I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here.

I don't have food issues. I just also feel like a pound of ground beef is a lot of meat. I will use two boxes of pasta for tonight and I'll make extra meatballs. I feel like a failure. Even when I order a pizza and wings for the family they are still hungry. At this point my goal is really just to have left overs so I know everyone is content.

It doesn't matter how you feel. 1 lb of meat isn't very much for a family of 6 with 2 teenage athletes, a husband, and 2 smaller kids. You should serve at least 1/3 lb meat/per person. The teenagers will eat more and you can eat 2 oz. When you serve meat that is on the bone, you just adjust up so that the 2 lbs you cook is for eating.

OMG!! - Only 1 lb. of meat??!?!?

OP - that's only enough for 1/2 your family (2-3 ppl). You are buying bird food. DH, myself, and our 3 year old will clean out 1 lb of meat. Yesterday, 6 of us ate probably 3.5 lbs of meat - we had 1.5 pounds of london broil, plus a huge family/valu pak size of chicken wings (maybe 20 wings), PLUS rice and beans (4 cups DRY!), PLUS 1 lb of broccoli, PLUS a huge salad. And we aren't even fat!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here

Thank you all. It just seems like there is a ton of food in the grocery cart each week. In fact the cart is full. Outlawing junk is not gonna go over well with my kids.they are able to self regulate and not each too much.

I use one full cart, full to bursting, every 5 to 6 days and there are only 4 in my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here.

We had salsa and a can of black beans that I cooked with seasonings. I didn't serve rice because the tortillas are carbs and rice is another carb so I didn't think we needed it. My kids love my cooking and they say it's always delicious.

They requested spaghetti for dinner tonight so hopefully this will be more filling.

THEY NEED MORE CARBS than you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My takeaway from this thread:

I'm going to need a second refrigerator in 5 years.

I was thinking the exact same thing, especially after reading 21:40. Am I the only one who lives in a small house? Where are you supposed to keep all of this food?

We have a second smaller fridge in our bedroom for milk. If you have a small house, you simply start grocery shopping twice a week instead of weekly.

[Anonymous]

Im about to go to the grocery store. It's my day off so I should be able to shop around for deals and such. I'll get enough food for the week. Also I do have a Costco membership. Usually I spend about $150-200 per trip and I go about every two months. We usually get paper goods and fruit.

[Anonymous]

PP - I posted the 'honest question' post above. I believe you when you say you don't have significant food. I think though that you realize now that your sense of *actual* portion size needs is different from what you thought, and you can adjust that easily.

But I also want to point out that you seem afraid of 'messing up' your kids relationship to food, and I just want to say that restricting food amounts is probably the quickest way to mess that up - people with food insecurity often develop disordered eating habits. Providing healthy foods and allowing your kids the ability to self regulate a mounts is the best method to foster a healthy relationship to food.

So just make more food each night until you get leftovers, and start by doubling your current idea of the amounts - what you list is seriously what I would make for my family of 4 that including 2 elementary school girls.

[Anonymous]

This is a troll, people. she says she gets a pizza and wings for her 6 person family. That can't possibly be serious. My DH eats half a pizza himself. My TODDLER eats 2 pieces of pizza, my 5 year old at least 2. There is no way this person is not just yanking your chains. No one is this clueless.

[Anonymous]

For a family of 4 including a bottomless teen, I spend more like $400-500 at Costco every two months (plus weekly or twice-weekly grocery store trips for non-frozen perishables). $100-200? That's maybe ten items? Buy more food. A LOT more. Where is your DH? Maybe put him in charge of the shopping if you can't bring yourself to buy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a troll, people. she says she gets a pizza and wings for her 6 person family. That can't possibly be serious. My DH eats half a pizza himself. My TODDLER eats 2 pieces of pizza, my 5 year old at least 2. There is no way this person is not just yanking your chains. No one is this clueless.

I didn't mean literally one pizza. I do get more than that if everyone is here. Plus my husband and one son like special toppings so usually we have 3 pizzas and 20 wings and whatever bread stick/cheese stick option they have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a family of 4 including a bottomless teen, I spend more like $400-500 at Costco every two months (plus weekly or twice-weekly grocery store trips for non-frozen perishables). $100-200? That's maybe ten items? Buy more food. A LOT more. Where is your DH? Maybe put him in charge of the shopping if you can't bring yourself to buy it.

I will buy it. I just hate waste and I'm afraid to buy too much that will go to waste. I'll use this weeks shopping trip as an experiment. If there is not waste then I'll continue buying larger amounts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a family of 4 including a bottomless teen, I spend more like $400-500 at Costco every two months (plus weekly or twice-weekly grocery store trips for non-frozen perishables). $100-200? That's maybe ten items? Buy more food. A LOT more. Where is your DH? Maybe put him in charge of the shopping if you can't bring yourself to buy it.

I will buy it. I just hate waste and I'm afraid to buy too much that will go to waste. I'll use this weeks shopping trip as an experiment. If there is not waste then I'll continue buying larger amounts

It is good to not want to create too much waste. You used the word aversion, and I think that is your problem; it's an aversion that has controlled you to the point you won't feed your family enough. If there are leftovers, so what? That means there is enough food to manage the post-dinner muchies should they arise or to rollover to after school snack the next day. If you don't try it for a bit, you won't know whether there will actually be any waste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here.

I don't have food issues. I just also feel like a pound of ground beef is a lot of meat. I will use two boxes of pasta for tonight and I'll make extra meatballs. I feel like a failure. Even when I order a pizza and wings for the family they are still hungry. At this point my goal is really just to have left overs so I know everyone is content.

We use more than one pound of ground beef to feed 4 people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity -- how big a bag of cheese? How many tortillas did you use and how many pounds of chicken?

Those are random questions lol
It was a bag of Mexican blend cheese. The bag says it is 1 and a 1/4 cup. I know because I buy them all the time. I used 8 chicken thighs and cut them off the bones and grilled them that way. I used a whole onion and 4 big peppers. We had a bag of 10 flour tortillas.

My 17yo would eat that all by himself, and then ask for more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tonight's dinner I'm making meatballs using an lb of ground beef and I will use a full box of pasta and cheese. Baked spaghetti. I'm taking the pps advice and I'll make a salad with lettuce, spinach, sunflower seeds, mandarin oranges and thousand island dressing. They like that.

Make that 2 lbs.

Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For a family of 4 including a bottomless teen, I spend more like $400-500 at Costco every two months (plus weekly or twice-weekly grocery store trips for non-frozen perishables). $100-200? That's maybe ten items? Buy more food. A LOT more. Where is your DH? Maybe put him in charge of the shopping if you can't bring yourself to buy it.

I will buy it. I just hate waste and I'm afraid to buy too much that will go to waste. I'll use this weeks shopping trip as an experiment. If there is not waste then I'll continue buying larger amounts

Why would there be waste? Wouldn't your family eat leftovers?