1 orange, 2 banana, some melon, 1 apple, full pack of grapes!

[Wineiscooling]

Half light hearted but half seriously interested how much fruit do your children eat? My teenage son has always been a picky eater but loves fruit so I suppose I’ve let him get away with eating a lot of fruit because for a long time the rest of his diet was junk. Lately he does eat better - not quite so picky but still loves fruit and would eat it all day long if I let him. I did a big shop today and we’ve just fell out over how much fruit he is eating it’s costing me a fortune and with the cost of living going up I can’t afford his fruit habit ! The above fruit in the title is what he’s eaten today and there would have been more if I’d let him. He loves strawberries, raspberries any berries but will eat the lot in one go. I’ve just done a rough calculation and am guessing he’s cost me nearly 5 pounds today in fruit and if that’s every day it’s probably 30-35 a week just for him - no wonder I’m skint! How much fruit does your children eat and if it’s not much what snacks do they eat that’s healthy and cheaper? He must have asked me 5 times today if we have any food before helping himself to more fruit!

That is a lot of fruit, and I'm a fruit-lovong vegetarian!

You could stop buying expensive fruit, so no melon, no strawbs, no grapes as standard. Just boring (lovely! ) old apples, bananas, satsumas etc. Frozen fruit for a cheaper change, or whatever is cheap on the market if you have one?

I feel your pain DS1 is a monster. I have to hide all fruit. He often eats 5 apples, 2 bananas, a bag of grapes in one sitting. Soft fruit I don't buy as too expensive. He also eats half a loaf of bread with 2 eggs and a tin of baked beans for breakfast. He is very active, slim and tall and ALWAYS fucking hungry!

DD is 12 and loves fruit.
Breakfast - banana or an apple and a handful of grapes.
Lunch - a fruit pot with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes and pineapple
pudding - an apple

This is daily and costs around £10 a week, and then when she runs out I tell her I’m only topping up on grapes and apples until the main weekly shop. I just can’t afford to buy more berries. She pulls a face, because she too really loves berries but she does understand they’re expensive.

That is a lot of fruit and therefore sugar.

Would they eat salad?

Start buying apples, pears, satsumas - much cheaper! Watermelon can be good value for money.

I don't think that's too much for a growing boy. It's only a problem if you can't afford it surely?

She does have other things for lunch as well as the fruit pot btw 😂

You can bulk salad out more, cucumber and carrot and peppers used to go down well with ds

My foster son loves fruit. On a typical day he eats a banana, 2 apples, 3 large satsumas, 1/2 punnet of grapes, strawberries and picks all the raspberries in the garden. He will happily substitute grapes for melon or nectarines/peaches. I let him because I don't he got much fruit before he came to me. He drinks loads of milk too, at least 2 pints a day.

I suppose I’m remembering when I was growing up - I think it really was just an apple a day! A pear sometimes for variety and satsumas seemed to be at Christmas. Berries were a massive, occasional treat. He’s just started eating lettuce and tomatoes so I can bulk his sandwiches out with this, the only veg is raw carrot or sweetcorn. I think I’m just trying to look at ways to cut our outgoings but don’t want him to not eat anything good. As well as his breakfast, lunch and dinner and all that fruit, I’ve just realised he’s had chocolate rice cakes, a bag of crisps, 1/2 packet of crackers (I think with jam on them) and he was on a school trip today and had a fiver I think he spent on chocolate and smoothies. I think I’m just looking at healthy alternatives, however we can (just about) afford his fruit habit although I think I’ll encourage more apples /pears/cheaper fruit. I will add he’s so skinny and teeth perfect so if his diet is bad it’s not caught up with him yet.

I think that's ok quantity wise it's the same as a portion of chips and you wouldn't think twice about it

Why don't you stock up on tinned fruit?
I've always loved a bowl of tinned pears.
You can also buy bags of frozen berries.

This might sound like a daft question but if I get frozen fruit do I just defrost overnight? And does it taste the same as fresh but cheaper? I used to love tinned fruit - I think that was a treat in my teenage years with ice cream for pudding!

Aren't apples and satsumas more expensive now as they're out of season? I haven't seen a satsuma/clementine/mandarin for months! Buy whatever's cheapest! Melon is pretty cheap at the moment - I paid €1.49 for a large on last week - easily 6 servings. Nectarines and peaches should be cheap too - nectarines are €1.99 a kilo. Plums will be in season soon. Bananas are always a reasonable price. Would he eat the odd carrot instead of one fruit serving?

Re defrosting - I defrost a serving of berries (75-100g) for breakfast for 2 mins on half power (450). They are defrosted but not warm. A bit of juice will run out which mixes nicely with yoghurt or ice cream.

Buy what’s in season. Fruit is good. Let him eat it, how old is he?

This might be a bit of a radical solution, but have you considered growing some fruit? Raspberry canes in particular are the easiest thing in the world to grow, and provide a steady supply of fruit to snack on during the season, ripening a few at a times so that you can't pig on them all at once. Even better, having to go outside to pick anything he wants to eat is likely to reduce consumption compared with having it on demand from the kitchen.

My12 year old is the same as she loves fruit but I think everything in moderation.
I have been buying watermelon recently and that is not too expensive but again she can’t eat half a watermelon to herself as well as everything else .🤣
She also loves sliced cucumber and sliced tomatoes with a pinch of salt and again she can have it but not too much .

Tinned pears and peaches in juice are lovely
Apple, add peanut butter on as it's more filling
Frozen grapes take longer to eat
I put frozen raspberries in porridge

Just stock up with the cheaper fruit options apples 6 for 80p bananas buy loose works out cheaper pears if in season, oranges, and whats in season we go through tons of fruit too but buy buying the cheaper options I spend around 15 a week on fruit

What would you replace it with though?
I think all food is expensive now, and at least fruit is healthy.

Not good for teeth though as absolutely FULL of sugar

If you have a garden then I agree with growing some fruit. I have a pear tree and the pears are fabulous.

The only problem is that the pears all ripen at the same time.

I was also brought up with just apples and occasionally a pear or an orange. Cherries once a year.

There were grapes and melon in the shop but they were mostly from South Africa so banned in our house.

I'd provide the less expensive stuff, apples, pears, bananas, and things on the discount stuff, stuff in season etc.

But I suspect if you could stop him eating quite so much sugar in the form of fruit (which really has got whopping amounts in it, the amount of insulin I need to inject to eat fruit is huge and the speed with which it increases my BG, wow.) and filled him up on more fibrous veg and slow release carbs, you might find he is less hungry.

Even in a slim healthy person that sugar will spike BG and cause a crash, in a non diabetic that spike might not be dangerously high but it still causes peaks and troughs, the troughs leave you feeling ravenous... and so there goes your half a pack of crackers covered in jam which spikes BG... and hes full for five minutes.. and then it crashes and off he trots to the bottomless supply of Mums food again...

Brown bread, protein, lettuce, salad leaves, peppers, cucumber, sweetcorn should all fill him up more (and neatly, make great sandwich fillers).

The OP has said that she can't afford it.

I know Mumsnet is full of the 'just buy more' crowd that love to stealth boast about their DCs prodigious fruit and veg intake, but back in the real world where people don't have unlimited money to throw into a bottomless pit you have to be a little more realistic.

OP I'd buy less of the more expensive fruit like berries and grapes and more of cheaper fruit like bananas and whatever is on offer (look at the 'Super 6' type offers that most supermarkets do) along with frozen and canned fruit, which is much cheaper. Set your budget and tell him when it's gone, it's gone.

Would he eat crudites made from carrots, courgettes and peppers? He could chop some of those up and also start making his own hummus or other pulse based dips to dip them into. If he's too lazy to do that, he can go hungry until his next meal time. He's old enough to put some of the effort in himself rather than expecting you to magically have ready to eat food on tap for him.

It also sounds like he's eating a lot of carbs, which might not be keeping him full, so encourage him to eat more protein, like the aforementioned pulse based dips and maybe things like eggs on toast, which aren't too expensive.