How much fruit for kids a day?

[TeenyWeenyPolkaDotPeeny]

Typically how much fruit do your kids eat?

I think if it was up to my kids, my son especially would eat 50 pears and 20 oranges a day 🤣 my daughter would eat her weight in apples and between them they’d clear an American Costco of their berries.

I’m constantly having to say no to more fruit, but I’ve been redirecting them to the snack cupboard.. so cereal bars, soreen, crisps, dried fruit snacks ect 🤣 which just defeats the object of trying not to give them too much sugar as I’m just telling them no to natural sugars then filling them with processed shite. Ahh!!

With that in mind, I’ve decided to stop buying said processed shite. Both kids eat really well, aren’t actually ‘fussy’ but are refusers if they know something better is in - so if offered carrot sticks.. they’ll refuse and want something from the snack cupboard. But if there’s nothing in it, they’ll eat a bunch of carrot sticks🙄

I’m also sick to my teeth of “mum im done with dinner, im full!” Then 3 minutes later “can I have something from the cupboard”

So processed crap? Gone. I’m sick to death of it over conscience and speed 🫠

please tell me what your kids eat as a snack between meals?! The only things I’ve really got in my head are crudities, fruit and cheese 🫣

I’m too unorganised to make the whole egg cheese ham muffin things, I want to be that person.. but I am not😓

Dd15 has always had a small appetite so she does snack.

Plenty to drink between meals as snacking is often just a habit

The healthier things : Fruit, popcorn, salted crunchy corn kernels, carrot sticks, rice cakes, buttered sourdough toast, breadsticks and hummus, glass of milk and a cookie, various dry cereals (eg apricot mini wheats), cucumbers, cracker ans grated cheese. occasinaly demands weird things like stir fried broccoli!

Also likes biscuits and dark chocolate!

When I was growing up nobody had snacks like kids do now. You might get a rich tea biscuit and a cup of milk for elevenses, and maybe an apple or pear on the way home from school and that was that.

Children don't need to eat great quantities of fruit as snacks throughout the day. Aside from anything else, they'll rot their teeth.

Also adding that I know you said about not being organised enough to make the egg muffins, but I do try when I can (and I can't always be arsed!) make things like my own granola bars, flapjacks, muffins etc. They probably do indeed have as much sugar etc in as the shop bought stuff but a bit less processed and it makes me feel better!

For something savoury and really easy you could do these https://realfood.tesco.com/step-by-step/3-ingredient-savoury-cheese-scones.html - I've tried them with a bit of grated veg in too, they still worked just squeeze out excess moisture first.

Another thing I do is make a really big vat of 'carrot cake porridge' - basically make up porridge in the pan with milk, and add grated carrot, courgette and apple (I grate in food processor so takes seconds) - then add cinnamon, mixed spice, bit of vanilla extract, some raisins/ sultanas for sweetness (optional). We also add a big dollop of nut butter. DD absolutely loves this for breakfast and keeps a good few days in fridge so I feel like she's had a good breakfast with some sneaky veg in there which makes me feel better about all the fruit the rest of the time, but also you can bake it into muffins (add extra oats to thicken if necessary first) - low and slow in a silicone muffin tray. And these keep in the freezer and defrost quickly in air fryer for another breakfast or snack. Now - I think the resulting muffins are gross, but my DD still likes them so for as long as it continues I'll go with it, and they are a relatively healthy snack. You can obviously add syrup/ honey if you feel the need to sweeten further.

My youngest eats a huge amount of fruit, probably 3 apples a day at a minimum, can easily eat half a watermelon in one sitting. I have to seriously ration berries.

The dentist is very unhappy about it. She asks how much fruit they eat every time we go and then I get a lecture. Apparently, only 1 piece of fruit allowed per day and brush teeth straight after. No carbs for snacks, only boiled eggs and meat. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ve got too much to do to be cooking everyone bloody boiled eggs and chicken breasts after school.

So they continue to eat their body weight in fruit and I alternate in with cucumber, tomato and carrots as well.

I'd heard this too and asked our dentist when we'd taken DD (I think I've asked more than once) about her eating so much fruit and was it bad and the dentist was spectacularly unconcerned!

(These days we've opened the floodgate to haribo etc, and whilst it's not an every day thing it's probably not as occasional as it should be so the dentist would probably have more to say about that!)

We never had an enticing “snack cupboard” full of bars and goodies, that is part of the issue, it is seen as an exciting place, an activity/reward to be visited daily as a treat rather than eating for hunger/fuel.

Get rid of the snack cupboard and have filling, healthy food available if they are hungry (nuts, carrots, eggs, yoghurt) . Or tell them to wait for lunch/dinner and/or distract. Try to break the daily snacking habit on sugar or UPF bars, it is not necessary.

Worrying about children eating too much fruit is one of those Mumsnet things that I've never actually encountered in real life.

Oh god, I've already done both those things! Though to be fair, I think it's the acid the dentist objects to rather than the sugar, and I also wish my car wasn't always full of mouldy apple cores.

@mindutopia surely they shouldn't be brushing straight after fruit, as that could damage their tooth enamel?

Well I’m somewhere in the middle of this 🤣 I limit fruit because I worry about their teeth with their constant fruit eating/snack eating.. but also I know fruit isn’t the worst thing they can be eating regularly 😀🤣

What's wrong with three square meals a day? What's with all this endless snacking on piles of fruit? All it is doing is encouraging a sweet tooth, and it's not exactly teaching kids to wait for their dinner, or to moderate their intake of snacks in a healthy way. Being hungry between meals isn't the problem so many people think it is. One piece of fruit on the way home from school is fine, but all the rest of it? No. Teach them not to be greedy or to demand instant gratification.

A balanced diet is not a snack in each hand.

Because some kids get hungry between meals, and the blood sugar drops can result in meltdowns....
Also kids don't always eat the same amount every meal, they might not be hungry today at breakfast and might have half their dippy egg and soldiers at 7am, but will need a little something before lunch at auntie's served at 1:30...

You crack on and let your kid go hungry and struggle...and I'll hand out the odd banana when it's needed...

Exactly.

The whole 'in my day' stuff drives me mad too. I'm an older mum, with siblings even older than me, and we can all confirm that people did indeed eat snacks in the 70s and 80s, and not always healthy ones either.

Three square meals of breakfast, lunch, dinner has never been the one true universally accepted meal plan either - elevenses, afternoon tea, supper etc etc

I've got one DC who melts down if his blood sugar dips too low and you have to shovel some crackers into him before it happens, and another who (until recently) could quite happily bip along till the next mealtime. So I always assume the people who are smug and judgmental about snacks were only blessed with the second kind. Then I can see how you'd think they didn't need snacks.

This is one of the bleakest posts I've ever seen

Yep, I grew up in 80s and kids always had food between meals.

I tend to offer things like plain nuts, cashews or almonds. Sometimes a banana and cream or hummus and veg sticks but usually I like to keep it boring with nuts so I know it’s healthy and they aren’t eating for the sake of it. My husband on the other hand is dolling out kinder eggs and milka biscuits.

Yeah, I was at school in the 80s and 90s and we all ate between meals. Usually way less healthy things than fruit, too. My secondary school in 1987 sold cakes, biscuits and Cup-a-Soups with a buttered bread roll during morning break, and most kids had a drink and biscuits or crisps when they got in from school.

Kids today are way more healthy than we were if their between-meals snacks consist of fruit!

Also, it's actually not great for kids to be 'hungry between meals'. They should be starting to feel hungry at mealtimes. If they are actually hungry between meals, they don't learn effectively. People don't learn well when their basic needs aren't met - and if they're sitting there with a rumbling stomach, their brain makes the sensation of hunger the main focus, not whatever they're meant to be trying to learn.

I found when i limited sugar, including fruit, then overall, the sugar craving reduced by itself. 2-3 fruit a day and sugar treats 1-2 times a week

It really is an addiction. So yes, reduce it, you and they will feel better for it. No constant sugar craving driving you all mad. No "when's the next snack" every 10mins

Works for adults too.