RIght! Crisps, biscuits and cakes are banned from the house.

[OrmIrian]

Because whenever I buy them to go in lunchboxes they get snaffled and my older 2 DC are getting fat. They have good meals - balanced-ish and home-cooked but too much snacking on junk is causing havoc. So no more sandwiches and fruit in lunchboxes and no extras. I don't mind the off visit to the cake shop or the ice-cream van after school but nothing will be kept at home.

If they are hungry they can have cheese, ham, fruit, crackers, bread, I suspect they will find they are starving a lot less frequently than they have been.

How's that for a plan?

omg can't stand sugared popcorn tbh. Shudder shudder. Must be because I'm used to it salted.

What about a toasted sandwich?

popcorn is v easy to do in the microwave - you don't need to put any fat on it. Just bung 1/4 cup popping corn in a big dish with a splatter guard and nuke for a couple of mins. The kids think its a treat. They do put lots of salt on but most of it ends up at the bottom of the bowl.

BTW thanks for all the suggestions. Sorry should have said that before....

Cereal is the way to go, I feel. Tesco are doing 2 for 1 on huge boxes of Cheerios et al.

..as long as you can hide the sugar - I know DH can turn even the 'healthiest' cereal into something junkier than a mars bar

Yes to toasted sandwiches.

zen - I can't stand popcorn nekkid or dressed myself!

Having cross-posted - a non-boring, non-sinful popcorn flavouring is grated parmesan and black pepper.

Yes cereal will do the trick filling them up for a bit. Aren't those prepackaged cereals all extremely sugary though anyway, even if you add nothing but milk to them, except maybe weetabix or pure bran flakes (yuck)?

Muesli - is healthy and v delicious. Or am I odd?

Would they wreck the kitchen if you suggested beans on toast? Or tuna melts?

really? popcorn with grated parmesan. That would never have occured to me.

Interesting.

I like my popcorn but it has to be salted. I bought some at a fun fair once and nearly spat it out when I realised it was sweet. If I had expected it to be sweet, might have been different.

Ahh stealth! Cereal is a bit of story in this house. Started out with just cornflakes and weetabix (no sugar). But over the years my hard and fast rules have been eroded to the point where we were having chocolate covered this and that all the time! (I blame my CM). I put a stop to that but now we've gone down the honey route - honey nut cornflakes and honey hoops

But I have reintroduced plain rice crispies and cornflakes. I will have to wean them off their honey fix now.

hully - muesli is healthy and delicious! But only to me

I like muesli sometimes. Usually I like the ones with the extra crunchy sugary bits thrown in

which takes us back to sugar bomb cereals

banana milkshake

Hypnotise them - one good hypnosis session will be a fantastic investment.

at banana co-op

as teens my brothers and I survived on toast, bananas and cereal in between meals.

I used to come home form school and straightaway have a huge bowl of cornflakes and (full fat) milk - I don't do low-fat either, Orm. a bit of everything does most people just fine.

where do you stand on things like packet noodles? easy to do for the dc, and noodles bulks out soup well, and if you use shop/tinned soup then not too much hassle for you.

I have a similar battle - but I blame DH, who puts sugar on Frosties, FGS.

So far damage is largely limited to cheerios (DD) or weetabix with a drizzle (controlled by me) of maple syrup (DS).

Beans on toast are good but I would have to steal myself not to have a major meltdown about the state of the kitchen!

I get home at 5.30/6. Either DH or I cook dinner (the other one does lunch boxes) and I potter about doing chores. Then we have dinner. All of my remaining evening is taken up with hw and DS#2's bedtime (I have written thread on DS#2's bedtime before). At somet point I may get the chance to sit down before I fall into bed. Forgive me if I get a bit arsey at the prospect of cooking and cleaning up the kitchen again

ooh, beans a good idea - don't heinz do those microwave snack pots now? nice and filling.

Now do they? Handy.

Also they all love Heinz tomato soup.

I will make some soup though. I take it into work in the winter so I guess making a little more won't be that irksome.

yes, i think so. prob a bit £££ (compared to a normal tin) but worth in in the no-washing up stakes!

some rice noodles in tomato soup as it's heating up, plus a tin of tuna would work really well, imo.

Could you provide the choice of really boring stuff, or more interesting (beans/soup/etc) with a condition of complete clearing up - and then withdraw all but the most boring options for a week if when they fail to clear up?

Is there any chance of slowly weaning them off the snacking habit do you think? I doubt that they are seriously 'hungry' enough after dinner to eat all that stuff on your list earlier. I have found if I'm trying to lose weight I have to stop snacking, it is really hard for about a week and then I get out of the habit and don't feel like wandering into the kitchen every 30 minutes.

What I'm trying to say is if you're concerned about their weight I don't think you will fix the problem by replacing junky snack food with less junky snack food. I think you need to cut down on the amount of food they are eating when they are not really hungry.

Don't ask me how you do that though. What about having more dinner available for post-dinner hunger pangs? Less variety = less interesting ime.

Well I guess that is the ideal alarka. But the difference between you (and me) and them is that they are still growing. I just want them to grow up and not out IYSWIM. If I remember my childhood there were times when I was starving - genuinely so hungry I thought I would faint with it - so I don't want to stop them eating if they are. I just want to teach them to recognise when they are hungry and when they just 'fancy something'.

meltedmarsbars, you are soooo funny,I'm still laughing now as I write this.

I too thought you could eat the whole pig except the oink!!

Orm, I think a serious drop in variety will help them recognise that feeling, TBH.

We could all pig out at a Chinese buffet, then go home and have a piece of banoffee pie - but we wouldn't want more rice.

So I am in agreement with the extra dinner idea.

I had to introduce 'boring' supper with ds1, who would otherwise eat until he is sick.