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.

If they are thin, then they are hungry. Teenagers do need a lot of food for development. Food need only be restricted if they are eating too much and fat or eating unbalanced food groups. Re-educate what they need to eat to fill up....airy cereal won't cut it...noodles, sandwiches,wraps,fruit,nuts as extra snacking.

My ds (19) needs a helluva a lot of food but he is 6ft and rake thin....to deprive him of food would be sheer cruelty......

I met a woman in a bank once eating dry cereal out of her coat pockets which she had hidden there from her three teenage boys...

Providing enough food is one thing. Yes of course Op must make sure she is doing that.

However, stealing treat food bought to be shared amongst the family and food designated for specific meals is not about hunger.

Yes, ensure meals have big carb portions, plenty of protein and veg. Ensure there is a fruit bowl and bread available for making toast. But no, the weeks supply of biscuits or crisps which are bought for the whole family, cannot be taken by 1 or 2 people and eaten it heir rentirely over 2 days. That’s not on.

I wouldn't want my elder teens having to ask for food and would never lock food up.

Saying 'its one chocolate donut each' or something like that is okay in my book

I have had a similar problem to the OP in that my eldest are everything. We always had the rule that you need to ask but I rarely say no, if it's 30 minutes until dinner then no, but she is very overweight and I found it really hard to police. The other children in the house are active and skinny so it's hard to say to keep all foods out of the house because then they are being punished because she can't control herself. She is now away at uni and with no one saying anything about her food choices has put on several stones in weight. It's easy to say that 'children' of that age/young adults shouldn't be policed but my DD is killing herself with food

this Thread should be voted ...

Most Misunderstood Thread of the Day 🤔

OP I hear ya 🌸

Teenagers are constantly hungry and usually quite selfish unfortunately.

One box of cereal between the three children was never going to work, just buy own brand and more of it.

Unfortunately for you the point where you establish boundaries has long passed, about 10 years ago! Learn the lesson and put some boundaries in place with the 9yo.

Also snack boxes for 17 / 18 year olds is ridiculous, they are young adults fgs.

If they are working can't you ask them to contribute? I had to pay £20 a week towards the food shop when I was 18 and started working. It's only a token contribution, of course, but it's a good life lesson.

@bridgetreilly

Isn't it dangerous to keep re-heating rice?

Yes, but you don't need to keep reheating it. Just reheat the bit you want to eat each day. The rest stays in the fridge.

Exactly!

And despite what is widely believed, cooked rice will keep safely in the fridge for about a week. And, of course, you can freeze it.

See I also don't buy this "teens are permanently hungry" lark.

I get they go through phrases of having a larger appetite but we also constantly hear how they don't take lunch to school and also about teens who go out all day (which I know has been limited lately) and don't take lunch but may have a Mac Donald's or subway.

My ds is a swimmer. He trains hard and often. If I allowed him to eat biscuits and bread etc he'd be hungry. The right foods eaten in the right portions actually don't leave you forever craving more food.

It may be worthwhile getting them to load the my fitness pal app etc as you learn what's a portion size, how many carbs and proteins in foods etc.

It's not usually genuine hunger but bad diet and boredom - of which boredom has been a major player this year.

But I'd also make sure if you buy Krave you get each child a box. You won't gain their cooperation if they think you're favouring their little brother.

And whoever said above about mass baking fairy cakes - I did that too! Just randomly would make an 8oz sponge mixture and fairy cakes - what was that all about?
Luckily as a family of 5 it did 2 each earache lacked lunch so somehow my Laurent's though it was being helpful 🤣

The snack box is a good idea and another thing you could try is giving each a weekly budget for snack type foods and having them choose what they want. It helps teach budgeting e.g making cheaper choices such as supermarket own crisps over named brand, prioritising things they really like over things they just eat because they're in the cupboard etc.

And despite what is widely believed, cooked rice will keep safely in the fridge for about a week. And, of course, you can freeze it.

I did not know this 😱

Wombat...treat food...a box of cereal....

Yes, you should be able to say ‘it’s one chocolate doughnut each’ and not find that when 2 people go for theirs, some greedy person has taken 3 and left none for the others.

How can anyone think that’s acceptable from a late teen? It’s the behaviour of a toddler who hasn’t learned about sharing yet.

I can’t imagine needing to say to a late teen that they have to ask for any food or to spell out that a cake or other treat food is for all to have some of....or that food items like packs of meat in the fridge will be designated for certain meals. How can they have got to these ages and not have understood these things or are we saying it’s normal and acceptable for some teens to be totally selfish and they genuinely cannot understand these concepts? I can’t believe these things come in suddenly from those who have previously understood them.

In the stories here, it’s not normally about hunger but about control and taking stuff purposely so others cannot have it. Sounds deeper rooted than hunger by far.

Eating a lot of food, if they are hungry, is not “wasting it.”

They need to know it’s not on to eat their brother’s cereal but policing their food intake will not end well.

Teenage boys require a very high calorie intake. Ours ate HUGE amounts of food at that stage . Full cooked British breakfast; two course school lunch, two course "main meal dinner" in the evening PLUS their "home from school" snack (2 pound wholemeal loaf, 1 jar of jam, 1 pound of cheese, per day; just enough to hold them until dinner) PLUS "supper" before bed (Big bowl of cereal, , toast) Plus a gallon of milk every day and a huge amount of fruit. "Wasted food" , like "leftovers" were simply unknown. Our food bills during that stage were huge; and they were all as thin as sticks.

Are there really that many houses that haven't ever had a touch of this issue?

We certainly have.

Contrary to what others might think, I find nothing wrong with teens asking may they have a treat item.

The alternative in this house is 4 icecreams/ bars/packets of crisps.

I would be embarrassed to type the obscene food bill we have, but we don't waste food.

I have 4 skinny savages.😁

However, if they were leaving a cooked dinner behind after them because of eating junk food, I would give the snacks a complete miss for a week to focus minds.

Cooking for people to leave it on their plate wouldn't work for me.

My aunt used to have this exact same problem with her two DS. They would happily eat everything in the house and not think about others /consideration for others snacks.

In the end, they got a little shelf in the cupboard with their own snacks and that was that. She still stocked all of the basics but they had to make do with the other stuff.

Make sure they get plenty of protein in their diet to fill them up.

The scientific evidence of the bacterial degeneration of cooked rice as opposed to other food stuffs is shocking...I would not keep cooked rice beyond one day.

If they are not fat, then they are eating the right number of calories. You do understand that if you reduce the amount of calories they are eating they will lose weight. Now you can maybe change the composition of their diets and stop them taking the 9 year old's food but unless you want them to lose weight you have to keep that calories intake up. This is just science so I think you are being unreasonable. Now I would be saying something different if they were fat when they would be overeating but that doesn't sound like the problem. I guess you could delegate shopping duties to them with a strict shopping list.

A box of cereal which is an expensive box and one that a younger sibling loves, and has been identified as being predominantly for that child, IS a treat.

Eating half of it furtively in the middle of the night is not normal behaviour. Most people don’t eat in the middle of the night. If they do need to, they don’t choose the cereal that they know was bought for their younger sibling. And then the other teen doesn’t get up extra early to finish it off, doing it so it’s gone before the adult can see or the younger sibling can have theirs. This is deliberately done to deny someone else and to go against what OP said.

Hunger is having a piece of toast or a bowl of standard cereal. When the issue has been raised multiple times and explained, it’s not hunger to take the items of food which you have been asked not to but to leave for designated meals, or for others, or to share.

If these teens had no idea that cereal had been bought for their younger sibling, nor told not to eat it, nor had a history of previously taking food they had been explicitly asked not to, you might be able to explain it away. But they had been told not to and they still did.

I find it seriously incomprehensible how many people have read this thread and only taken out what they wanted to read not what @JensonsAcolyte has actually said. It's not favouring the youngest or depriving the older children of food, it's about being part of a family and thinking beyond the end of your own selfish nose!

If they are thin, then they are hungry.

Not necessarily. If they were hungry they'd eat their leftover rice, or make a sandwich, or even a couple of slices of bread and butter. And they wouldn't leave their meals just because they "didn't fancy" it.

And even physically very thin people can carry a lot of visceral fat around their organs - heart, liver etc - which is not only not obvious, but id much more dangerous and unhealthy than "ordinary" fat which is noticeable.

@theheartofthematter

I find it seriously incomprehensible how many people have read this thread and only taken out what they wanted to read not what *@JensonsAcolyte* has actually said. It's not favouring the youngest or depriving the older children of food, it's about being part of a family and thinking beyond the end of your own selfish nose!

yip

I totally sympathise with the OP. I have a 20 year old with hollow legs (for junk). Funnily enough they leave the healthy stuff alone, it’s the sugary snacks and choc (which deprives the rest of us including younger siblings who don’t gorge). I got a locking box (with combination padlock). All except adult DD knows the combination. Like you I tried reasoning, begging, taking the moral high ground but it’s just not fair on everyone else! I buy equal amount of snacks for all, and DD gets her weeks share and I lock the rest of ours away. After many years of this, it’s either this or the rest of us lose out. The last straw was her finishing off all of the chocolate in the house despite having received around 10 Easter eggs (I suspect she left the eggs til last to maximise her choc intake)! Perhaps when she falls out with her future roommates after stealing food she’ll learn her lesson.... until then if you want to act like a selfish brat you get treated like one. Access to bread, cereal (we don’t eat sugary stuff so that doesn’t appeal), fruit, nuts, healthy snacks, sandwich fillers etc are unrestricted. She does have a part time job so any extras she buys for herself. Before the locking box, I also found that hiding chocolate in an empty porridge box in the pantry works, as does hiding the nice ice creams (choc ices are a free for all!) in an empty frozen peas bag 😉! This has improved our relationship massively and cut down on the arguments and resentment between all of us. When she moves out I’ll get rid of the box!