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 in the US.
I despised cafeteria food, so my sweet mum made my lunch my entire elementary school career.
She’d make a huge sandwich, a packet of crisps, a big thermos of milk. And cookies. And a full sized Milky Way or Snickers, one or the other. And a big orange from our tree. Or an apple.
I always gave the cookies & crisps & candy away because I was little & couldn’t eat that much.
We always had the same at home. It was always available so I never craved it.
It wasn’t forbidden.

My children aren't allowed to help themselves to snacks whenever they want, not because we can't afford it (though it is very expensive, food is expensive in my country and my daughter has coeliac disease so even more expensive - no such thing as a cheap biscuit or toast for her) but because its not healthy and its bad for their teeth. We were never allowed to snack whenever we wanted growing up either, so the concept of free rein in the kitchen is alien to me.
If they're hungry, they can ask for something to eat and if its not too close to a meal time they will usually get something but they can't just help themselves.

Maybe I'm not being clear -even with myself. Hm. I suppose I'm trying to frame the snacking / grazing in terms of whether it's a result of being hungry, or just a bit bored? If my DC are actually hungry, then obviously I want them to eat -there is stuff they can eat as much as they want of if that's the case. But if they're just a bit bored and absentmindedly tuck into something that was meant for a family meal, or their sister's packed lunch, then it's frustrating as, unlike some PPs, I'm not able to keep a snack-cupboard stocked, or perpetually replenish favoured items. If I buy a standard bunch of 6 bananas, I would rather they last longer than 24 hours, especially as there is other fruit (such as apples and berries) in huge supply. We eat really well, and plenty of it, yet DC often make a beeline for the kitchen within a couple of hours of finishing their meals, to rustle up something else or graze from the cupboards. I don't want to do the 'when it's gone, it's gone' thing that a very sensible-sounding PP suggested, as it feels unfair that one sibling should go without something for their lunch, for instance, when it was perhaps their sister who ate the last of the crisps and not them, iyswim. So I replenish them, but feel irritated as it's not what I really want to spend my money on as, in my mind, I already bought enough to last the week. I really, really try to avoid top-up shops.

DD1 actually did make cold cuts for a wrap from some left over leg of lamb (not quite steak, but still) which was going to be served for dinner that evening. I think this is what I mean about 'free rein'; they insist that their friends can have whatever is in their fridge / cupboards, and that it's just me who is weird and has plans for the leftovers or needs the cottage cheese to last a bit longer, or whatever.

No it’s not!

No….it isn’t!

However well intentioned your philosophy may be, you are well on your way to giving both kids an eating disorder, or at the very least, disordered eating. Most people eat for a mix of reasons. Hunger, emotion, habit, social cues and pleasure. The last one is really important. True “only when hungry” eating is actually pretty rare.

Overly restrictive control of food can lead to emotional eating and very unhealthy relationships with food. I don’t know a single person that would snack on frozen peas and sweetcorn through choice. I actually find your level of policing what should be a pleasurable part of life quite disturbing. Why demonise all eating like this?

Money is tight for everyone but surely you can budget for a few snacks a week or an extra few sandwiches. How on earth will they ever learn autonomy. All the best.

They sound hungry to me.
Starving even, if they are eating whole bags of frozen food.
My teens are welcome to cook with staples such as eggs, milk, butter etc when they want to. They eat tons of cereal which is freely available as well as poached eggs, avocado, fruit and blend smoothies. I do not limit food unless it is 5 minutes before I am serving up. Teens have to learn to cook and eat independently.

I have never stocked crisps, chocolate or biscuits. They are eaten occasionally in our family

Also, kindly, “we eat really well” is an assumption and overgeneralised statement. It treats everyone’s experience as identical, even if some people in your family may not feel the same. They are giving you feedback loud and clear that your approach isn’t working for them and you are choosing not to listen.

Yes we do have things that they know they can have as snacks without asking. Basic fruit, so apples, bananas, pears etc Toast, bagels, muffins. Eggs and some type items like cheese. They are teenagers and play a lot of sport so they will often come home and have a snack before their main meal.

One of mine liked a bowl of frozen peas (obviously cooked). Is that really odd?

My youngest likes a bowl of frozen peas (not cooked), and so do I. Nothing odd about that, they taste good. And we all love raw peas fresh from the pod in summer.

@SpiritAdder

• Free rein:
• To give someone or something freedom to act without restrictions. The term originates from horseback riding, where a rider with "free rein" holds the reins loosely, allowing the horse to go where it wants.
• Free reign:
• This is a common misspelling. "Reign" means to rule, like a king or queen. Using "free reign" is considered redundant because a monarch already has ultimate authority, so the phrase doesn't make sense.

Mine ate quite a lot at this age-there was always things like basic fruit, beans, pasta, toast and hummus available. They could eat whatever they wanted so long as it wasn’t meal ingredients! I quite often made a cake because I like baking. But they knew it was to share with everyone, which included dp and me.

I never have. Snack food is not food the body needs; snacking is recreational eating and leads to fatness. People shouldn't eat between meals. We only have cake or biscuits in the house if we make them ourselves.

MN is a funny old place sometimes. I mentioned on a thread once about how my teenage DS would basically inhale the fridge contents and got jumped on from a great height by several posters for bringing up a child without boundaries and called a 'bad mother' by one. Apparently, out of everyone in the family, it was my fault.

Of course there should be food provided for when they are hungry, but I do think the OP and her OH should be addressing their DDs helping themselves to foods obviously going to be put into a meals. Or at least checking with them first. Mine would never have started in on a leftover roast.

Sorry what a stupid post. " Well on the way to an eating disorder". Don't be ridiculous. Having some boundaries in place doesn't constitute an eating disorder.

We have no snacks at all in our house. We're not a family of snackers. It's not forbidden, it's just not something we do or have ever done. If the kids are hungry they'll have some yoghurt, porridge, Weetabix or toast etc.

Are they also eating because they are bored?
One of mine is a constant grazer which is usually linked to boredom.
I too have a budget for food and cannot afford to keep replacing lunch items for their packed lunches if they get eaten before hand.
My children are allowed to help themselves to fruit, toast, yoghurt, nuts and cereal between meals, but things like crisps, biscuits etc they can’t, if they do then once they are gone for the week I don’t replace them until I’m doing the shopping the next week.
One of my children has a health condition that means we have had consultations with dieticians, she recommended instead of cereals for breakfast to have items like porridge, eggs, beans on toast etc
For lunch at school mine take flasks of soups which are vegetable and lentil based, then snack cheese plus a small cake and baked crisps and fruit.
The dietician then recommended that I bring their evening meal forward if I could (luckily I typically work an early shift) to around 4.15 m-4.30 because they were starving when they were getting home and grabbing stuff from the kitchen.
Mine eat earlier then usually come back for a snack later in the evening which is when they help themselves to toast, nuts etc
After implementing the new time for their evening meal I would say snacking has really dwindled.
My Mother thinks it’s odd that children help themselves to food from the cupboards without asking, apparently it’s something that we never did 30 odd years ago.

Another person here who grew up with zero snacks, frozen bread if it was lucky. I grew up with an eating disorder which followed me into adult life and I developed a very unhealthy relationship with food that took a long time to break.
My kids can have snacks , any they want. In my house you don’t go to sleep hungry, if you want cereal or toast that’s fine. You can help yourself to snacks (obvs within reason) and the kids know what they can and can’t eat.
lots of cucumber , crisps , carrots , yoghurts etc.

My dc are 13 and 10. They can help themselves to bread, toppings, muesli, yoghurt, fruit, nuts etc.. But i wouldn't be happy if they started to cook from ingredients ive meal planned for. And i don't buy 'snack foods'. They are unhealthy imo.

This really doesn’t seem to be about snacking or lack of snacks or not providing enough food for teens. It’s thoughtless/selfish/entitled behaviour: helping yourself to the fancy/expensive/best of everything without stopping to think or care it may have been bought for a specific reason/meal or needs to last or that others should get a share. Helping yourself to prawns, halloumi, roast lamb, using up expensive condiments in a short time or even the butter if there’s not more packs in the fridge isn’t remotely reasonable. They can have free rein when they do the shopping; until then it’s toast and apples.

We buy enough food for everyone and don't restrict healthy foods, my children arrive home starving, we don't finish work until 2 hours after they get in, of course there's lots of food in to eat they can grab themselves. I can't believe you get annoyed they are eating too much fruit, you sound quite controlling around food.

I get your frustrations, but I remember being restricted with food as a child. We just didn’t have a lot of money and my parents were trying to keep enough food in the house for 5 people. I remember being sighed at for “eating all the bread” after making some toast. At one friend’s house they had a snack cupboard full of treats we wouldn’t even get at Christmas time and it would blow my mind! 😂 Maybe it was growing but I was always hungry as a child.

Look if they’ll eat bananas (18p) and toast just have loads of that in and ask them not to eat the main component of dinner as a snack. If they like cooking why not get them to each be in charge of one meal a week and cook for the family. Then they’re planning their ingredients etc

It does sound as though they’re hungry OP but also your meals sound amazing so you don’t want them missing out on those and filling up with junk. Maybe speak with them to come to a compromise that you will buy more snacks but real dinners mustn’t be sacrificed.

I think your set up sounds a bit miserly.
i don’t think you should be limiting fruit; and crisps aren’t that expensive surely. I agree you don’t want them eating crisps all day but one or two extra packs per person a week is ok surely. Are you sure they’re not hungry??
box up your meal Ingredients in Tupperware in fridge for the week so you know that’s safe and let them eat whatever else as long as it’s reasonable and they eat their meals.