Can your family afford snacking and random grazing?

[TransAdmiralsAreAdmirals]

DC are grumpy because we don't allow random grazing and ask that they let me know when they're planning to prepare food using high-value ingredients or ingredients which may reasonably form a central component of a family meal.

I buy enough packed lunch items to last them both for the week, and much prefer it if I don't have to buy replacements if someone eats extra bags of crisps or snacks on extra packets of raisins or grain bars or similar.

Ditto preparing snacks between mealtimes: making toast, or bowls of pasta or cereal, or making fruit smoothies, or baking cupcakes.
Mine will get bowls of frozen peas or sweetcorn to snack on, so I often open the freezer to find empty bags.

Or unlimited condiments, for that matter -oodles of ketchup, sweet chilli sauce or mayo etc.

Or raiding the fruit bowl; there's enough fruit for everyone to have a couple of pieces per day but not to eat 3 bananas in a day, for instance.

We eat 3 square meals a day; quality home-cooked / prepared food and always have fruit available, so they're not going hungry. DC1 in particular insists that all their friends have free reins in the kitchen and that their cupboards are stuffed to the gunnels with snacky foods to which they help themselves with gay abandon, citing fridge raids of quantities of items I could never sustain in our home on our budget: I literally couldn't afford to stock lots of grazing foods in case someone feels a bit bored or peckish.

Can you, and do you, keep plentiful reserves of snacks which your DC are allowed to help themselves to?

I buy certain items for snacking yes.

Yeah it's really important to me that my DC aren't restricted at all when it comes to food. I would economise in other areas to make this happen if I was you OP. I understand your frustration though. I think this is classic teenage behaviour and it's particularly annoying when they insist everything is so much better at their mates houses!

Yes, we are in the fortunate position to be able to afford to have fully stocked (over stocked) cupboards at all times. DD has never been a fan of big meals, from a very young age she’s preferred to eat small amounts frequently and as long as she’s having a good mix of food groups and not over doing junk we’re happy to facilitate that.

Are they teens? They tend to need more food so I would find a way to have cheaper snacks available.

Yes and no. I buy enough fruit and snacks to theoretically last us a week, however, they're always gone within days and I'm having to replenish a few times during the week. I find it frustrating as it adds so much to the weekly food bill. If it wasn't for the snacks, I could feed us within my desired food budget, but the snacking always sends it way over.

Yep.

We don’t have much in the way of snack foods but I don’t limit fruit or veg (DC has a habit of eating whole carrots!) so we do top those up as needed during the week. Same with bread and cereal. Everything else is WIGIG, if all the crisps go in the first couple of days the food budget isn’t buying any more until next week!

Yes, I have snacks available for anyone who is hungry, and ingredients for anyone who wants to cook something a bit more substantial for themselves. It sounds pretty joyless to be micromanaging every banana and bag of crisps; if money is very tight then I appreciate that it’s difficult to get right, but I think rigidly controlling someone else’s food intake - beyond toddlerhood - is unhealthy.

I try and keep 'packet snacks' for packed lunches but unlimited toast, bananas, basic biscuits etc- none of these are expensive and surely you don't want them going hungry?

We have certain snacks available which, when they’re gone, they’re gone (eg crisps). Other foods are available when anyone is hungry - fruit, chopped cucumber/carrot, cheese and crackers/oatcakes, toast. I’d be happy to allow more protein-based snacks if mine would eat them. We do restrict sugary stuff but they’re young enough that we can do that - and one of them is quite good at self-regulating anyway. Ironically, he’s the one who can’t reach the sweet stuff in the cupboard!

How old are your DCs? DC1 (10) insists all their friends have unrestricted access to sugar at home. I do think that as they get older, if you’re too restrictive, they will just spend any money they have on junk food and snacks. Mine are hardly restricted but see any kind of bought food like Greggs as a massive treat.

Yes. I appreciate that we are lucky to be in a portion where we can buy food freely. I think that perhaps your eating habits are a bit restrictive for growing young people. You can buy seasonal fruit quite cheaply, and I would make trays of things like flapjack for them to have. Toast, etc, is quite cheap if you don’t go for premium bread (or baking it is easy and cheap). I think not having choice over food is quite miserable and I would try to make some adjustments if you can x

Frozen sweetcorn cannot be eaten raw, it’s been a source of food poisoning multiple times apparently. I believe it does say so on the packet.

My kids do not have crisps and chocolate bars in lunch boxes every day, they can have one once a week as a treat.

I do ask that they ask before they take something from the cupboard, it might be nearly tea time or they’ve already had a snack.

I buy boring stuff and they aren’t massively arsed. One had a packet of proper corn popcorn after school and one had a packet of mini ritz. It was instrumental lessons so dinner was late.

I do encourage and allow free rein at the tap and the fruit bowl and actually for instant hot chocolate (supermarket brand) and cups of tea.

Breakfast they can have weetabix or porridge or shreddies. I only buy “fun” cereals on holiday and at Christmas.

Fizzy drinks they are allowed at weekends.

mine are 10 and 12 and wouldn’t start cooking the contents of the fridge. They know the meal plan and that it’s accounted for. I don’t buy bacon due to cancer risk, that’s a rare purchase these days.

Strewth. What's wrong with telling your kids not to be so greedy. The odd biscuit & a glass of milk or an apple between meals is fine, but all the rest of it? Hell no.

Your kids eat frozen sweetcorn?

Yes we have basically unlimited snacks available at all times.

We could afford it, but I avoid snacking for health reasons.

How old are they?

DC1 in particular insists that all their friends have free reins in the kitchen and that their cupboards are stuffed to the gunnels with snacky foods to which they help themselves with gay abandon, citing fridge raids of quantities of items I could never sustain in our home on our budget:

Sounds unlikely!

If teenagers, I’d make sure you have a good supply of cheap fruit and veg, bread, instant noodles, porridge oats, blocks of basics cheddar. If they are hungry they need to eat something. Cookbook for Christmas?

Yes but I get what you mean - I only buy good quality ham for example so if someone ate a whole pack in one go as a snack I’d be annoyed and wouldn’t be replacing it until the next big shop.
I’d also rather my DC ate a proper dinner than lots of snacks

But DC are 14 and 10 so do sometimes get hungry between meals and I wouldn’t want them to feel they can’t eat.

I don’t really buy snack foods like chocolate and crisps- we have crisps at the weekend but midweek snacks are things like yoghurt, cheese, fruit, cereal bars

My DC are teens and prefer proper food rather than snack food - so will use airfryer to make quesadillas, fried halloumi, toast or heat up leftovers. I don’t buy specific snack food. We have fruit they help themselves to as well. And cereal.

They must be pretty desperate to be eating frozen corn and peas as their snack surely?!

It doesn't sound particularly unhealthy they are going for the fruit, raisins and grain bars?!
or smoothies?

Yes.
Frankly you sound like a cause for future disordered eating in a child,
Cant make toast or eat a few bananas? Absolutely miserly like an Oliver Twist situation.

I’d never limit access to fruit and veg, nor relatively healthy snacks like oatcakes, yoghurt, toast.

Pedantic but it’s not “free rein” or “free reins” it’s free reign

No, it’s not.

How old are your DC? Children have growth spurts and may need and want additional food over and above what an adult may think they need - especially teens.

Micromanging everything that your DC are allowed to eat is a recipe for setting them up for future food issues, not to mention a joyless existence within the home.

There is a balance to be had here - of course most of us don’t want our kids to be stuffing themselves with sweets and crap daily plus this can end up costing a lot - but you should consider other healthy-ish snack options that don’t cost much ie shop at Lidl/Aldi for bags of nuts, crisps, fruit, tinned fruit, baking ingredients to make flapjacks and muffins which you can freeze in batches. I’ve bought things like Swiss roll from the yellow sticker area and sliced and frozen it so it’s not wasted or gone stale.

I have always had an unlimited food budget. No my DC never had cupboards full of crisps, crap and biscuits. There was always plenty of fruit, natural yoghurt, filtered water, sugar free cordial, brown bread, cheese, chicken. They had a good hot dinner every day, huge portions as teenagers and had scramvled egg, baked beans, porridge, etc, in the morning. And were mad about smoothies but they made those.