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!

It really won’t cause any blood sugar issues in a healthy person. The glycaemic load of fresh fruit is very low - and often lower than your suggestions of peppers, sweetcorn or bread. There is no health advice for healthy or diabetic people that recommends limiting fruit. The issue here is purely cost, not health.

My DS would eat that, or 5 apples a day which is cheaper (he's 10, mildly fussy eater due to SEN, and grew 4 cm so far this year). So we buy apples, bananas, pears, kiwi (he waits for me to cut those up so they last longer), strawberries when they are cheap i.e. in season. DD likes clementines but DS doesn't.
I know MN thinks all fruit is horrendously full of sugar but DH has diabetes and we don't buy grapes for that reason so they are a treat for the DCs. Everything else is fine for DH so I think will be fine for DCs.

I agree, I'd think any teenager who didn't consider others and ate more than their share of any food was either very selfish, or else had grown up with a limitless grocery budget! Even then, someone still has to go out and get more if someone else has selfishly eaten the lot. DS wouldn't dream of it, but we have always been on a low income.

@TuftyMarmoset my DH does find grapes spike his sugars - but no other fruits.

This, to me, would be one of the descriptors of: 'What is an indicator of being middle class?' which is sometimes posed, as a question, on Mumsnet. Only the few can afford to be eating a complete range of leaves and fruits.

Eating a lot of berries is really healthy, and makes you feel great, but expensive. Street markets are cheaper, if you have them nearby. A good reason to grow your own.

I actually feel that soft fruit is fresher and healthier than a drying up satsuma and ( horrible and tasteless) braeburn - unless you can access Cox/Worcester varieties.

It is really hard to afford healthy eating: veg is expensive - relatively, as you still need the other food groups for energy, so you can't choose only to prioritize fruit and veg.
Because we are anti-sugar, we don't preserve fruit and eat it bottled or jammed during winter. Perhaps we ought to, for the viatamins.

Feel your pain OP. 4 sons here.

Part of eating fruit is IMHO the easiness and accessibility of it. They can reach out, grab it, and boom it's gone! 😁 Cave men on the prowl literally.

If it's there mine will eat it. Including whole packs of grapes.

Lately I've been buying water melon slicing it and leaving it in the fridge. That's been quite budget friendly.

I also buy roasted monkey nuts ( currently not too expensive around £1.25 for a big bag ) in their shells and that's been popular. Slows them down a bit eating them. And protein.

Ideally I'd like them to have a decent snack when they come in. Egg on wh'm toast, Cereal, banana and oat smoothie and that cuts down a bit on the fruit grazing . But hey they do sometimes 🤷‍♀️and sometimes they don't. It's like a pack of locusts.

Bananas still seem to be good value.

Put oats, banana, milk and tsp vanilla / or a spoon of frozen fruit and blitz.

personally I find frozen fruit horrendously expensive.

Exactly what I came on to say
No-one needs that many snacks between meals, fruit or otherwise
I think you’re focussing on the wrong thing OP

I wish my kids would eat this much fruit (even between 2) in a week!

DH and DS are both like fucking fruit bats. We buy fruit that takes longer to access (oranges, pineapples etc) or mix with porridge to bulk up on calories. Still coats a small fortune though.

Bit if a tangent but my raspberries are always full of tiny white caterpillars. How do i get rid of them ?

I have this with my 5 year old, we once told her to just help herself to fruit any time (thinking it'd be healthy)...just treated myself to some flat peaches only to find she'd smashed through 2 of them, 5 minutes after they went in the fruit bowl and they're not even ripe! 😣
My new plan is to have a Cheap Fruit bowl and a Posh Fruit bowl, and the kids can trough as much cheap fruit as they like but they have to apply in triplicate with 3 weeks notice to get a pass for the posh fruit. Or maybe just do chores....

I soak homegrown raspberries in salt water and then rinse to get the maggots out. The joys of organic home produce! (I think you can spray the blossoms but I try not to use chemicals).

Oh and we've tried growing fruit too...they ate it all, unripe, in a matter of days and blamed it on birds 😆

Sounds like too much fruit, too expensive, all sweet, carbs, what about instead more vegetables, more protein? To keep them full for longer?

Of course she does,we all do, because the things you list- berries,fresh coconut etc are luxury foods!

Tinned pineapple, bags of apples and pears. The cheaper range of blueberries are around 80p a punnet at Tesco. Bananas. Maybe offer alternatives like carrot sticks/cucumber/raw pepper and humous. Boiled eggs as someone else mentioned. Bowl of cereal?

It's a myth that whole fruit is 'full of sugar'. The vast majority of sugar in whole fruit is bound up in cellular structures that are indigestible and so moves out of our system along with the fibre. Juicing or blending fruits into smoothies breaks down the structures and releases the sugar to be digestible.

I can't afford to buy all that fruit either, it's healthy but insane! Buy cheaper fruits etc.g. apples, bananas, satsumas, melon, grapes.

Aldi super 6 have peaches 4 for 49p this week. I imagine they will be like rocks but if you stock up and keep an eye on them for ripeness. That changes weekly m&s do a similar 65p range that changes and sainsburys. If it's possible it might be worth shopping around to get the bargains.

Have a look at oddbox. They take the produce that supermarkets done want so if there's just too many, they aren't the right shape etc etc. I get a weekly salad box but they do a just fruit box.

To be honest I think it's good that he is getting a lot of nutrition but this may be a bit more manageable cost wise for you.

If you use my code below there is £10 off your first box if you wanted to give it a go.

mention-me.com/m/ol/ax2oh-laurie-fryer

Why is he so hungry all the time? Perhaps consider more protein with his main meals so he snacks on fruit less in between? Try tinned or frozen fruit instead?

Fruit is very good for him. Someone mentioned the sugar - I think the sugar in fruit isn't as bad for you as the white sugar in cakes etc.

Could you grow some strawberries, raspberries, get an apple tree, pear tree if you have room in your garden? Pineapples are quite cheap at the moment - £1 in M & S.
Otherwise, try buying fruit from a market instead of the supermarket, it's usually cheaper.

Mine are adults now. One would live on fruit and veg, the other eats a bit less. When they lived at home it would be an average of 2 apples, 1 orange, 2 bananas, a bowl full of berries, half a mango.

Why is he so hungry all the time? Perhaps consider more protein with his main meals so he snacks on fruit less in between? Try tinned or frozen fruit instead?

With respect this is what teenage boys are like! I only have boys but I imagine girls could be the same.

Frozen fruit is a RIDICULOUS price.