to be bit upset with dsis re food?

[wandafull]

Just had dsis and her family

• her dh and two dc- to stay for bank holiday weekend, plus had another ffriend, her family, same number of kids. So, busy house. Dsis sits me down just before she left and told me as nicely as possible that the food situation was a 'bit weird'. To give a bit of context , I was always overweight as a child and this continued into adulthood- really had to do portion control and had a personal trainer for a while to drop down a size. Anyway, I have two dds and definitely do not want them to be over weight. So, they get good healthy three meals a day but no snacks in between. I don't offer snacks to other kids either, when they are here and don't give them it if they ask. Otherwise my dds get very upset when they are not allowed but others are. So I suppose I'm quite careful with adult portions of food now I've lost the weight- as has dh too- and I don't make piles of food when we have guests. Dsis basically told me that her dc were hungry and grumpy and that she hadn't had enough to eat and that it was weird that I offered so little food! She was nice about it but it's got me really quite worried- I offered guests and kids cereal for breakfast at sevenish, then nothing till lunch at 1 and then nothing till kids tea a 5 and adult dinner at 9Ish. Is that weird?

Yeah, Romanoff I did see that the OP said 'I don't offer snacks to other kids either, when they are here and don't give them it if they ask.'

What I'm wondering is whether on this occasion they did actually ask. Maybe I'm being pedantic though. I just thought there was a small chance that the guests weren't actually hungry.

Stitch I don't see need for any problems though, if only hosts were more flexible and less controlling. You can still have formal mealtimes... and provide a few snacks and nibbles too. At end of day I think guests need some choice about how much they eat and how frequently, not feel they must conform to a strict schedule to please the host.

I think some guests must be an absolute nightmare.

To have somebody staying constantly coming in rummaging through the fridge and helping themselves to food that had been brought by their host for a particular meal or purpose - while rejecting what is offered to them as some form of inflexible control freakery - seems like adolescent selfishness and a total abuse of hospitality to me.

Fortunately my friends all seem to have some basic manners.

What I find fairly odd about this one is that your sister waited until the end of the weekend to tell you.

In my family, if people want to eat they say. Can't really understand why being hungry would cause offence unless someone had picked at food or grazed so much they weren't able to eat a meal

There are so many factors that influence your calorie requirements. I do lots of sport and don't absorb food all that well, so may well eat more at a main meal than 6' DP who is a grazer. Of course we can (and do) adapt when staying with friends & family, but it's an awful lot easier to adapt to light meals + snack / big meals no snacks if the overall quantity of food is sufficient in the first place.

For informal meals I tend to put out sides in dishes on the table and let people help themselves. TBH OP if you're vehemently anti-snack I'd also let guests know when they're going to be fed.

I would never rummage through anyone elses fridge or cupboards. OTOH I'd tell my guests to help themselves to anything they'd like.
If I had people staying and they were asking for food, I'd be mortified that I hadn't offered enough, and I can't imagine the thought process in saying no, you can't have anything to eat, to people staying with me! I would die of embarrassment.

I think it's a long time to go without a snack but I like to have something about 3 or 4 like a banana if I'm not eating until 9. Otherwise I get seriously grumpy at 6. Different hoirses for courses, this thread shows everyone is different in their eating preferences.

Got to be flexible with guests OP. It's different with friends round, have a cup of tea and a posh biscuit or something. Offer a banana, toast or yog. Bake some kind of Jo sugar-no-that-no-nothing loaf cake that ensures people are actually hungry if they take another slice, not eating oit of greed ;-)

Learn to chillax a little about food because it does sound like you've swung too far the other way.

I would never rummage through someone else's fridge, but then I'm so comfortable enough with my friends that if I was hungry I'd say (in a nice way!) and ask for a bit of toast or something.

Restricting food is not the way to keep weight off long term. You would probably be horrified if you saw what I eat. My average lunch consists of half a chicken, pasta/rice and repeated at dinner time. We have grilled turkey for breakfast with eggs, home made bake beans and home made bread. Tonnes of vegetables, yoghurt and nuts in between as snacks. I'm a size 8 and go to the gym maybe twice a week (although I think about going every day). My metabolism isn't high either. I was chunky for many years and peaked it 16 stone before I changed how I eat.

Because Lilac you can't get on and do anything else before having "something to keep you going". Another thing is my dsis family all take much longer than us to eat, they also rise later. So my lot are up at 6:30 -7 ready for breakfast at 8-8:30. They get up at 8 breakfast is served at 9:30 which takes an hour. My lot would be done by 9, but we wait for them then at 11 instead of GETTING ON she starts making coffee and offering biscuits,or it happens the minute we arrive anywhere. I want to say no I am not hungry because as well as finishing a massive break fast less than 90 minutes ago, I haven't actually done anything to make me hungry.

Mine are like rakes and snack mid morning about 10. No late afternoon snacks though.

I guess with the food offered every hour approach you are never hungry. But I think people can be a bit weird about hunger. Like they must never feel it even for a minute. There is, I believe, a strong correlation between snacking and obesity. I know tons of people will say they snack all the time and are thin but I'm sure I've read that high snacking countries like the States have higher rates of obesity than lower snacking countries like France. Anyway, OP knew pages ago that she'd messed up and sounds reflective and thoughtful.

Interesting thread though.

It sounds to me like you have swapped one unhealthy relationship with food for another.

Not allowing yourself (and others) to eat between meals even when hungry sounds very controlling, I think you may have some kind of eating disorder and it is best to address it now at risk of passing on your unhealthy relationship with food to your DC.

Good luck OP

Tons of responses so you don't really need mine. However will say it's too long without food, for me anyway. Also my kids. I would have left fruit out and offered a biscuit with a cup of tea around 11 and maybe mid afternoon. A snack isn't the end of the world and doesn't have to be huge.

You sound like a friend of mine. She doesn't do snacks either. I take my own to her house.

Haven't ploughed through the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been asked, but is this a reverse thread???

If I have people staying they are not French, TheWordFactory, so gouter isn't expected. In any case, our DC are getting a bit old for gouter. I do try to stock up on snacks during exam season - DSS1 needed a lot of food when doing exams and although DSS2 isn't himself a snacker, he likes having friends round to revise with and they are always ravenous

but I think most people offer a bit too much food deliberately when they have guests

But the OP didn't offer too much food. She deliberately restricted their intake without giving them any choice in the matter. Portions were controlled in to what she believed were the right size, without taking into account any of the guests choices. They were given a bowl of cereal for breakfast. What if they asked for a second one? Would that be refused because it didn't fit in with what the OP considered an appropriate diet? I hate when I go to someone's house and they serve up a portion controlled meal to me, without any consideration for things I may or may not like (beans, why does everyone always serve me huge helpings of beans? Yuck.). If she had put out the food on the table for guests to help themselves, it wouldn't be so bad as they could select what they liked and could have gone for seconds if they chose, but they were very likely going to be hungry after being denied anything outside the OPs very limited scope of what a diet should consist of.

The biggest issue here in the OP forcing her dietary choices on to other people. She may well have every reason for choosing to eat the way she does, but other people are different and it's not her decision to make for other people. Putting out a cheese and cracker platter in the early evening if people were waiting for a 9pm dinner would not ruin the OP's diet. She doesn't have to eat it, and she can still be a gracious host.

We have grilled turkey for breakfast with eggs, home made bake beans and home made bread. Tonnes of vegetables, yoghurt and nuts in between as snacks.

Can I move in with you, tootired?

We never gave our DC snacks as a rule but we were not 'withholding food' - that implies they were hungry when they weren't. Its just a habit. I found kids that had snacks didn't eat as heartily at mealtimes so were then given more snacks Mine would eat properly at mealtimes. It was easier to eat healthily that way.

I wasn't super strict about it though.

I hate when I go to someone's house and they serve up a portion controlled meal to me

once i had friends round for dinner and the table was cleared i was a little upset, there should always be leftovers or how else do you know everyone had enough.

Marianne I'm both fascinated and puzzled by your views on hosting and why you think a guest who snacks is an 'absolute nightmare'. IMO basic manners include making food available to all guests at all times, even if it's just biscuits or crackers. I feel it's bad manners not to make food accessible. How strange to think of your fridge as a no-go zone when you've invited people to share your house and facilities overnight. Don't you think it's a bit patronising to control adults' food and make them wait until mealtimes? I can honestly say I've never felt my hospitality was abused by a guest getting food out of my fridge or making themselves a snack If I was keeping certain ingredients for a meal, I'd label them. I know it's annoying if you cook a meal and guests don't seem enthusiastic or grateful... but people do have different tastes and not everyone enjoys big solid meals. I don't think people should conform to 3-meals-a-day-no-snacks just to flatter the host. I would feel very uncomfortable in a house where the host controlled all food and it could only be consumed at set times with host's approval!

Stitch I can see why you find your sis's attitude to food annoying, it would annoy me too if everyone was being held up. But usually with snacking it's other way round, it's quicker and less hassle than a proper meal. Eg I have a busy day ahead today and having a sit-down lunch will waste time, so I've prepared portable snacks instead that will stay in my handbag for quiet moments. These include a cereal bar, oatcakes sandwiched with philadelphia, a handful of pistachios, an apple and some chocolate. So 6 snacks instead of lunch, spread over the day for convenience.

Sorry, but that is too long, both for the children and for the adults. I'd be feeling faint if I had to go that long between meals and with no snacks and DD (4.8) would be miserable, stroppy and hard to control. Snacks can be healthy (and that is both for children and for adults), and the odd treat is also fine. I agree with others that this could be setting up unhealthy messages about food for your children.

If that pattern of eating works for you, then that is fine. But I don't think you can impose that on guests. And, I'm sorry, but I think it is really off to refuse to give another's child food if that child asks for it.

I understand if you don't want to slip back into what you see as bad habits, even if only for a few days, if you have guests. But I think you need to find another way to maintain your own eating patterns (small portions might also be an issue here for other people) whilst still enabling your guests to eat the way they need to in order to function properly.

The key thing for me in the OP is not the 'snacks' (which, as has emerged on this weirdly fascinating thread, seem to mean very different things to different people in terms of what is consumed, and when, and how much), it's the fact that portions were strictly controlled at the (widely-spaced) meal times too.

My SIL and BIL do this - I think previously foodie BIL has picked it up from his wife, whom I like, but who bristles with food 'issues' and thinks that enjoying food isn't 'nice' - spending a weekend at their isolated house does mean SIL serving tiny, salt less portions and watching how quickly you eat and whether you will wait for hervtobreluctantly offer second portions. A typical lunch comprises of a half-bowl of soup without bread. Everything is served in the kitchen, no putting of dishes of food on the table. Her children are praised for leaving food on their plates. (It was funny until we had our son, when it became more problematic -now we bring food, as there is nowhere to buy it locally.)

Being a good host does mean responding to your guests' needs. We had friends over from France with their children for a weekend recently, and realised immediately we had underestimated how much food needed to be made. DH and I are on the small side, rangy and narrow-framed, and we have a toddler who is currently completely uninterested in food (though perfectly healthy). Our friends are very tall and large-framed, and their equally big children (whom we hadn't seen in years) are a lot older and hungrier than our son, which of course explains a lot, but we were initially taken aback, as we thought we had over-catered.

It was interesting to see how much more our adult friends ate in order to be satisfied, compared to us, when we are the same ages and roughly equally active. I really liked seeing things I'd made eaten with such relish, actually!

I have a 9 year old and a 4 year old and so far today they've had a bowl of cereal, two pancakes, a banana and some chopped-up strawberries, as have I. None of us is overweight (aside from DH, who, ironically enough eats less than I do, but eats at the wrong times, does little exercise and drinks no water). The DCs would be wild if they had no snacks, and I imagine they'd also be grumpy swines.

Imposing such strict rules on other people's children is bound to cause some issues and I agree completely with Assassins that plenty of snacks can be healthy. The DCs often come home from school and announce they're 'starving' so I make hummus with veg sticks. They still eat their suppers, they aren't obese, they're still healthy. And ironically enough, when we go out to eat 9 times out of 10 they choose healthy stuff anyway, because they know they aren't restricted.

Its nothing gilrack. Its all done by gadgets and gizmo's but you are more than welcome.

I'm fascinated. Did you all not leave the house at all? I can envisage them piling plates high at a local park coffee dock.

Op. Little and often. Don't restrict food within reason.