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’m the same I can’t eat big meals at all. I eat when I’m hungry. The children can have whatever they want whenever they are hungry too. None of us are overweight. Everyone is different!

I appreciate that if you're financially struggling you can't necessarily let kids eat whatever they want, and that must be a really hard position to be in. We're not well off but we don't have to limit our food intake. If your kids are hungry then you need to find some options they can have which are filling but inexpensive to keep them going. Porridge, pasta, toast. Kids eat a lot of snacks and they need a lot of calories especially when they are growing. If you can pop to the supermarket after school with them, they can maybe pick up some yellow sticker snacks for the evening.

Last night, DD5 ate two scotch pancakes with butter and nutella, half a punnet each of grapes, strawberries and raspberries, a small pot of pomegranate seeds, a box of cold water prawns, a square of chocolate, a Dairy Lea lunchable, and later an adult sized bowl of porridge with the remainder of the strawberries. She's not overweight.

That's after lunch and snacks at school.

We do keep a stock of snacks in the house, she can't just eat whatever because if we leave her to it she'll eat massive quantities of chocolate and not want her dinner.

I buy cheap snacks (Aldi crisps) and there are usually home made flap jacks and a home made cake kicking around too. I buy a lot of fruit and I have to restrict one son who would otherwise eat about 6 pieces of fruit a day and then it’s too expensive. Everyone else eats about 2 pieces per day so that’s fine.

The OP isn't refusing snacks or stating her children must only eat 3 meals a day.

Unlimited food, whenever, whatever, is likely more of an issue in the growing obesity crisis. The UK's diet is made up significantly of UPFs, and supermarkets are stacked full of crisps, cakes, chocolates, etc. Deliveroo and the like enable people to order in all the time, without making an effort to move. I suspect the increasing availability of non-whole foods, and the move away from cooking and snacking on whole foods, are more of a contributing factor to the obesity crisis than parents who offered 3 square meals and fruit, toast or cereal as snacks in the 70s and 80s.

At the start of the week you stock each child a basket with snacks designed to last them a week. They have free access to it, but when it’s gone, then they just have to eat the less desirable snacks I.e fruit/ veg, toast etc.

It's a fair idea on the face of it, @Mamamia2019, but depends on the adults' willingness to say no when the more desirable snacks are gone and they start carrying on about "what everyone else's kids get"

We all know children can be very artful in getting what they want, whether it's snacks, screen time, another organised activity when they're "bored" or whatever else, but giving in isn't always the wisest course even if it's easier in the moment

OP, even if you can afford snacks, they are rubbish for your health.

Toast, noodles, pasta, Weetabix, fruit, nuts and a glass of milk, or homemade popcorn for snacks here!

I was replying specifically to the poster who said that ‘3 meals a day is far healthier’.

Youre not going to like it as they get older and consider a whole packet of hot honey Jaffa cakes an acceptable lunch.

Who limits ketchup use?

I have to admit I sometimes do, otherwise my 10 year old would just have a side of dinner with her ketchup!

I don't understand why 'feeling hungry' is frowned upon these days. There's nothing wrong in building up an appetite for one of the three main meals of the day. Growing up, I hardly ever had 'snacks' - it just didn't occur to me. Children eat far too much.

Honestly this sounds like a you thing.

We just accepted we need to buy about 20 bananas a week for our 3 and 1 yr old.
They love them (we eat a couple) and they are a cheap filling snack that contains potassium and fibre...

The butter thing... we always have one or 2 spare in the fridge... just buy 2 and have a spare in reserve.

We also cook extra rice / pasta sweetpotato and tend to keep some on hand for snacks / quick meals.

Your kids need more food!!!

Yes, as my kids are super hungry types (slim as well). They need to snack as well as eat their main meals. We have snacks in the cupboard and of course I wish they chose the fruit options mainly, but that does not fill them. For example a snack after school would be banana, brown bread sandwich with cheese, oatbar/raisins/bear fruit/crackers). They basically need a full on meal once getting out of school. They eat in school too, but I guess growing kids burn a lot of calories....

I would perhaps allow your kids more snack options at home, esp if their weight is fine.

Frozen peas to snack on? Really?

And why is having 3 main meals better for your health than having 2 small meals and 3 snacks, for example?
3 main meals is a societal construct. There is no evidence that it’s the ‘healthiest’ way to eat.

No, it's rein - the metaphor being driving horses, like from a carriage or cart.

And me!

Didn’t wouldn’t restrict snaking and give them a complex about food to be passed onto their partners/ children.

it’s ridiculous, it can be fruit, raisins, biscuits, crisps.

In fairness, lots of people - it’s really not very good for you!

Yes, I agree that feeling hungry can be a good thing and should be felt. But some kids just need more calories and cannot get enough from 3 meals. My son does tons of sport and eats all his main meals, plus snacks often in the day...he is still very slim (feel the bones type on his back) and 6 pack. He just cannot get enough calories yet to beef up even w the meals and snacking. My daughters eat similar and don't do as much sport, but they are also slim.

Also, maybe provide snacks that are more filling like beans, brown bread, yogurt w granola?

In our house we also have three decent sized meals a day, and one prepared snack for after school when we all arrive home hungry. Apart from that the children can help themselves to unlimited fruit, but I don't buy more until its all gone. So far example if they snuffle all of the bananas in a day, I don't go running out to buy more as there are apples, pears, carrot sticks etc that need to go first. When we go to my mums house though it is very different and they seem to just be constantly grazing/ eating from the minute we get there until the minute we leave but those are the rules in her house...

God no. Kids didn't used to be allowed to eat between meals and they were thinner and healthier, and didn't refuse to eat proper food because they were full of junk. Barring certain medical issues like diabetes, children don't ever need "snacks" and adults don't either. The marketing of snacks has been very successful in persuading us all that hunger at any time is intolerable and we have to eat something the second we feel a twinge of it, but it's not so. The whole snacking thing is a massive driver of obesity - you don't have to allow it at all. The kids will thank you when they're adults with healthy eating habits.

Yes lots of snacking in our house. I like the DC to be able to experiment with cooking different things for themselves too. Our food bill is quite high but I’d rather cut back in other areas if needed.

I was the same. I grew up seeing friends with full snack cupboards, but those friends weren't bothered by all the snack food as it was freely available. As we never had food freely available to the same extent, as soon I was old enough to make food choices myself I was unable to be sensible around food, and that has followed me around my entire life. We had access to fruit etc. When growing up but I was always made to feel bad if I ever wanted something more.