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.

I know it's not mega healthy but I stock up on cheap aldi noodles, instant pasta pots etc. Also dc loves crusty bread so I keep half bake rolls in for in the week ie. Get fresh ones when go shopping. Wraps. Crumpets, pastries etc. Do try and encourage fruit bowl but not always interested.

'skinny fuckers" lol!

These teenagers in the OP sound excessively gluttonous and very disrespectful. I'd struggle to live with those characteristics regardless of how 'hungry teenagers get'.

At 17 and 18 they should be working and buying their own food.

I hate this narrative that parents should suck up greed and rudeness and just buy more.

In my house, the kids are younger (11&13) but are eating a fair bit in the evenings . I put their specific “treats” in their personal Halloween buckets that live in the kitchen cupboard - I tend to ask what they want each week while doing the online shop and they pace them out. Works for us at the moment. I remember being a starving teen (I’m 6ft so that might be a factor) and cooking piles of pancakes and eating chicken nuggets as evening snacks so I’m mentally preparing for the same with my kids.

My teens have their own boxes of cereal. There would be murder if someone ate someone else's cereal. There has been shouting and swearing over Curiously Cinnamon on more than one occasion, which is how we got to this point.

Your 9 yo needs his own personal cereal.

Regarding the food, you can either lock it away or hide it! I sometimes hide food from DH (often - though not always - at his own request). I use cupboards he would never use (eg the one where we keep the blender - tho it dounds like that might not work for your dcs). Another other option is to freeze food, and then only take it out in time for use, but this only works for freezable stuff.

Another thing I would suggest is a bit of education. My dcs are slightly younger than yours but have started with the cooking. The issue is that they find recipes on the internet which seem designed to serve about 30. I have told them that if they use internet, it they need to find a written recipe rather than a video. That way they can skim-read the whole thing in advance (less messy) and they can be taught to scale down the recipe. They need to be aware that a cookie recipe which uses 300g flour will be way too big, so scale it down to 1/2 or 1/3. Given the age of your children I could you also spell out the money side of things? Can you have conversations where you spell it out that the food in the house is to feed 5 people so if they eat more than their share then there won't be enough for other people? Also, I know you said that they have no money, but I think if you spell out to them in advance that food costs money then I think its reasonable to make them bear the financial cost somehow. Could you do something like offset it against their bus fare so they have the inconvenience of walking? Or
would simply the inconvenience of being sent out to the shop serve as a deterrent?

Oh OP I get your pain, I am a vegan and DH isn’t and a lot of the treats are only available in one store and as we live rurally it’s not as easy as popping to the shops. I ration my treats over weeks or months and some products I order online etc so if someone came along and scoffed them I would be very upset.

I like the idea of treat boxes or giving them a budget of x for treats and they spend it on what they want. In my student days I used to leave off own brand supernoodles, I don’t know if the DC would snack on those?

I would try and get them to watch some of the shoes like the one Greg Wallace does about food budgets or anything about food wastage.

I’m almost tempted to suggest you go out and buy all their favourite foods and eat them before they get home leaving nothing nice for them for the rest of the week but it does seem bitchy

I had problems with cheese in our house, DH, DS and DSD would all deny eating it but I would get through giant blocks within days so I got some boxes from IKEA and put our names on each one then bought 4 309g blocks of cheese and put one in each.

Told them all I didn’t care when they ate it but that was it for them and they were not to eat each other’s! It worked!!! Now that DS and DSD have moved out I can see the problem was probably DH too!

I also had a set of boxes for treats and did the same each shopping day of splitting up and telling them they could eat when they wanted but there was no more...... again it worked!

DS when he did a lot of sport used to get through so many malt loafs - he’d take 3-4 down with him when rowing for a day! But he got a job at Waitrose when he was 16 doing his a levels so hot cheap food and his discount card was his contribution so I didn’t mind getting more treats etc...

I also had lots of cereal, milk, yoghurts and fruit freely available for them all

My teen has grown 4 inches over the last 6 months and now outpaces most adults. He also is a rower. He's not greedy, just needs lots of food. I remember being like it myself, I've seen it happen with friends teens over the years, and have noticed those same friends are now portioning up when they give him food. No comment made, teens and appetite is just a thing. No potato is safe.

Taking the wee'uns cereal wasn't kind though, that would incur consequences, but aubergine is pointless and minging.

My eldest two kids are the same and eat anything literally where my 9 year old is the complete opposite.
Stop buying the stuff in let the cupboards go bare until it sinks in.

No potato is safe

I can never understand rationing food. If kids are eating, it is because the are hungry, not greedy so they really need more food, not less. Both my ds 15 and dd 12 eat probably 3 times the amount dh and I do. They clearly need the food for growth. I do try to limit the number of treats I buy to ensure they are eating nutrient-dense food rather than sugary rubbish, but aside from that I let them get on with it and either dh or I will buy more if we are running out.

Dh and I are constantly buying milk, fruit, bread, porridge, chicken (ds is on a protein kick and dd won’t eat fish or red meat), cheese, eggs, pasta and rice but we understand that it is just their age and growth. I certainly wouldn’t want to make them feel conscious about their eating habits, there is enough pressure on kids without me scrutinising their every snack.

I feel you OP.
As a single mum money was very tight with two teen DS's both of whom had voracious appetites.

When they'd left home and were fending for themselves they apologised for not recognising what it takes to run a household and for their ability to decimate the weekly shop in a matter of hours.

I know it doesn't help you solve your current problem but wanted to offer you solidarity.

why does the 9 year old get special cereal and not the other 2?

Because he's 9. And the other two get plenty of stuff - it's just that this is for him - they have had 17 years of treats already. They also have enough pocket money to buy themselves sweets/cereal/crisps if they want them. "Favourite child"? - behave yourself!

He's the youngest child, that's all - bloody hell! Why shouldn't he have a treat? The others are almost adults.

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.

That's right, lynsey - and there wasn't a plate full of meat surrounded by a small amount of veg, either. Almost everything on the plate was potato, carrot, turnip and/or cabbage; peas were available in season. Yorkshire puddings ("the one who eats the most puddings gets the most meat" to fill you up before the meal).

I can never understand rationing food

OP isn't rationing food - she's trying to reduce the mindless greedy consumption of TREATS.

If her kids were making themselves a cheese toastie or opening a tin of beans, in addition to their dinners, that wouldn't be a problem - but they are eating loads of rubbish and then turning their noses up at meals she has prepared.

I don't see the problem. If you DC are hungry and eating all the food, then just buy more (assuming it's within your budget).

put our names on each one then bought 4 309g blocks of cheese and put one in each.

I read this as 4,3 kg of cheese each.

Loving the 9g precision, though.

@LuaDipa

I can never understand rationing food. If kids are eating, it is because the are hungry, not greedy so they really need more food, not less. Both my ds 15 and dd 12 eat probably 3 times the amount dh and I do. They clearly need the food for growth. I do try to limit the number of treats I buy to ensure they are eating nutrient-dense food rather than sugary rubbish, but aside from that I let them get on with it and either dh or I will buy more if we are running out.

Dh and I are constantly buying milk, fruit, bread, porridge, chicken (ds is on a protein kick and dd won’t eat fish or red meat), cheese, eggs, pasta and rice but we understand that it is just their age and growth. I certainly wouldn’t want to make them feel conscious about their eating habits, there is enough pressure on kids without me scrutinising their every snack.

You do realise don't you that not everyone has the budget to just keep buying and buying and especially if they decide that they are on a protein kick for example. You sound quite smug and complacent. And getting annoyed about and tried to put in place strategies to control out and out gluttony is a long way from rationing.

Stop the pocket money and buy food with it instead. I would also buy 3 of each treat so each of them has their box like a pp said.

I don't get why "treats" have to be regular at all - surely then they just become "food"

Treats are not necessary.

"Treats are not necessary."

No, but they help make life easier. We don't have any other pleasures in lockdown, do we? I think it's fine to cut out the treats as long as OP also cuts out her wine...

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

My grandmother told us our DF (6ft from his teens) eat anything he could find, including things we would now put in the bin (I'll spare you the details). This would have been in the 50s and 60s without much money - he would just eat anything he could.
I don't think hungry teenage boys is a new thing.

I accept that I do have sufficient budget to feed my dc well, but as my dm often tells me, her dp may have had their issues, but they always fed them plenty of good food. All 7 of them.

Food has always been a priority in our family and I don’t think that saying that is smug or complacent. My relatives are originally from Europe and the saying there is that they live to eat rather than eat to live. I cook every day in one way or another and would be devastated if my kids felt they had to ask permission to eat in their own home. I think it is a definite difference in outlook. Fundamentally I simply don’t agree that growing teenagers eating a large amount of food is gluttonous in any way shape or form. It’s just being a teenager. I would be far more concerned in this day and age about teenagers not eating enough.

I dunno. I have a teen and he doesn’t do this with food,. I buy one packet if biscuits and a six pack of crisps and that lasts him a week easily.
He’ll only eat breakfast if I cook it and dies himself a toastie at lunch or if he’s peckish. We eat dinner together and I do a pudding. Other than that he’ll not bother and only drinks milk and water.

Maybe it’s a competition for food thing. The idea that it might not be there tomorrow, triggers them into eating it.

It’s a bad behaviour thing.

It’s not about food per se. The Op has said there is plenty of other food that is available to these kids. She is not trying to ration food generally. The objectionable thing is them choosing to eat far more than their share of treat food designed to be shared between the whole household AND choosing to do this again and again after having it all explained to them.

This is not hungry teens being ravenous because they haven’t been given enough food or who don’t have food available to them for when they are hungry.