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'm so sorry you've had this experience.

My DC can and do make snacks, including toast. I'm just hand-wringing on here as I don't want to wang on to them about it, but am aware I'm not able to put on the same kinds of grazing spreads that they say their friends enjoy.

That they SAY their friends enjoy.....are you in touch with their friends parents enough to ask? Luckily I am with youngest so she tends not to do the "everyone elses parents...." thing as she knows I can easily find out. The older ones, those whose parents I didnt really know did tend to pull that shit more often!

This is us. And I never get to eat any! So I just think what’s the point and now don’t buy snacks.

Obviously I buy fruit for the bowl though. But these fruits are economy bulk fruits like apples, oranges, pears, bananas etc. Will buy grapes or nuts, or dried apricots.

But crisps, chocolate, biscuits, no

Can"t fill teenagers unfortunately. Especially teenage boys.
They just eat and eat and eat.

I think once you hit your teens snacking becomes an extracuricular activity - think it must be the growth spurts. I tried to keep snacks as healthy as possible and was happy if they demolished the fruit bowl. They ate a lot of my homemade bread. DC wouldn't have eaten something that was obviously going to be part of a meal, like prawns or tofu, they knew they would be in trouble. Certain recipe items that I'd earmarked I would mark "hands off!" such as cooked meats, creme fraiche or cream cheese.

You could make a snack box from Aldi. £5 a week is a hell of a lot of Aldi biscuits!

I'll definitely bear in mind that they might be hungry. I just look at what they eat and can't understand how! And so I assume it's just 'snacking'. This evening they polished off two large portions of beef and chestnut stew with sweet potato wedges and brussel sprouts (so nice and filling), followed by crumble and custard. An hour later, they're in the kitchen baking cookies -using up the butter intended for tomorrow's pastry.

I don't 'plate up' food at meal times but stick it all on the table in serving dishes so we can all help ourselves. They're never restricted in the amount of food they can put on their plates at meal times. God, I hope they're not walking around hungry!

Yeah snacks at will here. I remember never having snacks growing up and didn’t want that for my kids. They don’t eat to abandon good at regulating themselves.

No it’s not.

I don't buy crisps, Pringles, chocolate biscuits or junk etc. I do buy plenty of fruit and vegetable snacks with hummus and protein bars. Teens can make themselves toast or an omelette or eat a banana, apple or melon whenever they like. I make carrot and cucumber sticks and put in a bowl in the fridge for snacking on along with cherry tomatoes. I sometimes cook a chicken breast and cut into slices for snacking on too. They often drink a pint of milk. I could afford to buy snacks like crisps but as they have no nutritional value I just don't see the point.

I just caught up with your post after my most recent update; this is typically how we eat, which is why I haven't really considered that they might still be hungry. But they have really good appetites and appreciate literally all food (loved those sprouts tonight), so perhaps that is a sign of a much greater hunger than I imagined, rather than them just being gracious dining companions.

Sounds like it could be more like boredom and finding something to do, better than screens I guess but more expensive.

Actual hunger that needs sating now would be more toast and peanut butter territory than the effort and time it takes for cookies. I wonder if they would still bake them if they knew that there were a couple of packets available. I am guessing they would.

Mine always had access to snacks and i’d buy extra crisps / other snacks so they could have some in their leisure time as well as packed lunch. When I grew up we had limited snacks, apart from biscuits and a few treats on shopping day, but when they were gone that was it. Which was fine, I didn’t especially feel deprived. Only DD left at home now and she doesn’t snack really so my shopping bill is nice and low.

They've always loved frozen veg and berries. We freeze bags and bags of berries from the garden and they're their favourite snacks. They're not hiding it, but will heap up a bowl to pick on as they're relaxing around the house.

I don't want to restrict bananas, for instance, but am exasperated when the whole bunch is gone over night, especially as we've got unlimited apples from the garden wrapped up in cold storage.

Snacks are always available, but mine aren't very snacky really. We always have plenty, but for that we are lucky. If you can't afford it then I'd recommend buying some cheap bread and peanut butter and providing that as a snack they can fill their boots with

There's a difference between limiting and being controlling though, and that OP is something to behold.
To answer yes I can afford it and have never limited snacks or grazing. 3DC are now adult and healthy weights.
SIL was very strict over sweets and snacks with DN. The minute he had free range he gorged at every opportunity and is obese now. Making anything taboo is a huge mistake.

Damn, can't edit, stupid autocorrect. Honestly, I know it's free rein...

I don't really understand your post tbh. I grew up poor but i was never "hungry". Available snacks were toast, some fruit, cereal.

Toast with butter and sugar was a highlight 😅 and until i got pregnant, I was never bigger than a size 8-10.

I think as long as bread, butter, ham, pickles, cheese and fruit are available, it's fine. You don't need fancy stuff.

Teenagers do have big appetites, even girls.

I think it very unlikely that a poster has a healthy attitude to food if they refer to a snack as ‘continuously munching’ or ‘stuffing your face’ as an earlier person did. Calling food ‘shit’ is also a red flag.

OP we have fruit, vegetables (there’s hummus or salsa in the fridge usually) and yoghurt available for those in the house that snack.

Yes my child has access to snacks to help themselves whenever hungry. You sound quite controlling with food to be honest. So what if the bunch of banana is gone overnight? What’s wrong with having a bowl of frozen berries?

Absolutely not. I always have fruit and yoghurt in but I don't understand snacking at all. Earing between meals is unhealthy and unnecessary.

I prefer small meals often to big ones.

My kids have access to healthy snacks - cheese, fruit, vegetables, oat cakes, yoghurt, smoothies, nuts etc.

Bananas are very cheap - if they're eating the whole bunch then buy a few to last?

I give snacks of cheese, grapes, hard boiled eggs and maybe some kind of bread regularly, but that's also what they got for breakfast today. While I was making dinner I gave them grapes and a mini (Halloween size) Cadbury milk chocolate. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, we are fortunate to be able to have plenty of snacks in the fridge and cupboard!

Jam butties, the snack of my youth. Unlimited milk. This was all before fridges of course.

Fruit was very rare indeed.

We were all whippet-thin.