Sign of never ending eating teen years to come
N has always been a good eater. Breakfast he can sometimes take it or leave it, but otherwise he’ll eat good meals and then be hungry in between. People always say children’s eating increases at times of growth spurts. But he doesn’t have huge growth spurts and therefore no eating increases. He just eats all the time. I’m dreading what he’s going to be like in the teen years.
Luckily N eats a well balanced diet. He’ll eat most vegetables, eats some things I won’t eat (loves smoked salmon and scampi). Although he does go through phases with fruit, and has a particular love for strawberry or cherry yoghurts.
Even if he moans about specific foods he doesn’t like – gammon, cooked peppers, courgette – he’ll usually still eat them. He’s a typical child who’ll like food one day and not the next. Sometimes it’ll be like a conversion. A different way of cooking something or a different sauce, and all of a sudden it’s one of his favourite dishes.
I do try and meal plan, and we have a well stocked freezer and larder. It helps having a ready supply of beef from the farm, and there’s usually homemade sausages too. I get my main shop on Friday mornings, and then top up if needed on milk, bread and the odd veg or fruit as needed from the village shop. But it doesn’t work when you plan meals and your child eats the ingredients you want to use.
The latest is pepperoni. N quite likes pepperoni – as it comes, in sandwiches, paninis, or pizza toppings. He’s created the ‘pizza toast’ which he sometimes makes himself for breakfast.
Usually he just uses the leftover pepperoni from the pack after I’ve used it for a pepperoni chicken recipe or similar. But this time I bought a pack, and after 2 days, he’s demolished the lot.
I’m going to have to start a ‘free for all’ shelf in the fridge. Anything that’s on there doesn’t have to be asked for. So then I’ll know that ingredients I need later in the week haven’t been eaten.
If N gets hungrier in the teenage years I dread to think how much food I’m going to have to have in the house. Two eating portions (or double, triple helpings like N sometimes has) the size of the OH’s helpings,..it’s going to be an expensive time.
N’s pepperoni pizza ‘toast’
- Spread tomato & basil pasta sauce on a slice of bread
- Sprinkle with grated cheese
- Top with pepperoni
- Put in the microwave until the cheese has melted. Eat with a knife and fork
(My recommendation would be to lightly toast the bread first, then add the topping and grill til the cheese has melted, but he’s not allowed to use the oven on his own, and eats breakfast too early in the morning for me to be up!).
Are your children permanently hungry? What weird things do they cook?
Awesome that N is making his own food and eating so well. My oldest has improved massively and they both do well on the variety front now – lockdown and family dinners have made a huge improvement.
I think for N it helped having nursery and then school meals. We don’t have curry or chinese etc because the OH won’t eat them, so although I mix up meals, there’s a lot we don’t have. He’s certainly a lot more open to trying different things than I was as a child.
My girls never stop eating.
I actually have a shelf in the fridge which is off limit to the kids. It has stuff on it for the coming weeks and a couple of my favourite yoghurts.
My girls are crazy about pepperoni. I can’t believe they’ve never thought about putting it on toast. x
That’s a good idea. My shelving is so well organised that it would probably end up having very little space for the ‘no touch’ shelf. I tend to shove stuff to the back. I’ll have to just tell him I’ve not bought any. Or distract him with other foods instead.