I'm having trouble keeping everyone fed.
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Anonymous
| You're not making enough. Offer more protein, more fiber. |
Anonymous
Every HS athlete I deal with drinks ensure and eats ice cream by the gallon. |
Anonymous
| The toddler moms are smart enough to be able to extrapolate. If my children ALL 8 AND YOUNGER can easily eat far more than what OP describes feeding her older, more rapidly growing athletes, well, I think I can draw a conclusion from that. |
Anonymous
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You're not making enough food.
For two adults, a toddler, an elementary and child and two teens your weekly food description sounds scant. Yes it's a lot of food, but 24 eggs among 6 people is 4 per person for a week. Your teens will eat that in 20 minutes. For all of you you should have two baguettes, mashed potatoes made from a whole 5 lb bag (sure there'll probably be leftovers, save them) and 2 bags of salad lettuce. I don't eat a lot of meat but 2 chicken legs per person sounds reasonable if a few of you eat just 1. Your kids are hungry. |
Anonymous
My oldest DC may only be 6, but even I know 10 chicken legs is ridiculous for a family of 6. And we eat 18 eggs a week. I think OP needs to adjust her expectations and put some different meals in rotation. I can still remember what it was like with 2 teenage brothers - the amount of food they ate was insane. |
Anonymous
I have 2 teenaged boys and an 11 yo DD. DH and I eat norm human quantities. 
I don't want them filling up on cereal (both for cost and for nutrition), so for breakfast I buy (weekly) 3 large containers of full-fat greek yogurt, a large bag of sliced almonds, 4 pints of berries, and 3 boxes of granola. I also make on the weekend and freeze an entire package of whole-grain pancake mix, which they eat with nut butter. I also boil 2 dozen eggs. I also buy a bag each of apples and oranges and several bunches of bananas, all of which they also eat with nut butter and/or greek yogurt. We also go through a jug of maple syrup each week to sweeten all the yogurt. And I get them each a gallon of whole milk (literally theirs--their name goes on it and if they run out, that's it). I always keep boxed muffin mix in the house in case we run out of breakfast food before grocery day. For lunches I buy: 6 loaves of bread, an entire ham, 3 cans of chicken or 6 cans of tuna (I mix up a salad on the weekend), and ingredients for a big batch of lentil "sloppy joes). I also buy several heads of lettuce, some avocados if they are on sale, a few lbs of tomatoes, some onions and mayo and several blocks of different kinds of full-fat cheese. When they get home from school/practice we have vegetables for snacks. Each week I buy two large bags of baby carrots, 3 heads of celery and some mushrooms or broccoli or peppers (rotate according to sales for some variety) which they eat with dip (2 tubs of hummus and 2 tubs of full-fat sour cream with ranch seasoning mixed in and 2 jars of salsa. They each get 2 large boxes of crackers per week (again labeled), which varies with sales/coupons). I also buy 6 or so sweet potatoes and roast them on the weekend so they can just pull the skin off and eat with butter. I also buy a huge tub of spinach and about 6 heads of romaine per week and 3-4 kinds of salad dressing and toppings (subflower seeds, nuts, croutons, cheese, olives, etc.). For dinner, I serve them each double what I would eat, and always have either 1 cup (uncooked measurement) brown rice per kid, or 1/2 loaf of french bread or 1 large russet potato to go alongside dinner per kid. If they are still hungry after dinner they are welcome to make pasta and sauce or have more of their snack stuff or bake some of the afforementioned muffins. |
Anonymous
| It sounds like they need more protein, fiber and healthy fats. And water. You may be serving the right macros but maybe they aren't eating the right proportions of things (e.g. Too many quick digesting carbs like rice and not enough chicken). |
Anonymous
| Oh OP, I feel for you. I have two boys and I dread what it will be like when they are teenagers. So much work to feed these appetites. |
Anonymous
So this is my future? Wow |
Anonymous
+1 This is what teenage boys are like. Hungry all the time. I keep stuff on hand: Eggs Cheese Tortillas Avocados Salami Turkey Bread Frozen Trader Joe's meals Frozen pizza Nuts Protein bars Rice in batches to go with the above Yogurt We make double what we need for dinners. It is just how it is with these boys! |
Anonymous
Yes, because outside of our children, we've never been around other children in our lives. Just because we don't have teens of our own, doesn't mean that we don't have siblings, cousins or friends who have teens and have observed what they go through. My wife and I kid each other that our kids are already eating us out of house and home at 3, and we don't want to think what it will be like for them at 15. I've seen enough families with teen athletes to know that OP's shopping budget is seriously underbudget for her family which is why she's struggling to keep them from "starving." |
Anonymous
Yes. Every Sunday I make two dozen mini quiches in muffin tins for breakfasts during the week. This takes 16-18 eggs. My two teen boys eat them in five days. I also make two dozen muffins every Sunday. Gone by Friday. |
Anonymous
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1/4 loaf of french bread or a single rack of ribs as portions for your family???
My husband and I together can eat a rack of ribs alone and he is the heavier of us by a significant amount at 145 lbs. 1/4 loaf of french bread is a lunch sized serving for either of us. We are not athletes, either. You have two adults and four kids including two teenage athlete boys. You need 3-4x the food you are serving. You are starving your family (actually not, but the food that you serve is a laughably small part of their diet). How have you gone this long without noticing this ? How has your husband not said anything after so many years of starvation? Are you a troll? |
Anonymous
You cooked one measly rack of ribs for dinner? My three kids go through two racks of ribs at one meal easy! And my older son has to get a snack every single night, no matter how much he eats at dinner. He's an athlete, very skinny, but consumes tons of food. My advice: Outlaw the junk food! Stop buying soda! install a water cooler and have everyone drink spring water or seltzer. Junk food is empty calories, never fills anyone up, and all those chemicals and sugar just prime you to be more hungry when you are done eating. As PPs have suggested, double your portions at every meal. I always double my recipes, and everything gets eaten at most meals. There are rarely left-overs, and if there are any, my older boy eats them for a late night snack. BTW, no one in our house is fat! We eat zero junk or processed food, but we eat a lot of healthy food. No soda, no pizza, no chips (did you ever read the ingredients in Doritos??). I get complaints sometimes, and I do break down and buy a bag of organic corn chips or potato chips every once in a while. Growing kids need a lot of food. |
Anonymous
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Isn't $200/week for 6 people = $33/person = just a bit more than the [in]famous $29/week Gwyneth Paltrow couldn't survive on?
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