Hungry teens

[Perfectpeonies]

what do you regularly have in the keep your teens from being “absolutely starving” because “there’s never anything to eat” ?

I’m really struggling health wise at the moment so am unable to batch large meals like I used to do. We’re surviving on freezer food and ready meals but an hour after dinner they are all starving

What sort of thing would they like? Stuff to make toasties, bagels, wraps, instant noodles, crumpets, cereal, tinned soup, beans on toast, sausage rolls, fruit and yoghurt, peanut butter, flapjacks, popcorn.

I have a shelf in the fridge and in place in a cupboard full of the types of things listed by MrsKippling. The DCs are both teens and can help themselves whenever they want, without moaning to me about it. And CLEAR UP afterwards. There is also a notepad stuck to the fridge door and they can note down things we’ve run out of that they fancy. Within reason I try to buy it. They are both into bananas at the moment, I’ve never bought so many. On the whole it works. It’s not perfect, sometimes there is moaning because we’ve run out of something and sometimes I refuse to buy expensive things (mozzarella balls and extra coffee pods last week) and sometimes I moan because the kitchen is messy….

well, growng teens, especially boys, have a high calorie need.

I have 3 teens. and they can pack away food like crazy.
they eat easily double my portion at mealtimes plus big snacks.

they like to make themselves scrambled eggs (quick in the microwave) or a toastie (have morphy richard microwave toastie maker). or just a bowl of cereal with yoghurt.

there is a reason sandwich makers are so popular...

Last night my ds(14) ate a three egg omelette filled with bacon, cheese and cherry tomatoes, and chips, and then ate three hot cross buns.😮

I can still see all his ribs.

I keep a shelf with crisps, cheddars, hot cross buns and cereal bars plus a fruit bowl with at least four different types of fruit. Ds will also make toast and marmite or toast and bramble jelly.

I now base meals around foods with the highest satiety score - potatoes, eggs, nuts, leafy veg, pulses, fish, chicken and brown pasta. Potatoes are the most filling because they have a type of fibre called resistant starch which digests very slowly. White, highly-processed carbs, MSG and too much sugar can actually increase hunger.
Quick/easy meals in our house are omelettes, whole-wheat spaghetti carbonara, jacket potato with baked beans, sausages and mash, tuna meatballs.

Oh I remember so well the phase from when DS was about 13 to 16 and in one year grew 9 inches! Yoghurt was splitting a pack of 6 and eating three at a time, when he got home from school before me, he'd often have a microwave meal before dinner and there was the banana and fruit mountain. Something else I used to try to do was to have a huge bowl of pasta for quick availability:

Pasta 1
Whole packet of pasta, packet of smoked mackerel flaked, chopped spring onion, mayo, and combine.

Pasta 2
Whole packet of pasta, combined with: chopped bacon, half chopped onion, good quality tin of tomatoes, oregano, bit of puree, bit of stock. Combine the lot.

Both easy tuck ins after school and before dinner.

Teens - encourage them to be doing the cooking

2 teen boys in our house. We get through an awful lot of eggs. DH does the shopping and is currently struggling to keep the supply going as they can be hard to get hold of more than 1 box at a time.

Besides the point, I know… but … the direct quote is fine, (although I teach my children not to say this) the last comment about them being ‘starving’ is not true. 3 million children die every year of starvation and they are not in the UK! You are not starving an hour after food, just hungry from all the overly processed, addictive crap we are sold in the name of convenience.

Bacon, eggs, spicy rice, noodles, sausage rolls, crisps, biscuits - not exactly healthy but DS is 19, has a very physical job, goes to the gym for 1-2 hours most evenings and walks everywhere so burns it all off.

Something on toast (cheese, beans, eggs, tomatoes, spaghetti, pate, marmite, chocolate spread, peanut butter, biscoff, jam).

Sandwiches (cheese/ham/tuna/jam/bacon/sausage etc) or toasted sandwiches.

Boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, omelette.

Beige from the freezer (e.g. fishfingers and chips/cheesy chips/peri fries/nuggets and chips/southern fried chicken and chips/crispy pancakes etc) done in the airfryer (This may not work if you're having those for meals).

Pasta and pesto/pasta and tomato sauce/pasta and cheesy sauce/pasta with grated cheese on top/fresh tortelloni/tins of ravioli, spag bol, mac and cheese.

Supernoodles/pot noodles.

Instant mash and baked beans with cheese grated on it, or instant mash, instant gravy and peas.

Mini pizzas/sausage rolls

Biscuits (usually cheap ones like custard creams or bourbons) with hot chocolate or hot milk or cold milk or milkshake.

Yoghurts. Fruit. Hummus and veg sticks.

Popcorn (not really filling, but they like making it and eating it as a snack).

They're responsible for making and clearing up after their snacks. My job is just to keep the cupboards full! Most of the things they eat are staples that we'd have in the weekly shop anyway. I just tend to buy more and cheaper, unbranded versions because of the amount they get through. Definitely quantity over quality when feeding bottomless teens!

Mine mostly fills up on toast or cereal, but we also keep quick pasta meals in the freezer which are a godsend.

It is astonishing how much a 17 year old boy can eat! Mine has a very active job and he comes home ravenous.

This is an interesting thread. My 14 year old in year 9 has had a big growth spurt in year 8 and ate me out of house and home, and now seems to have stopped. Do they tend to have a second big growth spurt? Or a smaller one? He seems quite short to be fully grown but hasn’t grown at all since September.

My ds is 14, if he needs extra food he can help himself to toast, sandwiches, hot x buns, cereal and fruit. But tbh the type of meals we cook (try to make high protein) tend to keep him fairly full.

Do your meals have a good balance of carbs, fat, and protein? All are important to keep someone feeling full.

Outside of that I was always told there was plenty of fruit in the fruit bowl, and if I wasn't hungry for that I clearly wasn't actually that hungry.

I seem to always have rice on the go, and something to accompany in the slowcooker. So big vats of Thai curry, dal, chilli, brisket etc. Anything left over (rare tbh) is frozen.

Mine are good chefs (mediocre at kitchen cleaning but improving ). There’s never any eggs because they eat billions. I buy meat trimmings because they eat deli meats like they’re millionaires. Baguettes are cheap and satisfying. Rice/ potatoes/ lentils I get in sacks from an Asian supermarket, where I also buy (not so healthy) packs of instant ramen and an array of hot chilli sauces/ seasonings.
Mine like those Instagram accounts with a billion ways to make pasta although usually settle for a jar of lidl pasta sauce and some cheese.
popcorn I also buy in big sacks, for snacking.

One of my teens loved peanut butter and could go through 2 jars a week. He preferred the no-added-sugar varieties, which come in small jars.

Another loved hard-boiled eggs, so I would boil a dozen every Sunday and keep them in the fridge. They would all be gone by the next weekend.

So many recommendations for noodles here..
mom another one.. my teenage ds goes through at least 10 packets of noodles a week. There’s a specific brand from the Asian aisle in Asda he likes, about 60p a packet. He then adds spices / sauces from the cuboard himself, also adding meats etc if there’s any ham or salami in fridge too. I’m waiting for him to be fed up with them but it’s a been about a year now of his noodle obsession.
scrambled eggs he loves too..

Fruit
Cheese
Cereal
Noodles
Bread

Dd always went straight for the noodles and got me to make them for her, ditto cheese toasties.
The fruit went untouched unless I cut it all up nicely for her.
Cereal was a last resort when I refused to do the rest.

This brand are really cheap, my corner shop does them at 3 for £1 and they're v tasty.
I often have them too with some stir fry veg.

I am not willling to provide (with labour or ingredients) additional full meals. So I certainly wouldn't be batch cooking anything that they can then eat after they've had a proper dinner. I DO provide large portions of dinner. Ds usually is starving when he gets in from school - he'll have cereal or bagels or eggs on toast or a jacket potato with cheese/beans or similar. I'm encouraging him to et more fruit too. Sometimes I batch cook portions of muffins or flapjack type things and he can have one or two of those.

After supper, if he's still hungry, he might make a sandwich or have some weetabix. I'd take it pretty badly if he now wanted, for example, a batch-cooked portion of bolognaise from the freezer!

Why on Earth wouldn't you provide extra food if your child needs more? If you don't want to cook, provide the ingredients and teach your child to cook healthy food for themselves.

As long as you cN afford it.and you've.got a good base with them regarding food,nutrition and good meals then I'd also just allow the "crap"(dont beleive any food is but just for what people describe this typenof food by.).yup often by the packet. It won't last.and if they have food neutrality at home they will soon be over this stage.
Don't over think what they are eating and cravi g at this age. It's exactly 💯 what their body and mind are telling them to do naturally at this stage,for so.ma y reasons not just actually needing a large amount calories wise.
Also things like.
Cheddar
Bagels
Things to make sandwiches.
A cooked chicken
Cheap bread for toast
Cereal bowls for days
Wraps
Eggs
Quick cook packs of tortellini

I think we kept mcvities in business. But no big deal was made.and he learnt.and stopped as quickly as he started.
With the caveat I hope your boys no how to cook meals. This will be the difference and also how they love on from this stage.