I left my 16 year old at home for 24 hours and he ate...

[mrsm43s]

A ready meal (mac & cheese)
A pot noodle
A family sized pizza
A full tub of 40 cocktail sausages
At least 2 big buckets full of buttered popcorn (maybe more, but only evidence of two pots where he melted the butter).
4 and half bags of crisps
Several bowls of cereal (I'd guess about 3 or 4 from the number of bowls left)
Multiple rounds of toast/sandwiches- about half a loaf worth, with a mix of fillings - choc spread, jam, cheese, soft cheese
A block of feta
A 2 person packet of fresh tortellini
and something chocolately that came in a plastic tub that I can't remember what would have been in there, but there was definitely cocoa powder residue in the bottom of the container.

He did not eat the cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, hummus, apples, grapes, bananas or yoghurts.

He's as skinny as a rake!

I'm not complaining as we were away on a Uni visit with eldest, and he was alone overnight for the first time and the house was still standing, the cats and dogs were fed and let out appropriately (the dog wasn't actually walked, but we went early evening to early evening, so we've walked her early Friday then late Saturday and she's only a Chi cross that doesn't need hours of walking), but no poo, so he def did garden runs with her. The house was pretty tidy apart from the stack of dirty crockery and empty food packaging.

How would your 16 year old son have fared?

bringing food poverty and sexism into this and accusing the OP of hyperbole.

irony.

same old MN bores determined to dominate threads.

Exactly. My teen boys wouldn't eat amounts OP listed because if they did we'd have no food for the rest of the week.
They have no issue moaning when they are hungry though so I can only assume they are genuinely full up after meals.

And as a teen I ate more than my brothers, because I danced 6 days per week and needed the food. They were far less active and far less hungry.

So the hollow legged locust boys don't exist in families that need to use foodbanks?

Yeah, totally ironic 🙄

Of course hollow legged locust boys exist in families that need to use food banks.

You are accusing the OP of hyperbole by saying that teenage boys hoover up food. Teenage boys do hoover up food, if the food is available to them.

You don't like the OP's post so are trying to shut her down with 'what about families who can't afford all this food!' and 'you're being sexist!'

She is talking about her specific domestic situation and you are accusing the OP of hyperbole whilst being hyperbolic yourself.

What a piglet. You may need dynorod tomorrow 💩💩💩

I could see all that food away in 24 hours no probs.

Is this more than he would normally eat in 24 hours?
And do you think the list would have been about the same, or double, if he'd had 48 hours?
I find it fascinating how much some people can eat, vs how restrained others can be.

Anyway, hope the uni visit went well. Also hope that everyone's appreciating the ability to do those uni visits in real life.

I don't agree with you.

He's a geek. The kind of geek that's so geeky that they don't even realise they're geeky. All his friends are also geeky. They wouldn't bother meeting in person - they'll meet up online. And stay up all night coding and gaming.

I have a friend with a geek son, he had friends round once and she referred to them as, "They are all geeks, not a decent haircut between them"

My son is a young adult, not a house servant.

Whereas you're an adult and a house servant? Young adults take out the recycling. Children take out the recycling too.

Block of feta looool

That sounds about right. My DS constantly ate at that age but he would make meals as well. He always looked after the DCat really well.

I call it a win that the house is in one piece.

Fck you're scaring me with three sons Inc's twins 😂😂

They just go hungry. I spent most of my teenage evenings hungry when we were poor. I'd have eaten more if we had it. We didn't. Ergo I was just hungry despite adequate calories

You might be fine. I thought my teenage son ate a lot but he eats nowhere near as much as OP’s or many of the others in this thread. It seems a lot to me because it’s only a year since he ate like everyone else in the house but then he is also the tallest and most active.

How much toilet roll did he use?

How much shower gel , toothpaste , shampoo and deoderant ?
If left to his own 16yo devices probably Nil

Thanks for sharing this op, it's really made me smile.

I have three boys and the eldest is 14 - he asks me at breakfast what's for dinner.

My 8 yr old has just had four slices of toast for breakfast and a gallon of milk. He will be starving in roughly 20mins.

All three are skinny.

Our food bill is colossal. I tried to introduce beans on toast as a cheap dinner but the eldest eats a tin of beans, six - eight slices of bread with half a family sized block of cheddar.

It's like living with desperate Dan.

Argh I can hear the rustle from the kitchen 🙈 it's breakfast time 😬

I’d be pretty pissed off at that much food disappearing to be honest. Can’t afford it. Having said that I don’t think my teen son would really eat anything but peanut butter sandwiches and biscuits if I was gone 24hours. He would never attempt to cook and definitely wouldn’t wash up, or not without me ringing in the way home and telling him to or else! (Yes I have epically failed to bring up a fully functional adult ready to get married and join the army).

I agree with Worra actually, a girl eating all that crap would cause much disgust on Mumsnet. Also, I know a lot of teenage boys and surprisingly few are actually “ skinny” and quite a few have actual love handles so I’m sceptical about all these boys “ hoovering” 15 bowls of cereal etc and being like whippets.

I can only relate to the pp who said her dd13 spends hours fucking about deciding what to eat then another eleventy hours preparing it (aesthetically, of course), only to not eat for the rest of the day.

Bang on that is . 😂

Wonder where she got her eating issues from if mum is "glad"

so true

Actually this is a very good point. There's definitely some posters in MN who have daft double standards for girls v. boys.