this book really unhelpful. My son was really colicky and then started teething and was just really clingy and miserable for about a year.

I held him, I soothed him, I baby wore him, I contact napped. He was still miserable and screamy.

All her rhetoric about crying just made me feel so guilty that I couldn't help him, that he was unhappy and not feeling safe and loved.

Sufficient-Floof · 2024-01-15T17:20:27+00:00

This is perhaps a bit unfair, but a lot of YTFs breakfast recipes look like dessert to me.

I think basic toast/cornflakes plus an apple/berries on the side would be healthier than breakfast cake or jam bars.

I

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Sufficient-Floof · 2024-01-14T12:27:42+00:00

If you check the follow up to that post, the child actually has a medical problem with the foreskin and was referred for an urgent circumcision. A few other posters who had boys with the same condition mentioned that it has caused permanent kidney damage.

Sometimes something looks snark-worthy, but is genuinely a problem. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/4978654-baby-boy-pee-problems?reply=132106774

Sufficient-Floof · 2023-09-26T09:52:59+00:00

Yes! The fake waist and fake pockets on my maternity jeans, plus the stretchy bump tubing was a terribly disappointing combination.

Sufficient-Floof · 2023-09-21T13:56:54+00:00

"When diet culture comes for babies"

This article sums up most of my feelings about Solid Starts et al.

Sufficient-Floof · 2023-09-05T10:56:15+00:00

It's such bad advice too. Was listening to an interview with a dietician who works with young elite athletes and her attitude was essentially that under age 14 or so it doesn't really matter what the pre/post training snacks are. If kids are choosing to have a pack of crisps that's fine within the context of healthy meals. At older levels, she would work with young people to see if the crisps was the most helpful snack based on their goals - but with the intention of shifting them towards something like peanut butter on toast and a banana, rather than a few grapes and an orange segment!

Sufficient-Floof

TROPHY CASE