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?

That’s what I thought, they must be starving if they are eating frozen veg as a snack.

Some frozen veg and berries aren't necessarily safe to eat raw, depends where they were grown but there were a lot of cases of salmonella (I think, possibly some other food poisoning) in frozen berries and veg when consumed raw from certain countries in Europe. I always buy domestic if they're going to be eaten raw.

I am snacker so yeah we have loads of snacks. They can help themselves to whatever they want. I'm not worried about weight gain (at present) as they are really active sporty kids. I don't keep tabs really on what snack they choose.

I always make sure I have excess of what I would deem appropriate for snacking- ie fruit, chicken bites (good protein) cheese bites, toast ECT. Crisps are limited to a packet a day as is chocolate unless it's a treat ECT but general snacking my children know what they can and can't have as a snack but no I won't stop them snacking within reason if they are hungry

it doesn't do any harm to be a bit hungry between meals, there is no need to be rushing to the kitchen for every hunger pang, I had to learn this as an adult having once been very fat and now not.
I know loads of kids who snack all day then piss about at meal times fidgeting and running around not eating anything. Most of them are fat children or fat when they get older because what they can get away with eating as children they most certainly cannot get away with eating as adults.
It's ok to be hungry and not do anything about it. I suspect most of this snacking is just boredom or for the sake of eating.
If you have breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and then dinner surely that's enough.

They’re growing so they need snacks. You can tell them what they can eat or not, but if you run out that quickly be prepared for them to eat something else. Protein and fibre is more filling so maybe have more eggs, nuts and seeds for breakfast etc so they’re fuller for longer.

I think you sound pretty controlling about food and it isn't healthy. It doesn't sound like your dc are just eating rubbish! If you don't want them eating leftovers because they're earmarked for a meal, make sure there are other options. Toast, eggs, frozen veg, these aren't hugely expensive! It's horrible to be hungry and not allowed to eat, and dc don't have the option to make their own purchases like adults do.

I noticed in your OP you said “packets of raisins” - these are much more expensive than a big bag of raisins. Same for “granola bars” - these are not cheap. Maybe changes like this would help?

Also, I think the age of your children makes a big difference. Young teenagers are still growing and can eat more than adults in my experience.

I think if you budget for your girls to make cupcakes or their own granola/flapjack bars, and let them make toast etc that would help.

For the record, I never had “free rein” of the food growing up - I would have to ask in case food was earmarked for a meal etc. My kids aren’t old enough to have “free rein” yet, but I try to encourage them to ask themselves if they are hungry or if they are just bored when they ask for food.

Of course they should check with you before eating something high value that might be planned as part of a family meal. That's just teaching them to be thoughtful. There's a lot of food wastage in this country due to people overstocking, which is the only way to manage the extremes they describe in their friends' houses (though I very much doubt that many families would allow their teens and friends unfettered access to tomorrow's beef rib). Every household has a food budget and they need to stick within yours. Perhaps you could give them a financial limit for snacks each week and they choose what this is spent on so that they learn weighing plenty of low cost snacks against fewer high value items? Or perhaps have clearer distinctions between freely available and 'ask me first' food? Ours have left home now (without malnourishment or eating disorders). What made things easier to manage was a board where they wrote up if the freely available, cheaper, food was getting low so it went on the shopping list.

Yes excessive use of expensive condiments bought as treats for judicious use, then slathered over their plates with a big gloop of it going in the washing up used to wind me up as well. One day though they will be back home advising you on cheap offers at Aldi!

Yes of course. Plenty of fruit crisps whatever. Life would be so boring otherwise.

Fruit & veg is the only thing in the house they have unlimited access to. Crisps etc are always there for snacking but they would ask first. I think if it’s a monetary thing (totally understandable with today’s cost of living) then yes your right to limit rather than getting into debt. If it’s more of a control thing and u can afford to have snacks available then it’s a bit tight.

If your kids are getting an overall balanced diet, are active and not fat then I shouldn’t worry. They obviously need the extras

My DC get breakfast, they are given a morning snack to take to school (packet of crisps/pop corn/biscuits) and on the weekend they are allowed a piece of fruit and/or a small snack. They get lunch and dinner with dessert. They are allowed a small snack and/or a piece of fruit mid afternoon.

Nobody in our house is allowed to help themselves from the fridge and cupboards at will - it’s bad for your teeth and people are becoming obese because of it. As a child I was treated the same, I still have all of my own teeth and I am not overweight.

Tell your DC if they want unlimited snacks to buy them themselves out their pocket money - it will be a good lesson for them to see how much the unlimited food they are asking for actually costs.

Yes but I do limit them and have cut back on the junk snacks i was buying because they are crazy expensive now. We are a 3 meal a day family to but the kids normally have a mid morning snack and snack after school small one.

If teens, Id have a list of foods that is ok that they can eat unlimited as snacks (rice cakes, porridge, fruit, veg etc.) and I'd buy a set amount of crisps, biscuits, cereal bars and treats etc. that once is gone is gone.

But I wonder if they are hungry straight after meals.... Are they serving themselves enough?

I’m surprised how many kids are eating crisps daily and taking them to school. Jamie Oliver will be coming to pay you a visit. School here send out regular reminders about healthy lunches and break time snacks must be fresh fruit or vegetables only.

I think it depends on each family’s financial situation. When I was younger, my home was like yours. But as I got older and met my husband’s family in my late teenage years, their home was like a supermarket with unlimited snacks, drinks, and pastries. So I really think it depends on the family. It is not necessarily right or wrong.

Fruit and veg, houmous, peanut butter and nuts, crackers or breadsticks and toast are largely unlimited. Things like crisps they know they aren’t allowed multiple packets a day and I won’t top them up once they are gone.

a kilo of pb lasts ages and then a couple of bags of apples a week, cheap and nutritious sack that my kids are welcome to help themselves to.

my daughter eats loads of frozen fruit. It’s cheaper than fresh and a bowl lasts her a while which stops overeating. Plus we put it in overnight oats to defrost.

unfortunately saying all that I know by my oldest’s bank account that she buys herself snacks from the corner shop on the way home from school all the time, and they will be sweets and fizzy drinks. I could stop her from doing it but that just seems unnecessarily controlling.

Crumpets as well! 60p a pack of 6 in Tesco and that’s 3 days worth of after school snack for a child.

Well if my dc are hungry they can have a snack but generally they do ask. It wouldn't bother me if they took snack items eg crisps or fruit but if it was something that could form part of a main meal I wouldn't be amused.

We are not a snacking household. DH and I never had snacks as children and that is the way we have continued. DC was not brought up having many snacks unless say they needed something prior to an activity and there wasn’t time for a proper meal, but the snack was more likely to be half a sandwich rather than biscuits or crisps type things. We may have occasionally had a coffee and some cake if we went to a cafe, but we got out the habit during the pandemic and have not picked it up again.

The whole premise of your original post, OP, makes for uncomfortable reading.

Teenagers should be mindful that food costs money, that groceries are budgeted for, that someone goes to the effort of meal planning and buying and transporting and cooking food etc.

Teenagers also eat more food than we remember, and go through hollow-leg phases.

It’s reasonable to put a limit on junk food consumed: crisps, for example, don’t fill you up or provide nutrition, but teens like them and a bag a day won’t kill them.

It doesn’t sound like you’re controlling their calories, and you’re managing their nutrition in a not-massively-weird way. But to count boxes of raisins, bananas, half a bag of frozen peas…this sounds like you mind the inconvenience of not being able to control when and what and how much food is in your house at any given point.

I think you need to move away from being the one person (I’m assuming) in charge of food budgeting and meal planning and purchasing and cooking, towards buying more food (so, bags of raisins that can be decanted rather than super expensive mini boxes; bulk buy frozen food, buy two bunches of bananas; buy big pots of yogurt instead of half a dozen small pots etc) towards buying ingredients and cooking from what you have. In reality it’ll be a mix of both with you saying xyz is off limits but there being plenty of other stuff to choose from.

Your DDs aren’t little children any more. They need more autonomy and are learning to listen to their bodies.

When I was a teenager / young adult still living at home, school full time, work full time and a part-time job, I was always on the go, and always wanting to grab food quickly to be on the go.
I rarely had time for a sit-down meal because I worked so many hours (working to pay for my schooling)
So if I wanted to grab something out of the fridge like a big bowl of yogurt and I saw a container of berries and a chunk of cheese and a box of crackers then yeah I might have that as a large snack / meal...
Off I go, and when I came home my mum was upset because she was going to put the berries in some muffin she was going to make, she was going to use the yogurt as part of it alfredo sauce, she was going to crumble up the crackers to put on top of a tuna casserole, and she was going to put the cheese in some macaroni and cheese and my snacking had ruined four meals.

Well I didn't know that, I'm 19 years old, got 3 minutes before I got to catch my next bus and run out the door, looking for food. Grab the first thing that was nutritionally dense and easily available. And this happened quite a few times, so, I just got into the habit of buying my own snack foods that didn't need to be refrigerated that I could throw in my backpack and not take away from the family fridge.
I did suggest that if my mum had particular plans for any particular ingredients in the fridge, maybe she could put a note on them like "please don't eat this cheese, I need it for supper" (but that suggestion did not go over well, because why should she have to put notes on the food in her fridge)

My suggestion? Teenagers are often hungry, often grazing, and unless you're prepared to make them pay for their own snacks which honestly, is not the worst idea in the world, (it's just one more step towards realizing that holy crap I'm an adult and I have to pay for things now)
Then having a section in the fridge, say a small basket, full of readily available healthy and inexpensive snack items that they can take from but only from that area, would be another suggestion. Things like ready-made carrot sticks and maybe a hummus dip, or if you want to portion out some cubes of cheese, put it in a baggie with their name on it and they're not allowed to steal their siblings snacks, they're only allowed that portion and once it's gone it's gone. Which sounds awfully primary School but, that's the way it is. You can't have them running wild eating whatever in the fridge, I understand that. Not only is it frustrating when you think there's ingredients in there and then they've eaten them, but also, it's expensive.

And for anyone who says teenagers are growing and they need lots and lots of food, that doesn't mean there can't be any responsibility involved. And yes, I definitely know the extremely annoying habit of using way too many dips/sauces. We're talking like, "how the hell did they use half of a container of mayonnaise or sour cream or salad dressing or plum sauce or barbecue sauce... That should have lasted us a month and they used it up as a dip in one sitting". You don't like having to ration food or treat adults like toddlers that need to have their snacks portioned out for them, but if these adults don't see anything wrong with cherry-picking the best foods in the fridge that are supposed to be used for everyone, and using way more than what a typical serving size is, then that's kind of what you have to do.

Both my DDs are neurodivergent and one sensory seeks when hormones are peaking eating all sorts of random things including frozen peas. It’s a dopamine hit. If they are getting enough protein & balanced diet otherwise then filling up on carby sugary snacks it may not be hunger. Does it ebb and flow with their hormonal cycle? Mine both crave lots carbs & sugar week before period.

Have you asked them to plan the budget and meals for a week? Let them do it, facilitate if younger but the easiest way to help them understand your concerns is give them the power. It’s a lesson in budgeting & nutrition. They may surprise you & you can loosen the control too.

It's 'rein'.