Worried about family getting enough calories

[Tatoumorse]

We've been very poor lately, paying back debts, I have researched all of our entitlements where we live (abroad).

I'm constantly cold now it's winter as per last year, and my teenage boy and younger one are always hungry. Today googling other things I think we may be undernourished, never crossed my mind before.
I thought we have a healthy diet, porridge/yoghurt breakfast, boiled egg/peanut butter toast for lunch, with a small cereal bar each, then pasta/rice-based veggie dish or chicken for tea, occasional burgers and occasional cake.
But today I added up the calories and we get approx 500 max per day if I calculated correctly. I'm really worried this is way off what we should be getting and may be a source of several health problems now that I'm joining the dots.
I am not a bad parent but I had a poor upbringing, not to blame that, but I never learnt about nutrition, I was actuallly more worried about overfeeding my kids (unhealthy snacks, etc.) Now I feel awful.

On a VERY limited income, how can I boost our calorie intake in a healthy way quickly? I wonder about protein shakes, or noodle snacks? Any advice please, but not on the debt issue as that is in hand, I had expert advice on it etc. and am just having to do my best and pay back over a 2 year period

Are you ok with bread? That's cheap to add it to most meals with some butter on the side and will add some calories
Maybe also look (I don't know how expensive they are where you are) at a multi vitamin for you all

You can make jacket potatoes in the slow cooker, put a tea towel under the lid to make them crispy

Agree your maths must be wrong somewhere, but if you are all hungry then you need more food. Pulses are the cheapest way to make filling food without junk. Chickpeas and all kinds of beans, lentils are filling and give you protein. Make stews or salads. For more protein add nuts to salads, peanut butter banana sandwiches for lunch, eggs (and meat when you have it, I don’t eat it). Then plenty of carbs as well as fats for growing boys, pasta, rice, potatoes, bread. Fats - butter and full fat milk, cheese. This is how I ate on a very tight budget as a twenty something. I bought pulses and grains unbagged from my local food co-op, which was much cheaper. (You took your own bag and bought them by weight), then any vegetable eg carrots, beans, dark leafy greens.
Brown rice with chickpea curry was very filling and cheap.

There's no way that is 500 calories.

A standard portion of porridge is around 150 calories, a yoghurt more like 100, a boiled egg 60-80, a tablespoon of peanut butter ~100, a slice of toast ~100, a cereal bar 1-200, a standard portion of a veggie pasta or rice dish around 350-400 calories (without cheese).

I think that sounds like quite a healthy day, although it does sound like more fruit and veg is needed, and I'd guess the calories are more like 1000-1200 calories.

If you feel your family aren't getting enough then maybe think about adding bananas, dried fruit, nuts, healthy fats and maybe upping portions of carbs.

Honestly, I think it sounds fine. You're giving yourself quite a hard time here but it does sound like you're doing a great job for your family in a difficult period.

Are you all underweight, or rapidly losing weight?

I also think your maths is wrong.

Teenagers are always hungry - I'd be filling them up on toast, pasta, more porridge. You can do baked potato in a slow cooker. Lentil Dahl is spicy and healthy.

For the cost of the cereal bars you could make loads of flapjack or a cake in the slow cooker (google is your friend).

Ok OP, I think the 500 calories needs to be put aside. While clearly you are eating more calories than that, the key point is that you are all so hungry and cold. That's dreadful.

I know your financial situation is really difficult, and that you are living abroad.

Is there anyway to boost your income (in whatever capacity) so that you at least have sufficient food and are warm?

For example, in Ireland (where I am) you would have entitlements to social welfare benefits as a single parent under a certain income. I know you say you have help with dealing with the debt, but dealing with it in such a way that you cannot afford food or heat is not practical.

I don't know where you are, but you mention you are working - is there no other support you can avail of in your locality?

Forget the calories. If you are all constantly hungry that's what you need to focus on.

I'm very sorry you are in this position.

Some of it is most likely nutrients rather than calories. I was bottomless pit always hungry as teenager.
If you have ibs you are absorbimg badly nutrients. Can yor family doctor do bloods on all of you?
If you were that extremely calorie deficient you would be losing considerable amount of weight. Considerable.
Look into getting some multivitamin in. You can buy cheap brands qith VERY similar numbers like expensive ones have.

Also find aome fb groups and pages how to cook on budget in France. There will be lots. They will have your local info about affordable food

OP teenage boys need a huge amount of calories - about 2500-3000 . There is a chart on the NHS website . So that might explain his hunger .

As others have said pulses are cheap and filling and oats could be used to make cookies and flapjacks quite cheaply . Nuts can be expensive but again are very calorific

I can't really judge without seeing exactly what your eating. But I know there's more than 500kcal in an adult cooked meal with meat and veg etc. Peanut butter has quite a few calories in. You would be surprised.

1000-1200 calories a day for teenage boys and growing children is malnourishment. She isn't doing ok, she's underfeeding them drastically. Probably half what they need.

Would your family eat Asian food? It is brilliant for cost, nutrition and protein if they will eat lentils, beans or tofu/paneer.

Basically you need to learn to cook cuisines that do not rely heavily on meat, so Indian, Mediterranean, Chinese ( up to a point).

I find it hard to believe that's 500 calories, unless it's 1 egg, 1 small slice of toast with no butter, porridge made with water, and very small portions of dinner! We all tend to underestimate calories.

However, even if it is normal portions of these fods (eg 2-3 eggs, 2 slices toast, butter) that doesn't sound like much food for teenage boys for a day. I think you could make these meals more dense and also up the fruit/veg/nuts and seeds content. I would normally put peanut butter or whole nuts, and dried fruit into porridge, for example.

We don't have anything other than an electric hob so jacket potatoes difficult but am saving up for a microwave

OP if the budget will stretch you'd probably be much better off buying an Air frier than a microwave, especially as you have a way of already cooking/reheating foods on a stove top, as it will be more useful and the food would, IMO, taste better.

As much as things like smoothies and protein drinks sound good they really won't fill you up for long.
Things like chicken, beans, pulses and fiber are all good sources of protein plus a Greek yogurt, these things will keep you feeling fuller for longer periods.

Cereal bars can be quite high in sugar and wholemeal bread would probably be much better and a pretty good source of fiber to.

Do you have an open fire at all, if not not that I'd advocate bonfires but is there anyway you could have a small fire pit type thing outside and wrap potatoes in foil to cook.

As mentioned local FB/Instagram groups will be worth a look as well, there are a few out there that pretty good at making budget friendly eats that look and taste pretty good.

Rather than saving for a microwave you might do better with a slow cooker as that means you can do casseroles and soups?

Do you have a freezer?

Whereabouts in France are you? If close to the German border, I can lend you my trusty tabletop oven...

I put some of the examples you eat in a typical day in my calorie app

Porridge made with water 30g. 114 calories
Toast and boiled egg and cereal bar - 178 calories
Chicken and pasta - 320 calories

So a total of 612 calories. This assumes no butter on toast and porridge not made with milk or sugar and only one slice of toast and one egg. The chicken. I allowed for one chicken breast and medium portion of pasta

Look up budget slow cooker meals eg. https://realfood.tesco.com/budget-meals/slow-cooker.html
https://www.iceland.co.uk/blog/recipes/method-slow-cooker/
Use lentils and pulses to bulk out casseroles, make chunky vegetable stews/soups (both in slow cooker) and serve with crusty bread and a topping of grated cheese.
Porridge with whole milk, banana and honey for breakfast, cooked overnight in slow cooker.
Lots of economical options on the internet including vegetarian options.

At uni I lived off pasta with white sauce, spiced frozen vegetables and a tiny amount of grated cheese. And jackets with off brand beans. Highly recommend.

Sausage casserole made in a slow cooker is lovely. Not expensive and if you add some crusty bread it will add more calories

I am going to watch this thread and respond when OP has more accurately worked out how much they're eating. The food sounds OK, it's the quantities we need to know about.

I am living through my second son having the hollow leg phase. I am astonished at how much he needs to eat.

I spend much of my time between meals muttering "have a banana".

OP, food to fill up growing teenagers doesn't need to be expensive.

I do think your maths could be wrong but even if it is wrong, those meals are more than likely not enough for your 2 boys especially as they are still growing and so probably need around 2000 per day. I’ve popped what you have said your day of eating looks like into my calorie counter app and obviously I have assumed average servings of each, by my calculations you’re probably consuming about 1200 calories a day like this. There are some quick and possibly easy changes you could make to adapt to increase calories.

Breakfast- Porridge is a good solid breakfast, depending on portion size obviously, you could add extra calories here by adding things to your porridge, for example pieces of dark chocolate (aldi do bars of this for 37p- there may be an equivalent where you are), also popping some peanut butter on there which I know you mentioned you typically have for lunch.

Mid morning snack- cereal bar as you mentioned, a piece of fruit like a banana which can be cheaper.

Lunch- rather than doing something on toast, I would try and make lunch a pasta/rice dish. Something simple and cheap enough to make like tuna pasta, literally a tin of tuna with a portion of pasta (55p a tin from aldi if you have a similar shop), possibly with some spinach chucked in for volume.

Mid afternoon snack- Nuts, honestly when you need to boost your calories nuts are going to be your best friend. Again, a bag of mixed nuts from aldi is 60-70p and each bag is 800 calories, so even a quarter of a bag would give an extra 200 calories.

Evening meal- your rice/pasta dishes could be perfect, but like other posters have mentioned you could bulk these up by including more lentils, beans etc. If still hungry after tea then a boiled egg/peanut butter on toast snack. (Possibly using bagels instead of toast if possible).

Also totally agree with other posters mentioning slow cookers, they are great for batch cooking things and can make a lovely meal quite cheaply that way in bulk!

people tend to massively underestimate the amount of calories they consume.

porridge/yoghurt breakfast, boiled egg/peanut butter toast for lunch, with a small cereal bar each, then pasta/rice-based veggie dish or chicken for tea, occasional burgers and occasional cake.
But today I added up the calories and we get approx 500 max per day if I

Even if your portions were very small, there is honestly no way that you´ll be consuming 500 kcal max a day if that is indeed true. I think your maths must be wrong.

How I would calculate that (estimating small potions)

1. ca. 50 ml plain yoghurt or breakfast (less than 1/2 of a small yoghurt container): ca. 30 kcals
2. 1 cup of porridge: ca. 150 kcals
3. 1 egg: ca. 65 kcal
4. 2 slices of toast: ca 135 kcal
5. 1 table spoon of peanut butter: ca 100 kcal
6. 1 cereal bar: between 70 - 150 kcal
7. pasta (recommended serving sizes vary, let´s say 70 g dry, uncooked pasta): ca. 250 kcal
8. 1 chicken breast: at least (!) 200 kcal, probably more.
9. Vegetables: depends on what you´re eating. let´s say 50 kcal.
10. Oil / fat: 1 teaspoon (wich is very conservative!) of rapeseed oil: 40 kcal

That would still leave you below 1200 kcal and most likely nutritionally deficient. But obviously clearly over 500 kcals.

I would be extremely surprised if you weren´t consuming more calories tbh.

EDIT: But it still sounds like it may not be enough for 2 teenagers. Do they look thin? Or shorter than their peers?

Put some nuts, peanutbutter and sugar on that porridge.

Increase the slices of toast, peanut butter and amount of egg... put a banana on that toast. Is that your regular lunch? Beans, tomato sauce and rice is really cheap and quite healthy.

Pasta / rice with meat and veggies sounds fine. But portion size really matters. Bulk this meal with lentils, beans etc.

But even if you do increase the portion size: It still seems like it is lacking fresh produce. Is there any way you can access a food pantry? Or a food waste program? We have too good to go where we live and the price to quality (and quantity) ratio is astounding.