What do your teens eat?

[Eversince]

I find my late teens dc don’t seem to like traditional cooked food like cottage pie, roast dinner, curry, lasagne or anything I used to cook for the family when they were growing up. Now all they seem to want is fast food eg burgers and fries, sushi, pasta or noodles. They would live off takeaways given the choice.

Even lunches are tricky these days. They don’t seem to just have a sandwich like I would and they didn’t even like packed lunches in school.

I am wondering what other teens eat and are they similar to my dc? (Also to say they are quite capable of making their own food but the mess is horrendous and I don’t like everyone doing their own thing except a toastie or something in the microwave plus I do all the shopping anyway.) Thanks 😊

For lunch over the holidays DD mainly eats noodles or a ham/cheese sandwich thin.

She’s not very adventurous, doesn’t like much spicy or foreign food, and generally prefers things like fresh pasta sauces to anything I actually make which is a tad dispiriting 🤣.

Ds 19. Would live on processed crap if he could.
I love cooking so he has been raised on good homemade Inc salmon, seabass, chicken dishes, mince and spag bol dishes, eggs, rice, mussels, calamari, noodles 🍜...he spent formative years in Asia. Burgers 🍔.
Loves yoghurt. Has a sweet tooth.

Hates veg. Lots of bread.

He's off to Uni next month so that'll be interesting 🙈

I may have a rare unicorn young adult - mine actually lectures me about eating too much fast food or UPFs! DD is 21 now but has been like this since she was about 18. Has always loved vegetables - it was never a battle when she was young. Hates most fruit though

It’s just the two of us at home, she does most of the cooking by choice. This week’s dinners are:
Fish tacos with fajita veg, sweetcorn salsa & cheese
Chicken + bacon caesar salad with sweet potato fries
Tofu katsu curry with edamame & butternut squash
Haddock, pea, leek & parmesan risotto
Chicken kievs with new potatoes and broccoli
Bangers + mash with carrots and leafy greens
Creamy mushroom & spinach pasta with garlic bread

If she’s taking a packed lunch to work it is almost always a Caesar salad or some sort of sourdough sandwich. Sometimes vegetable or tomato soup in the winter.

If she’s at home she’ll often make herself some scrambled eggs or beans on toast for a quick lunch

Breakfast is usually either overnight oats or some homemade banana bread.

Mixture of both. Still happy to eat home cooked food - I cook from scratch most days. But if I'm not around then they'll eat frozen or delivery pizza, chicken nuggets, pasta pesto and beige stuff. They might be adventurous now and again and make themselves a fresh fruit smoothie!

Mine are not adventurous but we have reached a stage where they will happily eat:
Chicken or pork fajitas
Chilli con carne
Chicken Milanese / chicken kiev
Burgers and potato wedges
Roast dinner
Meatballs and pasta

All homemade with bought sauces/ spice mixes so some elements of ultra processed food but this range of food is much better than what they previously ate so it is a work in progress.

Trying sausage casserole this week and Spaghetti Bolognese.

Dd 20 is very sporty and trys to avoid fast food and junk. Breakfast is porridge with berries and seeds, lunch today was homemade veg soup with a cheese roll and dinner was a mixed bean and sausage casserole with rice.
Ds has autism and severe learning difficulties, as a young child he barley ate and lived on a few safe foods, it has taken years of offering other foods and building on what he would eat, but now he eats everything,! He loves pizza burgers etc but is equally happy with homemade soups, stews, roast dinners. He takes a packed lunch to college,usually some kind of salad with rice or pasta.
They both snack on apples, bananas, nuts etc

Duplicated

DS skips breakfast, eats super noodles and a wrap for lunch then whatever I make for dinner.

He still leaves/picks out half the veg though and I have to make him eat some, although that is getting harder as he now realises he has some agency!

My 17 year old eats what I make at home - for example today was lentil salad with mozzarella, last night was grilled fish. He eats burgers and other crap when he goes out with his friends. Generally we eat quite healthily with the exception of some snacks. Hopefully he’ll keep a healthy diet when he leaves home - I’m in the process of teaching him some basic cheap meals.

It seems like a mixture of things. Some great meals here!

I think my dc are fussy as they won’t eat salmon or chicken or chilli con carne (don’t like the beans.) I made a sausage casserole last week and they had a bit one day then I ate the rest for three days! They do like spag bol but I don’t! If they have salad it’s olives and feta not a traditional salad with lettuce tomato and cucumber which I prefer. I would just like to simplify things so I’m not always thinking of what to cook.

Have you thought about trying hello fresh etc to shake meals up a bit.

My DD likes
Pie and mash with veg
Pasta and meatballs with garlic bread And cut up peppers and cucumber
Chicken wraps homemade coleslaw
Lemon chicken with rice
Spag bol
Pizza and home made potato salad.
Loves a roast dinner.

Would never eat a stew or casserole

My DD varies. She won’t really go out her way to eat fruit but if I make her breakfast and include it she will eat it. She likes berries, but mainly veg and salad bits she will eat. At home it’s usually croissant for breakfast or potato waffles with maybe a yoghurt and fruit. Lunch varies too. At home it’s soup or sandwich or a pot noodle 🤦🏻‍♀️ dinner is what ever I can be bothered with but she would eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets every night thankfully can’t deliver to mines lol! She likes sweet chilli chicken, home made chicken burgers, tuna pasta, she likes salmon, steak, her favourites chicken curry, macaroni, I make dirty fries, she likes fish cakes, loves a roast dinner or I buy southern friend chicken from m&s and make wraps with them. Don’t get me wrong I find her hard to feed because she knows what she likes and that’s it. She has started having dinners at school since she just started high school. She’s loving that she can get a bacon roll at break and curry on every day 😂😂

dd 16 is very unusual and tbh it’s getting worryingly excessive and extreme. Whole foods only so meat, fish, veg, fruit, eggs, honey, Greek yoghurt, nuts, oats rarely. That’s it. But she’s getting more and more extreme, eg meat has to be organic grass fed, won’t eat any veg that’s been wrapped in plastic etc I hope she doesn’t add any more boundaries.

dd 2, very ‘normal’. Cheese toasties, yoghurts and fruit, meat and veg, cereal, banana bread, pancakes, pasta. Etc .

Mine eat a fair amount of takeaways and crap, but do also like pretty much all home cooked meals still, and DS1 has a repertoire of simple stuff that he cooks at uni (bolognaise, chicken curry, chilli, jerk chicken etc) Neither of them eat much fruit, but are ok with veg and salad.

There are certain things they would object to now which they used to eat (fish pie, anything involving jacket potatoes) and they aren't big roast dinner / meat and 2 veg fans, but we don't often cook that kind of food anyway.

Ds is 13 and mainly eats bagels with butter and jam at breakfast.

Lunches at the moment are noodles, quesadilla (we do these with 2 wraps sandwiched together with grated cheese and salsa inside, toasted in a frying pan on each side) or a tuna melt bagel.

Dinner: his favourites would be fajitas, chicken tikka masala, homemade burgers, peri peri chicken in a wrap or with sweet potato fries, homemade kebab (lamb mince with spices wrapped in foil and done in the air fryer then slice thinly and serve with salad and wrap or pitta bread), egg fried rice (I put meat, veg and sauce in it too so it’s a whole meal in one), homemade pizza.

Basically he likes stuff that is takeaway food but cooked at home, ideally. We also do roasts, chilli, pasta and sauce etc. there are meals he has often at his dads that I try not to do as well like spag bol or sausage and mash.

I do or suggest salad, fruit, veg sticks or veg alongside the above.

It's good that she likes school meals, my DD loved them too.

Your meals sound similar to ours. We get the m and s 3 for 12 chicken and makes meals around those a lot.

My DD loves a takeaway and gets food with her sister who doesn't live with us. It's a strange concept for me as takeaway and meals out were rare when I was a child but now every second shop is food and so easily available.

So this morning is frozen pain au choc and I will do banana, melon and grapes with them.

DS 19 will eat and enjoy the food I cook (apart from too much veg, but he’s happy with it mixed into sauces etc and eats raw carrots, cucumber and some fruit, so stopped trying to fight that battle now!) and is a perfectly capable cook, but, left to his own devices, will live off chicken dippers, waffles, sausages and pizza, then complain his stomach is off and he feels crap!

I find my late teens dc don’t seem to like traditional cooked food like cottage pie, roast dinner, curry, lasagne or anything I used to cook for the family when they were growing up. Now all they seem to want is fast food eg burgers and fries, sushi, pasta or noodles

I think this is normal. Food changes throughout the generations. Some of these traditional options do seem quite old fashioned nowadays. The fast food options you describe though don't need to be unhealthy...a stir fry made at home can be perfectly well balanced and healthy. My DD loves burgers but I make them myself at home with mince.

Mine are 15 + 17 and one isn't keen on casseroles/curries/cottage pies. The other isn't as fussy. They both like-
Home made pizza
Flatbreads with salad and chicken
Skewers with meat and peppers/onion
Sunday roasts
Hunters chicken
Bbq goes down well
Home made burgers

Both eat processed food but a balance is OK I think as long as it's not every day

Mine eat lots of chicken, curry, fajitas, butterflied in a bun, homemade chicken meatballs, stripes with lots of seasoning. Steak in baguette with salad and cheese. Roast veg, cauliflower rice, chilli, Chinese stir fry. Really not keen on any kind of traditional food, sweet potatoes not normal. I use the air fryer everyday virtually for their veg and chicken. Occasionally treats on weekend but mostly very healthy food, only frustration not keen on fruit.

Mine pretty much eat anything, but of the meals you list, cottage pie, roast dinner, lasagne and (sausage) casserole would definitely be towards the bottom of their preference list.

Masses of eggs and noodles get eaten!

I do a lot of fakeaway meals...it's cheaper and healthier. My DD asked me for KFC the other day but I said no and made my own fried chicken, homemade chips in the air fryer and corn on the cob

My teens eat healthy food. They choose to do so because they are into their sports. They like high protein so steak, chicken, tuna steak and salmon. They rotate those meals around in the week. I make a chicken gnocchi bake with red pesto and peppers they love. Both love salmon with lime juice and steamed vegetables. Trays of Mediterranean vegetables and steak or a tuna steak, spaghetti Bolognese and chicken salad with a semi hard boiled egg. The most unhealthy gf pod they eat is an occasional pizza or panini. They love Ratatouille and eat loads of fresh fruit. They eat a lots of salad with a steak or chicken breast in the summer. Their diet is better than mine. I have never fed them beige processed food and only ever given them food cooked from scratch.

Our DCs are the opposite - they are very fussy: lots of green veg and fish. No UPFs unless it's a rare thing. They will tell me off if I'm eating the "wrong thing". I now use Mindful Chef or Gousto boxes which they can choose then we all take it turns to cook (which is a bonus I must admit!)

My granddaughter started experimenting with food when she was at Uni, although she was pretty adventurous before that. Cooks from scratch, and is not a bad cook!