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 have to say op, the meals you provide do sound absolutely gorgeous. Beef and chestnut stew, wow! Can we have the recipe?

Just catching up again, thank you everyone who has taken the time to respond -so much food for thought.

I really hope my updates are clarifying that my DC do get access to food, but perhaps not as much of the stuff they snack on at their friends' houses as they'd like. As a PP said, we tend to be an 'ingredients house'.

Yesterday I spoke with them about this thread in broad terms:
•whether they're often hungry: definitely after school, sometimes just before bed. DD1 will sometimes come downstairs at 10pm expecting to cook a full meal, like a chow mein. It takes quite a lot of logger-heading to see her off with something lighter instead.
•whether they feel they can eat when they want to: yes but there's never anything to eat in the house -they conceded that they have their own food shop items, toast, ceread, fruit, the frozen berries and veg (which I have clarified upthread that they have always thought of as a treat!) and pretty unlimited ingredients to cook with, but that they'd prefer more "snacks from packs" as DD1 put it.
•budget considerations: I went through our Lidl app receipts with them and linked certain key items to meals to make them see how ingredients are bought specifically to make meals and that if they eat them, that meal is off the menu. I think they were shocked to see how much a food shop is, and also that each shop includes items such as laundry detergent and light bulbs etc.

Today, as I was out, DD1 made a creamy garlic and onion soup, and DD2 made a sort of scone with raisins, so they do access the kitchen and use ingredients to prepare food when hungry; again, I'm not really concerned about this although I'd prefer it if they don't use something up without telling me, such as the butter intended for pastry or countless other times when it turns out the package I've presumed still has some of its contents inside turns out to be empty, placed back in its position in the cupboard as they think its too annoying to flatten the carton for recycling or wash out the jar.

The beef and chestnut stew was literally some old frozen brisket with chestnuts from behind the house, oven baked with onions, garlic, carrots, celery and prunes in a bottle of IPA. No recipe as such, just threw bits from the veg drawer in a casserole. It was very tasty though.

Honestly if my kids could cook (and eat) like that I'd be delighted enough that I wouldn't be bothered about the cost of ingredients.

Having said that, I think the most obvious thing to do is to consider whether the amount they eat is what they need or if they are overeating, which is easy to do when you have unlimited access to food and can cook very well.

If they are both healthy weights or underweight, then restricting what they eat is not right, if they are overweight you have a fair argument to say they are eating too much.

Good update

Snacks from packs are one of the weird things british people do.
In my country (other EU) crisps are seen as unhealthy and rarely consumed party food, but in the UK it is a lunch food for primary children. Similarly with instant noodles.

You'll want to find some compromise - they shouldn't be hungry, but they don't need unlimited packaged snacks.

But @AlltheHedgehogsontheWall , it's not really about whether they're eating too much. Like I said in my exasperated OP, they feel hard done by because they can't a) have unlimited supplies of the kinds of snacks they want ("snacks from packs") so eat the ones we do buy for their packed lunches ahead of time, and b) they feel impinged upon when I say that they need to check before using certain 'main meal' ingredients, preferring instead to use what they wish, as and when they wish. I, in turn, was feeling hard done by, justifying myself to two grumpy teens. DD1, who rather sets the tone, even complained about the size of our fridge (regular under counter), compared to her friends' larger full-sized fridges, and the fact that the food in our house either lives in the larder or the freezer, and that our 'tiny' fridge mainly tends to contain meat, other proteins or vegetables and no individually packaged or portion-sized snack foods.

It's nice that they like cooking and are easy eaters, but I can't not be bothered about the cost of ingredients and having to top up things I'd banked on already having in, especially when those things aren't in the snacking category.

A PP suggested that I shouldn't buy 'premier' ingredients if I'm on a budget, but to make cheaper substitutions instead. I already shop in a budget supermarket and sometimes think I'm the queen of the fabled Mumsnet chicken, eeking out every scrap of those ingredients to make good food for the whole family.

It's just frustrating. But this thread has really been an eye-opener, and keeps turning out good advice. My own childhood, like I mentioned upthread, was one of sweets on a Saturday and a family bag of crisps to share on special occasions such as watching the Eurovision Song Contest or similar, and this was fairly typical of my peers too. I never went hungry -my parents were great cooks and food was plentiful- or imagined myself as missing out.

I am struggling to see what’s good about it, nothing changed, she just clarified that yes they are hungry and showed them the issue is money.

There’s nothing weird about “snacks from packs” - they exist in basically every country and are generally much more interesting and tasty than crisps!

Exactly, who wants to have to cook from scratch every time you fancy a snack or eat frozen veg.
I do think as the issue here is simply financial then explaining that is a positive, I’m sure it’s uncomfortable for them to realise the financial situation, but it’s best they know why they don’t have these things and why key ingredients are important.

You forget, this is MN where everything is from scratch and nobody ever just grabs a Babybel or some fridge raiders when they're peckish

All the saintly EU stuff is just so monotonous.

I frequently wonder tbh based on what we’re told how the Germans live past 40.

They don't have to cook from scratch when they're hungry. I provide good meals, and there's always enough food at the table -they help themselves to as much as they want as I don't dictate portions by 'plating up'.

As I've said previously, they can eat cereal or toast, fruit from the bowl or storage or they can prepare something more substantial from ingredients. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest DD ought not cook an actual meal at 10pm but would be better off making something like simpler.

You say they can prepare something from ingredients but also say you don't like it when they do because it means you can cook what you've planned

Toast, cereal and fruit isn't very filling and isn't enough for two growing children.

It's just a cultural difference - UK is focused on snacks, you are focused on food, your children will be somewhere between.

Nothing unreasonable about not cooking the big meal at 10pm, but I'm curious here, would DD actually eat it all, or would she eat a bit and create a lots of leftovers while doing so?

Yes, they specified the times when they might be hungry. They always eat something when they get in from school -I think most kids do. In my native tongue there is a special word for this snack or meal in the middle of the afternoon between lunch and dinner, so to me it's a natural expectation for them to need to eat after school. The point I'm making is that they might be hungry, but there is no need for them to remain hungry: they can eat things, I just don't have the things they prefer in my cupboards.

Jesus Christ OP you sound like incredibly hardwork and very controlling. Something tells me there's very little in the way of spontaneity or frivolity in your house.

The point I'm making is that they might be hungry, but there is no need for them to remain hungry: they can eat things, I just don't have the things they prefer in my cupboards.

Toast, cereal and fruit is not filling.

It’s free rein. It comes from horse riding. Not pedantic. Wrong

I feel I'm in the middle of some weird circular argument here. On the one hand, posters are concerned that my DC don't get enough food. Then I explain that they cook (providing they don't use the roast lamb -ingredients meant for family meal planning- etc) and can eat toast, cereal and fruit etc. Then I'm criticised for them 'having to cook from scratch' but also informed that the very things which previous posters have suggested must be available, such as toast and cereal, are not filling. How is a slice of wholegrain toast with butter and cheese less filling than the packet of Walker's prawn cocktail crisps which they wish they could have instead? How is a bowl of yoghurt and granola or cereal less filling than a Penguin bar? If I was hungry between meals, I know what I'd reach for.

OP it sounds like your kids have plenty to eat. Like you we don’t have cupboards full of junk for the kids to eat and they are expected to survive on toast, cereal and sandwiches between meals. We have three kids and none of them complain about being hungry.

But you're not a teenager who just wants to grab a quick snack

Are you honestly saying that everytime you're peckish, you eat fruit, toast, cereal or prepare an actual meal? You never want to just grab something quick like a cereal bar or a flapjack?

I haven’t read the whole thread but you said that your children eat frozen peas and sweet corn. That is odd. Are they that hungry?

Toast, cereal, smoothies and fruit is quick. We bake and there is often some kind of biscuit, or oaty, nutty energy ball creations around. That's quick too.

And @Arraminta , I think it's a stretch to extrapolate from my posts in that way. Think what you like, but I honestly don't see what you're referring to. It sounds as if you are fortunate enough to have both, for which I'm pleased.

At the bottom of my posts there is a 'OP's posts: See all' function. If you click it, you'll see my updates re the frozen fruit and veg, which they have loved eating since they were tiny, and will often choose over other, more traditional, treats.

Teenagers are very impressionable when it comes to peer pressure and marketing.
They want the junk food they see at their friends house. That's all.

You've said there is a bit of budget for the treats of their chosing, sounds you just need to go with gone means gone, train them about the empty packages and keep as you are doing.

If there is a question about really being hungry and food filling enough or not, would eggs be relevant? Boiling a bunch of them and having available as filling snack for the next days?
I like them, but I like frozen peas, so...

Btw, the frozen sweetcorn - google it and decide for yourself. It seemsthat the warning comes from a specific case of factory contamination. Yes, listeria is not fun and it was sensible to cook any frozen sweetcorn while it was investigated, but there is nothing inherently risky about sweetcorn.

It doesn't work like that. I can quite assure you my husband's diet is not healthy or "just what he needs" yet food intake does not affect his weight.
His whole family are like that.