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?

Financially - yes we can afford it
Healthwise - we don’t encourage it

Yeah we’re definitely a snacks house. Crackers, crisps, yogurts, fruit, wraps, crumpets, toast, cucumber/carrot with dip. Not really limited after dinner unless I think they’re taking the mick. Life is too short to munch on frozen peas, sorry!

Water/milk and the fruit bowl plus peppers/carrots/cucumber sticks, they just help themselves.

Things like crisps/croissants/fizzy drinks/noodle, I expect them to ask.

Snacks
Olives
Babybels
Breadsticks
Olive bread
Guacamole
Hummous
Mango
Pineapple
Pomegranate
Flakes
Pretzels
Graze boxes
Protein bars
Frusili bars
Candy kittens
Eclairs
Macarons
Smoothies
Little packs of nuts
Popcorn
Chicken satay bites
Poppy seed bagels
Avocado
Peanut butter
Nutella

They will sometimes make air fryer chips, or pizza, or microwave rice with freezer veg.

Yes, all this on top of three square meals, though I don't do puddings and the snacks above are either dessert or something quick after school. The teen though will sometimes cook himself a little supper at 10pm.

They do a ton of sport. We had a lot of dietary advice for the one who plays national level and they told us the ways in which elite athletes need a different balance of food from what you would expect. For a while I was sending in pasta bolognese in a thernos for 10an snack!

It is ridiculously expensive though. Especially as I am time poor. I am going to try and do an Aldi shop for snacks at least twice a month as all of the above are much cheaper there.

They have free rein and their own fridge.

Yep, there’s always fruit and yogurt to snack on and DS2 (17) likes things like houmous and pitta bread.

We do have treats too, but fortunately he’s not so bothered about them (unlike his glutinous mum…)

There's a happy medium to be found here!

No, unlimited snacking isn't wise.
No, no snacking permitted isn't wise.

Teenagers can be really ravenous!

Nothing wrong with an extra bowl of cereal, or pasta, or round of cheese or eggs or beans on toast, or a yoghurt, bowl of soup, or some hummus when they feel they need it.

I can afford for them to snack, but I don’t want them to. It’s not a healthy habit to be stuffing your face inbetween meals.

There are two issues in our house related to this (neither DC has friends that come round randomly, but knowing their friends they definitely don't have random main meal type foods at will in their fridges - nobody we know has that kind of money to spend on snack food, and several friends have mums that cook good traditional food from their home countries, at least if their FB feeds are accurate!).
One is things that were earmarked or that were more expensive e.g. we got some cartons of juice for DD to take to school but obviously they are more expensive than squash or water. She needs to take them only for school.
The other is that DS will not eat his tea and then claim he's hungry later and have all the milk in the fridge on bowls of cereal. It's inconvenient but it's also not as good for him as a balanced meal which is different every day. Usually we say you can't just say "don't fancy this" and have cereal - you have to wait a reasonable time and then a quick supper before bed is ok.
Today I told him if he was still hungry go back and eat his tea. He ate his potatoes, having eaten a bit of chicken and most of his broccoli earlier. He did then have some cereal but I was convinced that was actual hunger not "just prefer cereal".

I was talking to my cousin the other day who said their primary aged kids are not allowed a snack when they get in from school. If they’re desperate (he said the kids are generally not bothered) they can have a carrot or pepper from the fridge. He said he provides solid meals at regular times and expects them to eat well at those times. I was impressed with his kids not being bothered - mine would hold a protest as primary school lunch can be say at 12 and we do r do dinner till 6pm.

Our kids fill themselves up with toast and cereal, they have a couple of pieces of fruit each per day and 2 bags of crisps (one for school lunch). We also buy a packet of biscuits for after school which they share out. So not free rein snacking but still always something they can get if they need to. We cook a good meal each night and they get packed lunch and a cereal breakfast.

Since when did ‘eating’ become ‘stuffing your face’?
I snack between meals. I don’t like eating large meals, so I have 3 small meals and a couple of snacks. I am 5ft 5 and 9 stone, which I believe puts me in a healthy weight bracket.
I have never stuffed my face.

My auntie was really weird about food growing up and would actually lock the cupboards so her kids couldn't snack. Their all obese as adults and I think it's because as soon as they were allowed to eat what they wanted they massively over indulged.

I'm recovering from anorexia after spending my childhood being called a fat bitch ( I wasn't even fat 😅 )

My DC are 9 and 10 and can eat what they want when they want as long as they leave room for their tea. Both are a healthy weight and both enjoy healthy food and what I would call crap ( chocolate crisps ect ) My ds eats so much cucumber that the smell makes me feel ill now 😅

Toast, cereal, potatoes cakes, crumpets, fruits, vegetables, cereals, porridge, sausage rolls, chocolates, crisps, sweets, hot chocolates ect

My daughter actually leans more towards healthy food than she does crap where as my son loves eating crap 😅

There was such a weird nasty thing about food and people's weight throughout my whole family I've been very aware of not passing down anything like that to my kids.

I also let them choose what they want for their tea each night ( unless I've made a lasagne 😅 )

It’s really weird that some people think eating all your day’s food in three set instalments is morally superior. There’s absolutely no evidence to support that at all, and for some people it’s actively unsuitable.

We have lots of fruit and snacks in the cupboard which DC can help themselves to.

They need to check if using main ingredient food.

I think you need to buy more food

fair enough if they took steaks out the fridge that were obviously intended for a meal and ate them all as a snack or something I could see your point. But bowls of cereal, or even snacking on frozen veg seems more than reasonable to me. You can’t just expect them not to eat when they’re hungry. and you don’t know if they’re hungry. Im breastfeeding and I would be starving on 3 meals and fruit. I imagine a growing teenager might feel the same sometimes.
I think you can say x amount of packets of crisps or whatever need to be saved for lunches, but then other things like additional crisps, or there can be bread in the freezer for toast or whatever, that needs to be available to eat.

if it helps though I do buy chocolate and biscuits and have them out, but then once they’re gone they’re gone….except a little sneaky stash I have that I can ‘remember’ I have somewhere if dh and I fancy some chocolate

Lol

I work with people with binge eating disorder and the most common theme is this kind of restriction when they were growing up.

My teens are 14 and 16, growing like weeds and do a ton of exercise. I accept that they need extra calories (sometimes quite urgently!) and so we have have a whole range of carby snacks, fruit and yoghurt available to them as they fancy. They are both slim and healthy.

Your approach sounds overly controlling / stringent to me.

Yep we’re a snacky house. And a pudding house.

The usual suspects are fruit, rice cakes, hummus, dried fruit, ritz crackers, veg sticks, bagels, cheese, homemade popcorn, biscuits, ice pops…

DS is an active 9 year old, does long days at school with after school club, 4 sports and cubs. And I don’t drive anymore so we walk everywhere. Of course he’s hungry between meals.

Im not going to arbitrarily tell him “no you can’t have a snack” when he’s a) a good weight for his height b) super active and c) I can afford it, just so I can feel what - smug? Virtuous?

Surely there is a middle way between being hungry and helping themselves to tomorrow's dinner main ingredience.

If money are a concern, I'd have a protected shelf - items pencilmarked for lunchbox, family meals or treats for sharing.
And a snack shelf from which they can take food when they wish

OP you sound way too restrictive with food.

I have some food that is just for packed lunch etc and not to be touched but I always have things like fruit, veg and bread available for snacks.

I usually buy extra crisps etc for snacking but once those are gone then that’s it.

I love frozen peas OP, I really do. But others think I’m really odd for eating them. You really shouldn’t be giving frozen veg to your kids as a snack. And more fruit should be available - a couple of pieces a day won’t fulfil their daily requirements. You absolutely can have healthy snacks.

My mum was very strict on food when we were kids. I now binge on the things we weren’t allowed/restricted on.

These odd food habits can really affect children in later life. Please sort it out now.

My teen DS would frequently make and eat plain pasta.

on one memorable occasion three plates of it.

"all their friends have free reins in the kitchen" wouldn't condone this.

But why starve your children @TransAdmiralsAreAdmirals I am shocked and stunned (totally lighthearted, believe me)

Your childrens requirements are not, at all, unusual.

We buy food for snacking, yes. Stuff like crumpets, popcorn, rice cakes, oatcakes, apples, satsumas, cheese strings, yoghurts, dried fruit. I get these for us all to snack on and the kids have free rein. We are a family of grazers!

(I also sometimes buy beef jerky as a treat for myself to snack on and hide it from the kids.)