What snack foods do you keep in?

[chaosmonkey]

Hiya, ds2 needs way more food than ds1, so i feel thrown! He is hungry all the time. He eats all of his dinner, then he eats 3/4 apples then toast...

He gets annoyed that hes not allowed more than this
I have agreed to have nuts/dried fruit/cheese in. He doesnt want more cereal unless it is sugary...

What do normal people have in as snacks for teenage boys? Kids say i am not normal as i am vegan and dont understand. Am single parent so dont have a male perspective!

Help! What do i need in my cupboard?

Hello,

Twins aged 16 (boy/girl) and they both eat "double dinner". They seem to get most hungry straight after school and at about 8-9pm (having already had a big dinner at about 6.30 ish). I am vegan too, and my kids think I am a complete weirdo as I eat seaweed, nuts and tofu lol!

I don't restrict their food as I can see they are genuinely hungry, but am on a budget. I have in: 'Marmite' rice cakes, Chilli rice cakes, falafels (you can get cheap huge packs), tomato juice, Cup-A-Soups (if you can get vegan - my kids aren't vegan so I get them non-vegan but veggie), gherkins (huge jars - weird but my kids like them), big loaf of bread, biscuits, baked beans....I make sure their main meals are nutritious but their snacks are not exactly wholesome! I asked them what they would eat as a snack that I would consider relatively healthy and not expensive. I was surprised by how sensible and odd (gherkins?) their list was. I am sure your son would be able to supply a list :-)

Also recommend a toastie maker and a lesson in using it (got mine £5 at Tesco). My son got very creative with cheese and bean toasties with sweet chilli sauce...I hate to admit it, but I also bought a freezer full of potato waffle crap things.

It's amazing how much they eat. I did try to hold out for mealtimes only, but discovered that they really do seem to need the extra calories.
Food and sleep - the two things they could do as an Olympic sport!!

~ Best wishes!

I tend to keep a freezer full of easy things that DD can do herself (and any visiting waifs!) - the frozen Baked potatoes are a great hit as she can add pretty much anything as a filling (but be aware of left overs if you intend to use them yourself - I've lost more than one lunch this way when the evening munchies strike!)

Cheese (and more cheese) .. anything with eggs that she can do herself and again uses all sorts of odd additional ingredients!

She's recently discovered Granola cereals with pouring yogurt ! (but that can get expensive)

She's quite careful about the healthy-ness level though so tends not to snack on chocolate or sweets (all the more for me!)

Apparently also 'kids' food is back in - smiley faces and dinosaur chicken bites .. at least that's what she feeds her friends !

Just reread your post PO - it's not just boys - girls can get through huge amounts!!

PO = OP !!

Homemade cake, vast amounts of ( fairly ) sugary cereal, apples, bacon and eggs ( teach them to make scrambled ) bagels, yoghurts, bananas. My DS 16 would live on cereal if I let him. I think it's just laziness.

What I don't buy is crisps, biscuits, soft drinks, commercially made cakes as these easy to over eat on and are unhealthy.

I've no idea, before I get to the snack cupboard it's empty :(

I reckon the average teenage boy eats more than double what a grown man would need. As long as they eat three proper healthy balanced meals I allow them free range of junk and fillers.
Crisps, home made cake, flap jacks, tortillas,toast, crisps, pop, lots of cereals, milk shakes, bacon sandwiches, pasta and cheese.... loads more. This is on top of meals remember.
Do you make them eat vegan? I imagine that would make it a minefield?

I just notice you won't let them have sugary cereal. I had rules like that when they were little but after about age 12 I gave up.They are skinny.

As well as meals, my ds eats probably two extra 'meals' over the day, from what his sister does.
He'll have.... a pizza, a ready meal, tin of raviolli/ spag and sos / pasta bol / mac cheese type things (he doesn't like beans for some reason). Yesterday he cut a load of cheese into cubes, covered it in salad cream and ate that. He likes any sort of pasta - mugshots for eg, or will have a pack of supernoodles.
Oddly, he won't eat cereal either, which is what I used to munch late in the evening when a teen.

I agree with the toastie maker, mine have beans and cheese in a toastie. They like those horrid super noddles. I tend to let them have dinner when they come in now, they are always starving by 5/6pm. We used to eat much later.

I get microwave rice pouches

Dd eats them with tomato purée and a little bit of grated cheese

Oreos also go down well

Oatcakes with peanut butter
Toast
Fruit
Milk is quite good to kill appetites
Plain yoghurt
Porridge

I'd let mine eat these as long we're not having a meal in the next few hours.

Make sure they're eating protein early in the day- eg eggs for breakfast.

My OH and I have six teenagers between us. (Two households, thank god.) The teens are all pretty active and they eat so, so much food.

For snacks they can have:

Fruit
Salad
Pasta meals
Any leftovers in the fridge
Sandwiches (Nutella, cheese, ham, tuna, and coleslaw are popular)
Crisps (gone in seconds)
Crackers and houmous
Toast (plain or with jam)
Cereal
Milk
Juice

My DS who is 15 just grew about two inches in a week and he is, simply, pretty hungry a lot of the time.

I am a cheapskate, so I don't buy crisps, biscuits, chocolate or anything they will vanish instantly. I think they will eat the plain stuff if they're genuinely hungry.

Fruit malt loaf is a great stand by

Oooh, thanks for all the tips and ideas!

I dont insist on them being vegan. I buy them milk eggs and cheese and said i will buy some free-range meat if they cook and wash up themselves - but they dont take me up on that!

Lol at oreos. Is this some special thing? Ds1 and his mates buy them as birthday presents for each other...

Maybe i will get over the sugary cereal thing, despite not stopping eating at any time for last 4 weeks he is stupidly skinny.

Thanks Andy! I may use that line the next time i hear Muuuuummmmmm what can i have to eèeeeàaaat?

Oooh, and i did do gherkins, but they will eat a huge jarvin one go, and i got bored of carrying all the food from the shop! Maybe its time to start internet shopping...

Healthy food
Ingredients to make unhealthy food, sometimes I use them, sometimes they have to bake or pop or fry stuff.
A willingness to let them buy their own snacks.

I ate a LOT as a teenager. My favourites were biscuits, toast, cheese and crackers, oatcakes, fruit, yoghurt, quick meals like pot noodles, couscous, pasta, scrambled eggs, french toast, bacon sandwiches etc.

Teenagers need a LOT of food, especially boys. Toast and apples really won't cut it I'm afraid!

I don't restrict food. Teens given three filling home made (usually) meals per day then they help themselves; crisps, microwave popcorn by the bucket, toast, brioche, bananas, paninni...

Also - twiglets, pretzels, soup, bisucits..

Uncle Ben microwave rice (loads of different flavours).

I hard boil a load of eggs every few days and leave them in the fridge for DS to snack on when he gets ravenous, along with cold meat, cheese, nuts, and [boak] sardines straight from the tin. It's more expensive than carbs but being protein heavy seems to fill him up.

We always have loaves of bread in the freezer and seem to go through gallons of milk, I keep crisps, cakes and biscuits to a minimum as otherwise I end up eating them too, so there is always something that he can eat, but maybe not what he would always want to, so he can have a bowl of porridge to fill him up rather than 4 bags of crisps.

2 teenage DDs here. Generally they both make a mugshot straight after school. Toast, toasties, cheese/eggs/spagetti hoops on toast. Pancakes. Crackers with cheese. Loads of fruit. Crudites with dip. Popcorn. My mum's banana cakes. Maltloaf. Cereal bars. Nuts. Anything edible really!
We have proper meals too :)

Anything they can grab fast. I even took photos of my DS just before he left to go to uni, sneaking into the kitchen and then looking at me slightly ashamed from the fridge! I told him that was how I saw him most often and how I would think of him - head in fridge!

When he's here, I cook a pack of sausages for him to have cold, twice a week. He has a camembert once a week and a large slab of cheddar, he has to lay off all other cheeses because otherwise we would never have any. A pack of sliced chorizo, I make a dozen rolls twice a week, he has peanut butter and chocolate spread, masses of fruit, I make individual flapjacks in bun tins and he has two a day. All this on top of granola for breakfast, soup, salad and bread for lunch plus sandwich, and a large evening meal. At uni with only a shelf and a drawer in the fridge he has to shop at least every two days. He also eats rice crackers and occasionally crisps, and popcorn. When he is home my shopping bill more than doubles. He eats more than me and DBH combined. Skinny as a rake - sickening.

Mine eat non stop. In winter, I try to always have a pot of home made soup on the go. Also wraps and paninis, always have ham, cheese and beans in. Popcorn, tortillas, chocolate spread. Hot chocolate.

I do buy crisps and biscuits, and I do bake muffins etc but I try not to have too much in the way of "goodies" in the house as they just get scoffed. They too are skinny minnies. Elder DS is really good at eating fruit but younger always tries to hold out for the crap. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time in the supermarket than I do in my own home!