Is this an adequate meal?

[Zarabell]

I'm talking in relation to portion size. I know it's technically not a healthy meal but I'm literally thinking size.

Family of 4, an 18 month old, 8 year old, dh and me.

Fish fingers, 3 for dh and 2 each for the rest of us.

Cheese and potato pie made with 5 medium to large potatoes.

1 tin of beans between us.

Of course the toddler had slightly less mash and beans than everyone else.

Fruit and yoghurt for pudding.

What do you think?

Dh doesn't cook much in the week, very rarely but then I'm home earlier. More to the point he doesn't give me any ideas what he would like to eat.

He is quite a good cook but he tends to do breakfasts and lunches at weekends.

Yes, we aren't the most active of families but I'm trying to change this.

Ds does sports so he's probably ok but me and dh need to do a lot more exercise. Maybe then we can have an extra fish finger

I have no idea about portion sizes for kids (all that is to come) but I think your portions for yourself and DH sound sensible. I work on the same principle of 'if you were having a jacket potato you'd only have one' so would generally do 1 large potato each. Only think that could be upped there is maybe the beans? Although personally it would be enough for me because I'm not a huge fan.

Also that's a huge amount of chicken you're putting in your curry in my opinion. Do you bulk it out with veg or is it just the chicken in there?

YetAnotherSpartacus: I'm vegetarian, but apart from the fact that I'd double the BB ratio that sounds HUGE to me (I'd have vegetarian sausages instead of FF).

It's worth pointing out though, that veggie sausages are a lot more filling than fish fingers, which are fairly insubstantial. If it was sausages, three is more than enough for anyone.

zarabell Christmas Challenge - find an activity you all like doing as a family (well, one that you can take the baby along too!). Bikes? Climbing wall?

i would say that was fine. Your DP is fat because he eats too much, He needs to reduce that to reduce his weight and to extend his life.

I would be having a serious conversation with him about his diet and health. Some of the portions allegedly eaten on here by twig like 4 year olds make me raise a serious eyebrow.

If I was doing fishfingers and mash for tea we'd prob have 3 or 4 fishfingers each for the adults and 2 or 3 for the kids (9 and 7) I'd peel maybe 6 medium sized spuds, do a can of beans (DP doesn't eat baked beans) I'd also prob do peas and corn and maybe some carrots.

fruit and yoghurt for pudding. it's fine.

Potato sounds fine. I reckon we'd need an extra fish finger each and i'd do 2 big tins of beans (2 adults, 3dc - 8, 7 and 5 - very active, slim children).

That sounds fine to me. I think people have lost perspective when it comes to portion size. Just because you physically could fit more in you don't need to eat until you're absolutely stuffed. I probably would have done fish fingers or pie rather than both as well.

As an equivalent, 1 large jacket potato with cheese and some beans (I find one tin can do three adults if they are being served on the side of something else substantial) should be an adequate sized meal, depending on the amount of cheese, but then most men would want 4 or 5 fish fingers. They are very small.

It is adequate, but only adequate. It's more like a lunch than a main evening meal for most men, I'd have thought.

I think that sounds loads. My dh would eat 2/3 fish fingers, my 6 year old would eat the same but has a very high calory requirement due to a disability, 1 potato each if medium, 1 spoon of beans so we'd have half the tin left but then add veg, salad. Dh is slim, as is Ds, I am average

I probably would have done fish fingers or pie rather than both as well

Did you read what the OP actually made? What she is calling "pie" is just mashed potato with cheese through it, so would you really just serve up 2 fish fingers and a handful of beans for a main meal for an adult?

I think your cheese and potato pie is fine (we have always called it that s well not cheesy mash). Maybe you could add trimmed bacon and sliced tomatoes to top of it, instead of fishfingers you can add an egg into it to make it fluffier and then buy reduced salt and sugar beans so you can use two tins so he can have more beans. I don't think as a once a week meal you need to worry about nutritional content other than the beans but as I say better options there.

I was raised in a house that has serious portion control issues and still always overcook but I think the potatoes between essentially 2 adults and 2 such LO is fine.

If hungry still why not add something extra to the fruit and yogurt? Granola or a crushed up weetabix?

Sorry I thought the pie and mash were separate. But 2/3 fish fingers, what sounds and like a decent portion of cheesy mash and some beans would be plenty for my tea. I'm slim but not skinny. And my kids would only eat 2 fish fingers if that and they're average size. A full pack of fish fingers plus a tin of beans etc may be a normal portion these days but most adults are overweight.

Cheese and potato pie isn't a pie and then separate potatoes ....it's mashed potatoes with cheese mashed into it. Why were people saying "DH would eat a 1/4 of the pie and 3 potatoes?

2 fish fingers is a tiny portion for an adult. Its like competitive under-eating here in some of these posts.... "oh I couldnt possibly eat more than 2 fish fingers,"

If you have a massive potion of cheesy mash and some beans with it I don't see it as a tiny portion. Plush the dh who was complaining had 3. Like a pp said the baby would surely only need one. Its not about undereating. It's about normal eating. I thinks its between 60-70 percent of adults that are overweight in this country so typical portion sizes are too big. I don't remember my mum and dad cooking boxes and boxes of fish fingers at dinner time. A box would do a family of 4 with the adults having more.

if you were having a jacket spud how many jackets would you have? it's the same thing, if you have a jacket with cheese and beans that's a meal... the fish fingers are like a crouton/added extra.

We often have jackets with just cheese or with cheese and beans (usually with salad but there's fuck all filling in that!) you don't need to have slabs of meat and fish with every meal?

If you really want to know put it in my fitness pal then you can see how many cals, protein etc there is in the meal.

There's no point asking about food on mn, loads of posters seem obsessed with portion size, carb content and green veg and pointing out obesity stats. Fish fingers, broccoli, salad and beans? Blech.

i love a bit of a green salad with a jacket spud and cheesy beans.

I like salad with a bean enchilada too, it's the same thing! :D

Lots of different points of view.

We always called this cheese and potato pie, I know it's not technically a pie.

It's mashed potato with cheese baked on top, sometimes I add some onion and garlic.

I'm definitely not competitive under eating, I love my food, but this is the way I was bought up to eat. Two fish fingers each and 3 for my dad would have been plenty.

I do kind of feel like we've lost all perspective when it comes to weight be portion size but that's only my view. Of course if you're very active you can eat more, but we are not!

I am changing this, we've started bike rides and I'm doing more walking. I used to be a lot more active, lots of walking, gym, swimming but haven't done much since having ds2.

Surely a young child doesn't need the same amount of fish fingers as their mother???

Petal.....that's the wrong way to look at it. If the Mother only needs 2 fishfingers then the child might need more. 2 is nothing.

I eat 4...my DD whose 8 eats 4....my DD is skinny and always hungry. If I needed only 2 but DD needed 4 then I wouldn;t disallow that just because I only need 2!

Well ds1 is 8, tall and in proportion and more active than me so I tend to give him roughly the same as me.

I'd usually give the toddler 1 but, dh said give him two, and, he's barely eaten for the past week.

Having said that, we only eat fish fingers maybe once every 3 weeks.

I have to laugh when people say they'd have included salad - with beans and mashed potatoes? And someone else would have peas and corn - with beans? And broccoli - with beans?

I personally would have omitted the cheese potato pie as it's just carb and fat basically, and given more baked beans with veg like peas or sweetcorn and 1 more fishfinger to the active kid. When we have fish fingers, we usually have 3 each and split 2 tins of beans between four people with some kind of steamed veg on the side. Nobody is obese in our family now but I was obese as a child as my mum had no clue about portions.