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?

Erm because it's immediately before a meal is served and generally based around foods which are traditionally aperitif..... I mean if you want to eat a banana immediately before your meal and call it a starter you can do but you know that's not what this thread is about.

@Bex9434, yes, it was exactly as you describe it. Those who had access to all sorts of snacks, freely available, could take them or leave them. Whereas, the moment I had my own money, I would buy everything and eat it until I was sick. There was so much judgment around eating from my, alway slim, entirely uninterested in food beyond it being fuel, mum. And then, there was so much judgment from her about my weight.
Eating in a healthy matter is something I will struggle with for the rest of my life. It's something I have to think about every single day.
I am sorry you went through this too.

Because PP is slightly delulu 😉

I didn't say it wasn't! This thread is about kids having free access to snacks at all times.

My mother is french so I'm fully aware of how a different culture approaches this. And she would be horrified if I were to eat a trashy cereal bar in the middle of the afternoon - pas chic!

You know we can read your posts, don't you?

You said "Gouter is a defined snack, not constant grazing, so more closely resembles a meal"

So, enlighten us - how does white bread, butter and a slab of chocolate "resemble a meal"?

I think it’s a load of rubbish to say that households with free access to snacks raise kids who become healthy eaters

it may sometimes happen but the most common thing is children carry on with habits learnt in childhood and that tends to be a full snack cupboard that everyone regularly digs into

and there is a strong correlation between rising weight and tia win consumption of snacks and treats

Free rein is correct

That depends on the snack, doesn't it?

No one needs 'snacks', they need 3 meals a day. Are people seriously unaware how dangerous obesity is?

Because it happens at the same time every day and is generally designed for children to see themselves through until dinner. It's specific and time limited. And french bread, butter and a piece of chocolate is all real food, you know. Not packets and packets of UPF. And you're generally expected to grow out of needing it....

I mean, go read about french culture in relation to food if you don't believe me.

If you've read my posts, I don't demonise snacking anywhere. Just suggest that we don't need to constantly graze and meal times should be prioritised. Just look around you on any British street if you want confirmation. I'm not actually saying anything controversial.

lol, you're absolutely crackers (UPF-free crackers, of course).

Why is three meals a day superior to six small meals, or two large meals and two small snacks, or one large meal and four snacks?

We eat three meals a day because it fits with our lifestyles (working all day with an hours' break) not because it's good for us.

@Bex9434 and @Ruthietuthie I recognise exactly what you've said - friends who were allowed 3 biscuits (3! imagine!) now have a very healthy relationship with food because it was never a big deal. But for us, where food and especially sweet treats or anything was heavily restricted, we developed a complete obsession with them and now I have severely disordered eating and revert to binge eating (and my sibling ended up with a severe eating disorder).

We didn't have much money so it was partly a finance thing - but, it wasn't entirely. We were made to feel SO much shame for wanting snacks and extra food - 'what, you're STILL hungry?!' I'm a normal weight. I'm on the smaller side - it was never about size for us, it was greediness and the shame that comes from being greedy (except, all we were doing was eating when we were hungry.)

OP, please listen to these replies. You will leave your kids with a whole host of problems if you don't take a good long look at your behaviour, and listen.

There was a woman in Take a Break decades ago who was featured because she was addicted to eating frozen peas. She'd put on several stone since she started eating them as they are high in sugar, so the GP told her she had to stop.

In Spain we have merienda, similar to gouter I guess, which is a defined meal albeit small that children have after school at 5ish.

It’s typically a bocadillo, a half baguette with tuna or ham and cheese or similar.
It’s not considered a snack.

Adults may have a café con leche and a pastry. Or a bocadillo 😋

Ok sure. You really seem invested in why other people (or indeed, whole cultures) might think it's healthier not to eat constantly but I'll rise above suggesting why that might be. Wouldn't want you to have to question your own behaviours or the way you bring up your kids.

My DD had a school friend who was very overweight, none of her siblings or parents were overweight. Her DM told me that she'd had blood and growth hormone tests done and they'd put it down to genes, the mother was a SAHM who cooked really good nutritious food. They monitored her food/snacks very closely and wouldn't let her eat cake/sweets at all. She came to my house once for a birthday party and she was literally stuffing sweets and party food into all pockets, down the front of her top etc. It was so sad.

You are at the top of a slippery slope. Don’t give in to cheap unhealthy snacks or expensive luxury snacks. My advice - they possibly do need to eat more regularly. Maybe prep an extra meal straight after school - pasta and sauce, jacket potatoes, soup.

I don't have kids, nor do I eat constantly 😂

You clearly have some very rigid views about what is healthy and what is not. It's quite entertaining, really.

But it's still a snack - food that you eat between meals is a snack.

Just because you eat the same thing everyday doesn't somehow mean it's not a snack.

So elevensis is a meal.

But going to the kitchen and eating a biscuit is a snack.

Some of this idea that kids should have whatever they want and whenever is certainly contributing to childhood obesity.

Kids need guidance and a level of control over what they eat. They aren’t able to self regulate. Allowing them and encouraging them to eat what they feel like and when they feel like it results in picky eaters who don’t eat meals but often graze on crap.

In the end, in most cases kids only eat what we as adults buy. We probably need to take greater control of our shopping habits and give in less to pressure to buy UPF - often when they say they want free rein to unfettered food - they don’t mean to fruit or bread but to packaged snacks and crisps.

Somehow as parents we’ve got confused and feel that controlling/limiting or saying no to any food type is a problem. It’s not.

of course there’s balance to be had. And yes, if kids are denied everything it becomes to forbidden fruit that is so attractive.

But what’s wrong with saying ‘free access to the fruit and bread’ and then a certain defined small quantity of the treats per week or at the weekend or whatever.

Often the problem is parents not wanting to say ‘no’ or enter a disagreement.

Where conversations have been had and children steal food or hide it….there are often other issues related to ND. It’s often then not about hunger at all.

As adults most of us know the best way to a grip in our own food temptations is not to buy it. Kids have less self control than us and can’t see the longer term impact. Most snacks they re eating are absolute shit. They might well eat a full pack of biscuits….but will rarely eat a full bag of apples in one go.

Op and most people have a financial dimension to it all too.

To me, OP’s kids don’t sound like it’s hunger but other potential issues that result in them ignoring what Op has said and continuing to take food they’ve been told not to.

One of my friends with a ND daughter had a phase where she needed to have a lockable cupboard for certain food - it was as if the DD had actually zero self control and an addiction to taking far more food than she could eat and hiding it or scoffing it and then being sick. Later, they sadly had to lock the alcohol cabinet and finally remove all alcohol from the house.

Do be aware some people are pre-disposed to possible addictions and behaviours which exhibit difficulty to self regulate. It’s not always about hunger.

lol, quite. It's exactly the same thing, one just sounds better 😂

We never limit fruits or vegetables.

Just commenting that most people in this country could do with quite a lot more rigidity and suggesting a model that has worked for multiple countries for quite a long time.