WHEN I BECAME a dietitian, I imagined helping people build healthier, more balanced lives through food. What I didn’t expect was how much time I would spend defending myself for being a parent who sometimes leans on frozen meals, boxed snacks, and, yes, even store-bought chicken nuggets.

The judgment about food choices today is loud, especially when it comes to ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Somewhere along the way, an all-or-nothing approach has replaced any sense of balance when it comes to our food. Instead of encouraging people to eat more nutrient-dense options, like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, we’ve shifted the conversation toward a rigid—and unhelpful—narrative that suggests eating processed foods means you don’t care about your health, or that of your family.

I won’t deny that the research on UPFs raises concerns. Studies show that higher intakes of UPFs are associated with a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. The relationship seems to be dose-dependent, meaning the more UPFs you eat, the more likely you are to have one of these health conditions. I can see this being especially true if a diet includes mostly UPFs, leaving little room for nutrient-dense foods.

What gets overlooked is how tangled these associations can be. A 2024 study of the diet and lifestyle habits of 1,766 adults found that people who ate higher amounts of UPFs were also more likely to have other health risks, such as smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, and a lower socioeconomic status. Each of these factors is independently associated with an increased risk for chronic disease, which makes it hard to blame UPFs alone.

Despite the numerous factors that influence our health and our children’s health, we’ve started measuring a person’s parenting by the number of ingredients in the food they serve. This all-or-nothing approach is unhelpful and puts impossible expectations on parents who are already stretched thin from balancing work, family, finances, kids’ extracurricular activities, and (if even possible) time for their own self-care and mental health.

The foods labeled as “ultra processed” in research studies aren’t just candy and soda, either. They include staple foods that offer real and valuable nutritional benefits, such as cereal enriched with essential vitamins and minerals, frozen proteins like fish sticks or chicken nuggets, and store-bought bread and sauces.

These items make serving balanced, nutritionally complete meals possible for many families because of their convenience, accessibility, and often affordability. Accusing someone who relies on them of being irresponsible or not caring about kids ignores the fact that cooking from scratch requires time, energy, money, and resources, which many people don’t have enough of.

And it’s not just about what we’re feeding our kids, either. As a busy, working parent, there are many days when my own meals are thrown together quickly between meetings, school pickup, and dance practice drop-offs. Sometimes that includes a protein shake, a granola bar, or even a microwavable meal. And you can bet when these foods show up in my social media posts or are mentioned in an article, the comment section floods with people letting me know how awful I am for eating and serving them.

Do I want my diet to be based on UPFs? No. Am I encouraging people to eat more of them? Of course not. But I do believe that including some of these foods in your diet may actually help you eat a more nutritionally complete and healthy diet overall. For me, serving some UPFs helps me prioritize fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins without burning myself out. And I know the same is true for many other parents.

While we’re so focused on the dangers of serving fish sticks with dinner, let’s not forget about the impact that stress has on our health. Chronic stress increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune diseases, depressed immune function, and many, many more conditions that negatively impact our health and well-being. I don’t know about you, but if serving chicken nuggets with apple slices, yogurt, and carrot sticks at the end of a long day feels easier, less stressful, and gives me more time and energy to be present with my kids, I’m calling that a win.

So yes, food should nourish you, but it should also fit into a life that’s full, busy, and far from perfect. UPFs are not going anywhere, and shaming people for eating and serving them isn’t supportive. What will help is supporting parents in a way that allows them more time, energy, and resources to use UPFs as part of an overall healthy diet and reduces the stress of getting everything perfect.

At the end of the day, I want my kids to grow up understanding that food is about nourishment and connection, not guilt. I want them to know that a frozen pizza with dinner doesn’t cancel out the fruits, vegetables, and other choices they made that day. And I want other parents to know that they aren’t failing if they do the same.