Teenagers and food waste, I am losing my mind.

[JensonsAcolyte]

I don’t know if I’m being really fucking petty about this but I lost my shit yesterday after they went through a box of cereal in six hours.

Kids are 17 and 18. We also have a 9 year old. I buy nice treat food like a mug every week and the older kids just go through it like it’s going out of fashion. I’ve told them not to, obviously, begged and pleaded and shouted and sworn and nothing sinks in.

I’m at the point of thinking about locking the larder.

So on Sunday I bought a box of (overpriced junk) Krave because youngest DS loves it. He usually has a few pieces mixed in with his weetabix or porridge.

By yesterday morning it was gone. DS had got up at gone midnight and had half a box over two bowls, DD then had two bowls for breakfast, before I got up.

This is an ongoing battle. Also taking huge portions of food and not eating it. Dinner last night, DD took a huge pile and then picked out half of it (the aubergine she didn’t like) and left it on the side of her plate.

There’s a large Tupperware full of home made egg fried rice that one of them made on Saturday night while I was out and didn’t eat. I’ll be binning that in a minute.

They both like to cook but cook stupid things like a batch of thirty cheese straws. Or a huge macaroni cheese for one person. I’m constantly running out of milk, cereal, flour, eggs, pasta.

They are supposed to ask for food, which I hate making them do but have to, but then as soon as I’m out or in a meeting or even just in the fucking shower they are like locusts.

Any ideas? Is this par for the course with young adults? They are both skinny fuckers as well which is actually infuriating considering all the shit they eat.

"They need to learn to scale recipes so they only make what they will eat in one sitting,"

Yeah-it's a shame there's not something that's really easy to access with this sort of info available isn't it?

Can you give your gannets a portion of these vats of egg fried rice etc as an extra side with the meal? You could also have frozen it in portions or used as an accompaniment to a lot of meals. Roast chicken with rice and veg just for example.

As for the Krave, I agree with a box each with a sellotaped label and their name on them. Custard creams are 40/45p for 400g. Bourbons are about the same for 300g. The nutritional content is similar.... as someone said, get them to make rice Krispy cakes.... or get your youngest ds to do it. If they do it the old fashioned way with golden syrup and cocoa powder, they cost pennies.

For those of you who don't think teens are naturally hungry and are just greedy; honestly that's not always the case. My brother grew 5 inches in one year and fainted once or twice on the cricket pitch. I remember my mother making mounds of mash potato to fill him up. He was stick thin and always hungry! He would eat a good dinner of steak and chips and salad, followed by something like apple pie and custard, and a couple of hours later he would be hungry again. He's a perfectly normal adult nowadays , still on the slim side, who eats normal modest portions, but we all remember his "famished" phase. Lots of teens do need extra fuel because they are growing and developing so rapidly.

I expect your brother - being properly hungry due to a growth spurt - would have eaten anything available, including fruit, crackers, boiled eggs, etc. He wouldn't have darted to the highly processed and sugary treat food especially, because he was hungry and needed calories.

This is not the same scenario. OP's older children are not hungry for staple foods, just the treat foods which they eat all of, with no concern or consideration for anybody else who might want any.

So many posters on this thread have consistently missed the point of what the OP is saying.

Sorry..has the Op clearly stated they are not hungry...I can't see that in her opening statement?

Is it not conceivable that they are hungry and the Op does not fully appreciate that?

Like all kids they will always go for the Lowest Common Denominator- easily available , easy to prepare and vaguely tasty before anything-else; hence the woofing of Krave in the middle of a night.

I do get it. Catering for teens under lockdown is a nightmare! I actually posted very sympathetically towards the op below. My brother didn't eat many crappy carbs because life was far more austere when he was growing up and people didn't have lots of treats and biscuits lying around, well my family didn't anyway. But if they had been, I've no doubt he would have been tucking in with abandon!

So many posters on this thread have consistently missed the point of what the OP is saying.

I know! It's not just this thread, if it's any consolation to the op. (And it probably isn't.) My guess is that people want to express an opinion, even if it's not relevant or if a number of people have said precisely the same thing.

OP, I was on your thread in Feminism. Neither of your teens respect you, they speak to you very badly (I know you know this) and clearly think they are above all reason, when in fact they are immature and selfish. It would drive me bonkers too.

So many posters on this thread have consistently missed the point of what the OP is saying

Or, after 359 posts or so, it's possible that the discussion has broadened out a bit!

And the usual posters who like to wade in and sneer at posters and their opinions...which I imagine makes them feel themselves to be clever and above the discussion and the arbiters of what is relevant and should be discussed which in all reality is the dog's testicles and actually shows quite the opposite.

The cereal thing is awful, but I also am not really comfortable with the concept of one person having "their" yoghurt, biscuits etc. Surely unless one person is on a restricted diet iets all to be shared?

But you seem ok with the concept of the 2 teens scarfing everything leaving none of the treat food for the younger child and the OP.

In our house, as it was with both of us growing up, nobody was to take more than their fair share of the treat foods, and nobody was allowe d to take the last of anything without checking. etc etc

@diddl

"If they're skinny, they're not overeating are they?"

That doesn't necessarily follow does it?

How does it not necessarily follow???

Clearly if they were over eating they’d be over weight unless a medical problem? It’s not a difficult thing to comprehend. You post like you’ve never ever heard of the impacts of over eating.

@Bluntness100

Clearly if they were over eating they’d be over weight unless a medical problem? It’s not a difficult thing to comprehend. You post like you’ve never ever heard of the impacts of over eating.

Yes, of course. You've posted just under me without saying who you're addressing so it's a bit confusing who you're replying to.

What even is krave?

I have 3 teens and we have some house rules.
Certain things in certain cupboards are free for all.
For me, that is ordinary cereal, bread, crackers, milk, instant noodles, basic biscuits, bacon, eggs, frankfurters (ds loves these) tins of soup, bagels, and a few other things.

There are things they are not allowed to eat, eg meat planned for a meal, special cereals (eg might buy cocoa pops for half term, they are allowed ONE bowl each and then ask, to make sure each of them gets some). Boxed snacks eg asda box of brownies - I buy enough for 7 days, one for each day, they are for 3:30pm snack, first one chooses the box and puts it by the kettle, they are allowd 1/5 and the other boxes cannot be opened until tomorrow. But there are packs of custard creams/digestives and bourbons that they can help themselves to.

I go ballistic if the milk is finished overnight, there must be enough for dh and I to have a mug of tea.

I also keep 90p pizzas in the freezer, and ds often cooks one at 2 am.

ds is the main culprit in this house, he's now 18. I sat down with him and he made a list of things he woudl eat for snack. I crossed some expensive things off, and suggested others, I make sure there is a stock of those things. they don;t eat the meal plan things.

But if you have told them before and they are not listening, then that is not a food issue is it?

I once went ballistic with ds when he finished the milk overnight. He has never done it again. He is reasonable, and listens, and basically understands that he is one of 5 people in the house.
That is the crux of the issue

If they're eating the food I wouldn't mind, teens need a ridiculous amount of calories (dependent on height and exercise levels) they can need 3000-4000 calories a day.

I'm probably triggered by this post as my teen dd is slowly recovering from an ED and I would be delighted if she ate a box of cereal!!

I would be annoyed if they're helping themselves to food and not eating it though, that's not on.

One box of krave each per week labelled? Each in control of their own and when it’s done, it’s done! No touching the other persons?

Wow so even the biggest box of krave is 850g you say 300g left as you spilt the remainder between you kids so 3x 100g and you 9 year old had already had some so the reminder was eaten by them all of 500g and you are kicking off, why does the 9 year old get special cereal and not the other 2? Why would you even mix it with porridge to ration, seems like youngest is favourite child, on the other food waste why could you have not heated it up and included with other meals you are making anyway ie rice left make a curry pasta left overs make some garlic bread not really hard

@Gwenhwyfar

"I only have sisters but none of us ever ate like that. There was not much money in our house and most days we had 3 meals - breakfast, lunch and tea. We would sometimes have a sweet after our tea."

"I do think it must just be greed in a lot of cases. I don't believe all teenage boys are always hungry and eat the amount of food some posters are saying their sons eat."

You really can't believe there could be a difference between boys and girls? I reached my adult height around 13 and was 5ft2. I also got slightly chubby (by the standards of the time for teenagers) if I overeat so I probably didn't eat much more than an adult. Boys, however, can be growing until they're much older and have a lot more muscle. I think they really do get that hungry.
If they're skinny, they're not overeating are they?

You may only be 5ft 2 but I am 5ft 7, one sister is 5ft 9 and the other 5ft 10.

Out of interest I asked my aunt, who has 3 sons, if they ate masses when teenagers and she said not really.

In the past people did not have crisps, cereals, biscuits etc in their houses like so many do now. It was much more common to just have 3 meals a day and not snack inbetween.

Also almost all my neighbours and friends' families had very little money. They just could not have afforded to buy so much food for their teenagers.

What about teenagers during the years of rationing? No way could they have eaten a fraction of the amount posters are talking about on here

So why do teenagers today supposedly need to eat so much?

It really is not just teenagers today.
In the past they would have eaten a hunk of bread, or more filling meals.

When they analysed the typical war diet, despite rationing, it was way way higher in calories than a typical diet today.
So today, your typical 3 reasonable meals woudl be about 2,000 calories.
In the war it was something like 3,000.
So a teenager growing up in the war was eating more calories in their 3 meals a day. Todays teens eat the extra as snacks rather than as part of their 3 meals a day.

My brother was a teen at boarding school in 1980s. 3 full stodgy meals per day. Plus 'tea' which was cakes and bread and butter, and they ofetn went and bought chips/fish and chips in the evening after rowing practice. He really had hollow legs and never stopped eating. He grew 7 inches in one year and is now 6'3"

My mum was a teen in the 1950s. She took a packed 'lunch' to school, a round of bread with cream cheese, and ate it at break time, then had full school dinner, then home and had a big hunk of fruit cake. Then evening meal, and cocoa and biscuits/ toast before bed.

I just say it's cereal, fruit or bread or nothing. If I buy anything nice we usually just eat it straight away with fair shares for all, no expectation of having any the next day.

Maybe encourage them to freeze half of what they make.

If I want some biscuits to be left for when I have my cup of tea, I lock them in the boot of the car . (Every other hiding place has been compromised over the years).

Simplest thing to do is cook meals and provide food for breakfast and say fruit, and then give each of them a weekly snack allowance. They can then go and buy what they'd like, and not touch anything else. At their age they should be acting like adults and learning the value of what they're eating. I cannot abide this selfish behaviour. I often come down to find no bread or milk for breakfast after DSS17 has come down in the night and had a ridiculous binge. We don't starve him, there's no way he's hungry. He should be asleep at the times he's binging.

@mellicauli

I just say it's cereal, fruit or bread or nothing. If I buy anything nice we usually just eat it straight away with fair shares for all, no expectation of having any the next day.

Maybe encourage them to freeze half of what they make.

If I want some biscuits to be left for when I have my cup of tea, I lock them in the boot of the car . (Every other hiding place has been compromised over the years).

This is why we have treat boxes. There’s no way folks should have to eat their treats as soon as they are bought to get a fair share. If someone wants to save theirs til the next day or or while watching a tv programme or whatever they should still be able to have a fair share.

Nor should someone have to hide stuff in their car.