In laws with tiny stomachs

[HumbleStumble]

Staying with in-laws (aged in late 60s). We are a normal healthy family with normal appetites (I think?). I am sick of having to "request" 3 meals a day. As far as I can work out they generally must eat a cup of tea for breakfast, a dry wafer with a thimble of cheese for lunch and a grilled sardine for dinner usually, with loud exclamations that the enormous amount consumed for each meal will see them out for the next few days.

Today I have had to drive to a cafe for a normal lunch and bought horderves "for Christmas" just to bulk up the dinner of boiled potatoes and two slices of ham. Children are ravenous. It was their choice of hosting, and I am paying for all the food (but they get to dictate the (lack of) menu!

Well yes that's a scientific fact. However if you are hosting people then surely you want to ensure your guests are comfortable and happy so you get extra in

I could absolutely go to town on plate of roast Horses Doofers. The meat would fall off the (tail) bone. Pair with rich bottle of equine.

Yeah my mum got like this.

she does at least acknowledge that other people want more than one meal a day.

best one from Christmas was when she suggested having turkey and a salad for Christmas Day which got a look of horror from literally everyone else in the room and she was firmly told that we will be having a proper Christmas dinner.

Every year on MN there is a post from someone spending Christmas with their stingy relatives who eat like birds and serve tiny portions to guests. Is it the same person, or is this is really common?!

It's hard to answer because I've had family members who consider I eat next to nothing and are starving myself when I have a perfect BMI and theirs put them in the overweight category. I don't have the heart to say to them that my calorie intake is fine, theirs on the other hand is the problem.

Yeah, fair enough. I'd be struggling to spell "hearty meal" on the miniscule amount of food you've been subsisting on. It's very inhospitable to starve one's guests.

My elderly dad has the appetite of a sparrow (and stomach issues and a hiatus hernia) so eats very little. But if you are visiting him he’ll fill a fridge for you. And throw money at you to buy more/eat out if you need to. Thinking ‘because I am not hungry others will not be hungry’ suggests a lack of empathy and is highly irritating.

OMG. I remember my late great aunt invited my late grandmother (they were sisters) they had one of those mini bottles of wine (a quarter of a standard bottle of wine) spilt 4 ways - a glass thimble over two meals. I say thimble as a quarter of these bottles is 45ml.

I don't eat 3 meals a day, it's not a requirement.

Yeah but it's not your effing business and if you're hosting then you're meant to host, not judge.

My father and grandmother are a bit like this and when I eat more than they do they always have to comment on my "healthy appetite" in a snide way. I'm not even overweight but they're particularly skinny and martyrs about it. Being underweight isn't even healthy FFS and these two don't look great either so I don't know why they even feel so superior.

I hope you can make other plans for next Christmas, OP! Somewhere you can eat well which surely is one of the great pleasures of Christmas.

As a child, I thought my parents pronounced it horses Dovers and it’s clearly been around a while
“Whatever you eat, may it always repeatBe it soup, fish, entree, or horse doovers,May blue bottles and flies descend from the skiesAnd use your bald head for manoeuvres.https://folksongandmusichall.com/index.php/christmas-day-in-the-cookhouse/

OP, tell your wet lettuce of a “D”H that this is your last visit at PIL’s and mean it. Never again.

Take the kids and go out to eat. Tell them that and F “not rocking the boat”

You’ve bought the food and they are refusing to give it to you and the kids?

Extremely rude and crap hosting.

We had an aunt like this , was very wealthy but so miserly with food . Every time we went to theirs for lunch we had to set off home and stop at the first cafe we found to eat properly . It’s not fun .

I think that this is grounds to leave your husband tbh 😄😄💐

My parents brought out a box of crackers (like crackers for cheese, not the type you pull), from last Christmas- the BB date was April 2025. “We just haven’t been able to get through them”. The definitely aren’t hard up, have had several holidays abroad this year, whilst being unable to finish a box of crackers. They were so soft 🤣

I have friends ( 70 ish ) who hosted their son and teenage sons at Christmas
roast potatoes were placed in the middle of the table , and everyone was told two each !
friends thought that was normal and were outraged at their gluttony ( lol) , however I have always a second tray of roasties cooking on the oven , for people to have as extras when they finish their main Also have early 20s lads to feed

incredulous was not the word !

Yeah but it's not your effing business and if you're hosting then you're meant to host, not judge
Who is judging whom? Maybe what they are eating, which I'm sure is slightly more than what OP described, is nornal for them so assume it is normal for others.

The same way OP believes what they eat is normal and the quantity her in laws eat is wrong.

We all have different appetite and eating habits. Maybe OP could stop criticising her in laws and just accept they will have to bring more food with them if they hav bigger appetites.

My stepmother has always been like this and she’s enlisted my dad into her micro eating ways. They are both tiny, twig thin now. With her it’s pretty clearly part of an eating disorder or OCD with a fixation on food and body shape and size. It’s very sad really, she got osteoporosis very young and I have wondered if it was exacerbated by not eating properly all her life.

A typical day for them would be toast for breakfast, fruit for lunch. A big, filling lunch would be 2 oatcakes and a blob of hummous. Then a very healthy carefully cooked dinner with quality meat bulked out with spinach and lentils. Sometimes lunch is skipped if something momentous happens like having a scone to share in a cafe.

I have always been made to feel like a big greedy giant for wanting more food, OP! I sympathise with you a lot.

Why can’t you cook a meal while you are staying there, as an adult and family why are you waiting to be served meals.

Yet my mid 80s mother eats 3 decent meals a day and eats more than 2 roasties

and over caters - which gets wearing

it’s not age

OMG, my sympathy. My gran, when I was growing up, was a family joke for her inability to judge how much food other people needed. I have a family member who was a nun, and therefore wasn't allowed personal property or her own money. Occasionally she'd be allowed out for a visit, and her mother superior used to give her official religious licence to buy biscuits, because it was understood that granny's regime was more abstemious than that of the nuns.

Sadly, my mum is now showing signs of going the same way. I went down a few weeks ago, and I'm pregnant and absolutely fucking starving all the time - she thought breakfast could be served around 10.30am, and could consist of a slice or two of toast.

I do try to be honest and just say mum, sorry, but honestly we eat more food than this. Your DH really should do that. You're not describing ridiculous excesses here.

Lmfao.

You have my sympathy

My uncle and his lovely lady partner are just like this.
Tea for breakfast, soup amd a slice of bread for lunch and a a slice of meat two bits of potato for dinner with a cup of tea for dessert. 😅😅😅

It blew their mind my toddler eats every 2 hours and I was.told i'd "make her as fat as a fool" about a billion times... shes 90th centile for height and 70th for weight but okay sure
.. 🤣

we bring oat bars in the suitcases and go out for lunch / but and cook dinner to say thank you.

Older people's metabolism are much slower I think

Never agree to Christmas at theirs again. As I'm getting older I recognise my boys and partners eat a lot more than me but it is my responsibility as a host to ensure there is lots of food for everyone. I would be mortified if guests were hungry.

Oh come on, she is bringing food! But normal people don't require their guests to hide food in their cars. It's silly. And not conducive to enjoying the visit.

My parents are getting like this.

Have an omlette for breakfast and they start telling everyone we won’t need dinner that evening because we have had so much to eat.

Bizarrely they will often then eat a normal
sized meal later in the day, having wound everyone up that no food will be provided / they’re terrible gluttonous for eating more than a tangerine in a 24h period.