to think a sandwich lunch is a "proper meal"

[SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker]

Teenagers are arguing that it isn't and they should have two hot meals a day.

We have bread and sandwich fixings (lettuce, tomatoes, meat, cheese, peanut butter etc) and fruit. Also beans and eggs that they can have on toast instead if they want. They can have as much sandwich stuff as they want so long as it is fairly balanced... i.e. no just eating five eggs and no veggies or half the fruit in the bowl.

They say it isn't a 'proper meal'.

My argument is that

1. please save the other food for family dinners
2. too expensive to eat two big hot meals a day. Two teen boys at home all summer can get very expensive.
3. it has the same nutrition... carbs, protein, vitamins, calories etc as a full meal.

I think texture also matters, you could have a nutritional shake and be full. Soup might be filling but I still don't think it's sufficient for dinner.

My uncle used to have 2 dinners a day when he was working from dawn to dusk as a farm labourer. He may have had a cooked breakfast too (Second breakfast after milking)

I have soup for dinner all the time! Quite often for lunch too and a protein shake for breakfast

We don't generally have bread in the house, none of us really eat it.

However I would definitely say a sandwich is a meal if that's what floats your boat.

This thread is just fabulous. Sandwich snobbery! Only in this bizarre MN parallel universe.

OP, sounds like they have everything they could need at their disposal and they're just hoping you'll jump in and make the hot meal for them. Ignore and direct them back to kitchen!

Sandwiches are fine for lunch
Soup is fine for dinner especially when it's a stone's throw away from stew

Or failing that, every one is entitled to eat whatever the hell they like. If you don't consider soup a meal, don't have it! The OP and her family do. Good for them!

This place drives me crazy...

Loling at the people who think a jacket potato is more nutritious than a couple of slices of bread. Bread contains more protein than potatoes. A couple of small slices of white sliced bread contains as much protein as an egg. Wholemeal or seeded bread contains more. It also contains vitamins and minerals (potatoes do as well but mostly concentrated in and near to the skin).
While people in other countries may not eat sandwiches they do eat bread in various forms. A sandwich is just an arrangement of bread and other food. Nothing bad about it.

This is like sandwich/snack top trumps.

This is one of those "only on Mumsnet" arguments. Only on Mumsnet do people argue passionately that giving someone a sandwich for lunch is tantamount to Guantanamo style torture.

The rest of us just whap a bit of ham on a couple of slices of Mother's Pride and get on with our day.

I agree HarpyFish. I frequently feel I live in a different world.

Bag of Frazzles to go with it Harpy and job's a good 'un.

Probably been mentioned, but they could always whip up a bowl of pasta, or pasta salad - pretty cheap and filling for the bottomless pits that are teenagers' stomachs!

I almost never eat sandwiches or cold food by choice. Bread is too many calories/carbs for the filling power it gives.

If I am provided with lunch, eg at a conference, the one thing that makes my heart sink, is lunch that is sandwiches and cake and is described as 'a light lunch' which is anything but - it is quite easy to have over a thousand calories without really going over the top and I would spend all afternoon fighting to stay awake.

I eat most of my calories in the morning and at lunchtime so would happily have soup for dinner as I am not hunrgy then - I don't ever eat in the 'normal, British' way of cereal for breakfast and sandwich for lunch as I spend the entire day starving and miserable.

I prefer to eat a big breakfast, medium lunch and small dinner. Breakfast is usually eggs or sometimes bacon, beans etc and lunch is usually warmed up leftovers. I will cook dinner but only eat a small amount and save most of it for the next day.

Soup can be dinner in my house. I make a vegetable beef soup that you can almost stand your spoon up in. We usually have a salad with it or cheese toast.

Well they are teenagers. I have never been big on lunch so at that age i had small 2slices bread sandwich lunch a choc biscuit, main mean at night but snacked all night on toast and cereal. Whereas my friends had a 4 slices of bread way bigger sandwich lunch plus crisps plus biscuits and didnt snack at night. Maybe bigger portions at lunch is way to go?

More to the point, I've never made soup in my life but would love to. Anyone on this thread who has mentioned the wonderful soups they regularly make for dinner should be forced to provide the recipe. Please. :)

To be honest even in this heat I'd want a hot dinner every time, I find cold buffet foods/sandwiches very, very boring. They're alright for lunch but not dinner every day.

Shelagh I make vegetable beef soup a little differently every time I do it, sometimes depending on what vegetables I have to hand or leftover, but this recipe is close: www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/the-lady-and-sons-beef-vegetable-soup-recipe.html

I don't put macaroni or any kind of pasta in it, and I don't use most of those seasonings except salt, pepper and a small amount of garlic. Also I add some tomato paste for a more intense tomato flavor.

Some of these vegetables, like okra, are associated with the Southern US, where I am, but you can use most anything.

I also sometimes make a vegetarian version, using vegetable stock and black beans.

Britain's favourite lunch is a cheese sandwich!

decent bread and cheese etc is no cheaper than hot food so why deny them what they want!

because why should she arrange her day around cooking 2 hot meals if she doesnt want to? And I doubt theu are clamoring for the chance to wash up the pots and pans in time to start dinner! She is their mother, not their servant. It really doesnt matter what they think, or what we think. If she provides a large and varied pile of calories involving all the major food groups, they can like it or lump it.

If they seriously want hot food, she can give them the pot of money for the lunch budget, and they can deal with it themselves, making sure the kitchen is back in order to start dinner when she wants it.

And soup is too a meal, assuming it has lots of protein and veg in, no matter how liquidy.

Hilarious the number of people who think bread isnt filling enough. mixed grain bread (more wheat and less other grains the richer you got) and something was pretty much the entirety of the european diet for a thousand years. Bread and cheese, bread and beans, bread and veg (and maybe meat) soup, bread and meat.

Just to be clear, you dont want to let them cook their own or buy alternatives? So really they have no choice in the matter anyway? Just let them have what they like! It doesnt matter what I think, or anyone else, we are not the ones who have to eat it. They are.

Seriously I'd prefer a bar of chocolate over a standard sandwich any time. Sandwiches are always nasty, wet bread, nasty filling, full of carbs and have no taste whatsoever.

I have to be absolutely starving to eat a sandwich ever!!

Sandwiches are full of carbs but chocolate is better...huh

Sorry no recipes, I'm a throw it in kinda gal. If you look up chicken posole there are some good recipes online. I learned by watching my friend who is Mexican.

Here is an example of how my kitchen looked after the first time I asked DS to clear up the bread mess. Several arguments and door slamming later it is not perfect but ok level of tidy and almost everything is washed up but not put away.

Again, they can buy other food if they want to they have money and supermarkets within walking distance.

The reason I asked was to see if it is reasonable. A number of you said no it wasn't but plenty also said I was so I'm ok with it. Five days a week they have a boring but nutritious lunch. I think they will survive.

I did read what you said above, but do you have a recipe for the lemon oil bread you mentioned?

Why do people post threads like this.
Why.
You clearly don't think you are being unreasonable! Clearly.

So why the heck ask.

They have no choice in the matter anyway. They're not allowed to prepare their own food.

Why even ask?

I would hate sandwiches for lunch every day. Hate it. And you know he prefers another kind of bread but you don't buy it.
You sound utterly inflexible and very much like a difficult person to live with.

Sandwiches are always nasty, wet bread, nasty filling, full of carbs and have no taste whatsoever - are you only talking about shop bought sandwiches?

Yes, I would agree that most (not all) shop bought sandwiches can be pretty grim but a fresh home made sandwich can be perfectly delicious - the sort of thing I eat most days.

I am genuinely interested in what those of you who 'hate sandwiches' eat every day for lunch - assuming you lead busy lives away from decent cooking facilities in the middle of the day.

Damn - you could ask that about nearly every thread on Mumsnet .