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?

When I was a teenager in the 90s, we bought something at breaktime at school if we wanted (a cake/tray bake) and then had something similar when we got in from school. Other than that, it was 3 meals and a pudding. 3 really sporty teenagers, including a rugby player at international level. None of us skinny, none of overweight, just athletic. I do remember my brother occasionally having a sandwich before bed but not that often. And he'd have been very vocal about being hungry if he was!

I am an enthusiastic eater but the concept of teens eating constantly and ravenously at all hours isn't what I remember from my family, or my friends.

It would never have occurred to us to help ourselves to food our mum had bought for meals. We'd have been in big trouble!!

I'm in my early 50s. 3 meals. That was it. Now and then we had sweets. My mum would give us 10p and we would get half penny and penny sweets. Those were the days 🤣

Get your children to make a big batch of banana bread, cheese scones and flapjacks. Or pizza bases and passata. Put in freezer. Defrost as necessary. Surely that's cheaper than snacks and cereal bars? A bag of flour/oats, brown sugar, golden syrup and some basic cheddar and vegetable margarine good quality isnt going to be as expensive as snack foods.
Also kids could make hummus with tinned chickpeas and tahini...big pot in the fridge.
Children/teens need feeding 5 times a day I reckon.

Of course it’s not, unless op is saying they didn’t snack as young children. They’re literally formative years, why would eating habits be immune from that.

Facetious to imply I am saying the toddler guidance should be followed or considered for teens 😂

You still assumed that snacks must be of poor nutritional quality and "carb heavy" whereas there are huge numbers of snacks that are neither of those things.

The whole "three meals a day" nonsense only came about because of the Industrial Revolution btw - it's not something that exists because it's better for us than other ways of eating.

One chocolate bar a week?

You actually sound a bit controlling with the "high quality" food. Tofu and halloumi and prawns for meals sounds excellent but why not just have some cheap "quality" protein and fruit (eggs and apples and milk and peanut butter ryvita cold potatoes hellmans won't break the bank and as for the gherkins you can get incredibly cheap pickled polish cucumbers in big jars in Morrisons)

@TransAdmiralsAreAdmiralsOP - I’ll be honest, I’ve not read the whole thread but read your updates and skimmed the rest!

I’m really surprised at the posters saying you’re controlling as from what you’ve said your girls get access to a wide range of foods and eat balanced.

I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong and are actually sensible at limiting bananas (for example) as eating lots in one day isn’t great for you! I think it’s about advising them about portions and food groups and also to know how much things cost. I also find it frustrating when the cupboards look well stocked but then a day later a whole pack of (whatever food item!) is gone!!

sorry if someone has suggested already but could they help to do the planning and give them a budget so they understand the costs of what they’re eating?

@rainbowsandraspberryginyes, is that weird? Sweets they have after school on a Friday if they want them. I don’t actually buy lunchbox chocolate bars or chocolate bars in general, but sometimes buy a packet of kitkats or gold bars and they can have them once a week in their lunch box. Same with crisps, I let them take crisps on a Thursday if they want to.

After school they might have some popcorn (proper corn in little bags), a couple of digestives, a piece of toast, some crackers, some cheese, or some fruit. If they are really hungry they’ll have weetabix and some fruit.

Going hungry? With 3 meals a day? Nobody needs snacks alongside meals and snacking culture is God awful. Teens or not. What is this fresh hell.

Don't be pressured by the language or the "can't let them be hungry" rubbish. Fruit and toast if you have to.

Not weird if it suits your family. I think mine probably have too much but usually one per day in either lunchbox or after school. They are good with their healthier meals/fruit and veg though.

I said snacks which are carb heavy have that impact, not that snacks are carb heavy. I also didn’t say that snacks tend to be of low quality, I said that they tend to be less balanced than meals - because they are smaller than meals they are by their nature less likely than meals to include all food groups.

As I wrote, the number of times a person should eat in a day is dependent on a number of factors.

your children will grow up to be very nervous and self conscious adults if you keep up this harsh regime.

what do you do if they have an extra banana, make them take cold showers?

@rainbowsandraspberrygin it’s balance isn’t it? Mine would want more and more and not choose the healthier stuff if they had more of the treaty snacks. My younger son would happily live off unbuttered high fibre crackers and pasta with cheese with cucumber and bananas. He knows that he has to try a few spoonfuls of meals before he can just eat the carbs and veg. Older son will just eat what he’s given.

Christmas everyone has been asked for their favourite chocolate/ sweet treat, crisps and fizzy crisps and they’ve been bought and are in the dining room on my Welsh dresser waiting for the kids to break up from school. There’s generic treats for the holidays and I’ll buy a box of Frosties the size of a family car. The kids are pretty good at regulating it over holidays and they’ll have fairly free access. It all works out.

The title of the thread was about "affording" snacks and if that is the issue rather than the principle of regulation or healthy eating (although I dispute that snacks are necessarily unhealthy), then yes, if you supply certain snacks in quantity and not others which are being used in lieu of snacks, you will definitely be able to AFFORD them.

But it isn't your children who are to blame here. Nor their friends with feckless extravagant parents. It's about listening to your children and interpreting what they say...they are hungry but you don't have to give them crisps and chocolate to satisfy them, there are cheap filling nutritious alternatives which you CAN provide

That seems to be Mumsnet gospel. A 'snack' is always defined in the narrowest possibly way- i.e. a UPF laden individually wrapped prepared food, the consumption of which can be referred to in derisory terms, such as scoffing, gobbling, cramming or stuffing. I'm also guessing that, as @Whichhandbag said she's in her thirties, she either doesn't have children or they're quite young. Teens are a whole different ballgame.

OP, I never limited snacks, but budget wasn't an issue. My kids did always have pretty free rein to anything we had in the house that wasn't obviously earmarked for a meal. We used to make and freeze batches of things like courgette fritters, homemade whole grain waffles and fruit muffins. We also used to freeze homemade cookie dough in balls. Toast, fruit, cheese, eggs, homemade popcorn, hummus, vegetables, nut butter, nuts, bircher muesli with chia seeds, were all pretty common foods of choice. We make quite a lot of soups with vegetables and barley and/or lentils, which they would often have between meals. We would deliberately cook more of a protein than we needed for a meal so there would be leftover - salmon, tuna, any sliced chicken or beef, mapo tofu, always disappeared pretty quickly. We did have some stuff like digestives, club bars, crisps that they also could have any time, but mostly those sat around.

I've never liked big meals and much prefer several smaller ones. I'm 5'5" and 8.5 stone and, interestingly, have never gained the meno weight people complain about and my doctor recently commented on how good my HBA1C numbers are. My three young adult kids are also slim and only have 1 cavity between them. Two of the three are also very keen cooks. So who knows?

Two teenage boys and a greedy dh (plus dd and me, more moderate, though certainly not dainty)...

I feed them well at lunch and dinner. I find that lots of families go for smaller helpings at mealtimes and then snack - we generally have hearty food and larger helpings but don’t really snack. We are not breakfast people (although it is available if anyone wakes up hungry and fancies something).

The snack foods we do regularly have in are apples and good quality cheese plus paraphernalia. We usually have decent chocolate too, but only really for after dinner. Crisps and nuts tend only to be bought if they are to be eaten with a meal (eg - mn fave picky bits).

My dc still always ask me before taking food - I will say yes unless I need the item they want for a planned meal. I don’t really budget for food (lucky), so it isn’t about affordability, more about our habits as a family.

I assumed the poster was talking about teens 15+ .. between hormones, growth spurts and lots of sports/ physical all genders turn into locusts as soon as they get home ... whole tubs of hummous and pkts of proscuitto are devoured while their bread is toasting .... as a pre dinner snack ! 🤣😂

It always tickles me when slightly officious posters correct another's spelling etc and they're wrong 🤭

🏇🏇🏇🏇🏇

I don't buy crisps or chocolate as standard either. We keep it for the weekends. DD doesn't whinge about it. Enjoys Saturday evenings where we're together, playing games with treats. Likely be more when the Christmas stuff comes out.

Is it France or Germany I wonder ?! I’ve literally never heard of anyone eating frozen vegetables, that sounds absolutely disgusting. If they are eating that , they must be really hungry. You sound very similar to a “alternative “ relative of mine , obsessive with food and clearly has mental health issues , extremely controlling person. We eat a really healthy diet , we grow some of our own vegetables. What you are forgetting is that they are GROWING, you are not . Your body has probably totally forgotten what that feels like. I have 3 boys who are all like whippets and they could eat all day long. They are growing like crazy and do loads of activities.

Sorry , that was overly harsh but you do need to remember that their bodies are growing and need much more fuel than yours . I’ve genuinely never heard of people eating frozen veg , that sounds really grim and possibly even unhealthy.

They are growing.

Different people have different food needs. I can go the entire day and not eat because I’m not hungry. If I eat early after waking I feel sick. I can’t eat large meals at all or I feel sick. I also retain calories very easily. So even though I’m seldom ever hungry I still hold onto weight.

I had a housemate who needed three large meals every day. If she didn’t have a large meal - or if she delayed eating - she would be physically ill.

I’ve seen the diet meals from light & easy and that is too much food for me.

I grew up with my dad telling me to restrict my eating. There was nothing wrong with me and has left me with disordered eating regarding food.

I was underweight as a young child ans my father expected me to remain skinny. So I restricted food and would then binge - which made me put on weight.

Which is why I let my child decide when he is hungry. If he gets a virus or had a growth spurt he loses the weight.

There is no way in hell I’m going to do to him what happened to me. Genetics play a big factor but so does food scarcity.

Your children are hungry. They need more protein. In my country you can buy large bags of frozen chicken tenders. They aren’t expensive and this could be something you have in the freezer that your children can cook in the oven as a snack.

As a side note - do you have the recipe for the beef and chestnut stew? I never know what to cook.

I can afford it but I don't buy snacky type foods. The kids can eat anything they want in the cupboard/fridge as long as it isn't an ingredient for dinner. They tend not to snack.

I don't even want to imagine living like this. Sounds utterly regimental and not a tiny bit fun.