Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 8 9 10 11 12 13

Original poster

MIL enforced diet - I know IANBU, but I need to vent!

301 replies

winobaglady · 02/03/2017 18:28

My in laws are lovely, I enjoy visiting them. We see them about every 3 months for a long weekend.

But oh man, at mealtimes.... she cooks a lovely dinner, dishing up tasty treats from her kitchen, but... why oh why does my DH and my FIL get 4 or 5 juicy slices of chicken breast and she dishes me and her 1 bit of breast and a thigh? Hos come the boys get 4 roast potatoes and the girls get 2? Same with veg, and desert.

And wine, if DH has a second glass - well "that''s boys". If I manage to get a second glass it's "now, you don't want to overdo it".

Argh! Just. Why?

OP posts:

motherinferior · 07/03/2017 17:10

I am a lapsed vegetarian and eat my steak BLUE.

Gwenhwyfar · 07/03/2017 17:11

Brecon - well I didn't know which bits of the chicken are more prized than others or how to cook chicken or anything else like that, which is why I'm not commenting on the meat aspect, only on the quantities. Also, the idea that if you get less meat and more veg you're really missing out is sort of lost on a lapsed vegetarian. But that's completely off topic.

TheDowagerCuntess · 07/03/2017 17:34

Wow, just put everything in serving bowls and help themselves.

If you don't have a table, then put everything on the kitchen bench and let people help themselves.

Problem solved. No deciding by one person what, and how much, other people eat.

Gwen - I don't think I've ever seen you on a thread where you're doing anything other than disagreeing with everyone, it's amusing now that I've noticed it!

NavyandWhite · 07/03/2017 17:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sallystyle · 07/03/2017 17:53

Completely disagree. The average man needs more food than the average woman, who needs more food than the average child (teenage boys aside).

I just finished my dinner. My portion was the same size as my husbands. However, I only eat one meal a day 99% of the time. He gets his calories from 2-3 meals a day and snacks.

Sometimes I eat more than what I need to because I bloody enjoy it. I don't need more than two roast potatoes but I want them and that is fair enough.

DramaQueenofHighCs · 07/03/2017 18:53

As I've said before I eat more than my DH and A LOT more than my FIL. I also eat more than MIL.
DH is skinny but not over skinny same height as me, MIL is taller than me and fatter than me, FIL is shorter than me and about average build. I'm 5'7" and a healthy size 10/12 - I don't stuff myself until I am overfull, I eat until I stop being hungry.

RoboticSealpup · 07/03/2017 19:24

I said normally, not 'in every case'. If you're eating the same one of you must be overeating or the other is undereating

So just because men, taken as a group, eat more than women as a group, MILs up and down the country are justified in giving the women in their family less food than they would like? I don't often eat lunch, that's why I like a big dinner. And I still like a big dinner if I visit my in-laws. Luckily they haven't taken it upon themselves to restrict or alter my calorific intake based on what the average man or woman eats.

TheDowagerCuntess · 07/03/2017 19:32

And why are teenage boys and girls being differentiated? Most teenagers have voracious appetites, especially active ones. The presence, or lack of, a penis has nothing to do with it.

PickledCauliflower · 07/03/2017 22:12

I love a big meal in the evening. I don't have much of an appetite during the day and hardly eat anything (fruit and a cup of tea at breakfast and then a few cups of tea during the day).
When I reach 6 or 7pm I am ravenous and ready to eat my days worth of calories :)
I don't want anyone poking at my food and saying my servings are too big /it's a man sized portion etc.
We don't all have three meals a day and need our calories measured at each meal 🤓

ToastDemon · 07/03/2017 22:20

Pickled me too. I don't eat much during the day so I have a large-ish dinner. Or, as some might say, "mansized"

I think some people have difficulty comprehending that population level averages are just that, and not a hard and fast rule to therefore apply rigidly to every individual.

Gwenhwyfar · 08/03/2017 10:48

"And why are teenage boys and girls being differentiated?"

Teenage boys need the most food of all groups, more than teenage girls.

"The presence, or lack of, a penis has nothing to do with it"

No, but muscle mass does.

Gwenhwyfar · 08/03/2017 10:52

"
Gwen - I don't think I've ever seen you on a thread where you're doing anything other than disagreeing with everyone, it's amusing now that I've noticed it!"

Not true at all. I've just chipped in to agree with everyone on another thread that there is nothing wrong with using a takeaway coffee cup to drink in at Costa. I agree quite often, but some things need disagreeing with. Obviously some mumsnetters must come from some very quiet families or something as they can't seem to handle disagreement at all. I've been called a cow on this thread just for disagreeing. I've made no personal insults to anyone or said anything nasty, yet I've been personally insulted.

PuddleJumper01 · 08/03/2017 23:57

That was me . Did I also mention boring, sanctimonious, tedious, up-your-own-arse, smug and derailing?

Anyone want to high five me before she reports me and gets this post zapped?

Gwenhwyfar · 09/03/2017 07:26

I'm not going to report you Puddle. I want your nastiness up there for everyone to see. I have not been nasty to anyone on this thread. I haven't derailed it either as we've kept on topic, but I think it's clear that you have no proper argument if you have to resort to personal insults and trying to turn people against me.

Batteriesallgone · 09/03/2017 08:46

Not going to high five bullying Puddle. And I totally disagree with Gwen.

corythatwas · 09/03/2017 09:03

Has the OP actually said that she is overweight or that she is not more active than her husband or that she is an "average" woman and he is an "average" man? Because if not, a lot of the motives ascribed to the MIL rather fall to the ground, don't they?

It was this "average man" thinking that led to my brother ending up obese: he wouldn't accept that his life was far too sedentary to allow for "average man portions".

persicaria · 09/03/2017 09:18

Is the consensus then that having a penis means a greater use of calories, or is that just boastfulness an old wives' tale?

TabascoToastie · 09/03/2017 11:31

Out of idle curiosity, Gwen, if you had a 5'11 rugby-playing female manual laborer and her 5'6 skinny computer programmer husband round for dinner, would you automatically give her larger portions?

motherinferior · 09/03/2017 12:06

The thing is: men get more. More money, more space - literally and figuratively, more time off to do what they like, more seniority at work, more opportunity to get their voices heard.

In that context, objecting to them getting more food is not 'misplaced feminism'. It's real feminism. If they want more than a normal - i.e. a woman's - portion, they can ask for it.

TaraCarter · 09/03/2017 12:57

Frabjous day. I only came on MN this afternoon because I wanted to read an argy-bargy about food, and as ever MN delivered.

This thread is an even more satisfying read than normal as it's the first thread on MN in which I have ever seen anyone else acknowledge that teenage girls need more food than they will as adults, just like boys. Ever. And I've been here since 2009.

I find this strange blind spot unintentionally revealing about cultural attitudes to women and food.

TheDowagerCuntess · 09/03/2017 15:48

Well quite, Tara.

Gwen will disagree with us, though!

Gwenhwyfar · 09/03/2017 22:08

"Is the consensus then that having a penis means a greater use of calories, or is that just boastfulness an old wives' tale?"

Nothing to do with a penis and everything to do with muscle man. Even a seemingly puny, skinny man will have more muscle than a woman of similar size.

TheDowagerCuntess · 09/03/2017 23:04

Maybe a diagram of exactly how much people should get would be helpful - since some people know it all, as opposed to everyone else, who is seemingly incapable of recognising, knowing, and responding to their own, individual hunger levels.

Funny.

ShoutOutToMyEx · 09/03/2017 23:45

*The thing is: men get more. More money, more space - literally and figuratively, more time off to do what they like, more seniority at work, more opportunity to get their voices heard.

In that context, objecting to them getting more food is not 'misplaced feminism'. It's real feminism. If they want more than a normal - i.e. a woman's - portion, they can ask for it.*

YY to this

PickledCauliflower · 10/03/2017 13:24

It suits me anyway - eating little during the day and a huge meal in the evening. I'm not inspired to try eating three "lady sized meals a day" :)

I think it is generally agreed that obesity is on the increase because of snacking, sugary drinks, increase in eating out and takeaways etc - as well as many people (male and female) having less active jobs etc.

I don't think home cooked meals and portion sizes are really an issue - unless somebody is eating huge, calorific meals at every sitting.

My husband is overweight. It's his snacking that's the issue. We both eat similar size meals in the evening.

Flip

1 2 ··· 8 9 10 11 12 13