Anonymous wrote:Tonight we are having spinach, sausage and penne stir fry.

Anonymous wrote:I already addressed that "dessert" doesn't mean a lb of sugar every night. Most nights it's something slight like sweet potatoes with granola, yogurt and whipped cream. Other times it's heavier like the ice cream cake. Tonight it's probably gonna be watermelon because I found 2 at a the store yesterday and they look good. FWIW dinner tonight is salad, and nacho buffet (woohoo).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Okay so, there were almost leftovers again. My son specifically said he loved the food.

Does this mean they ate everything you prepared? If so, time to make more quantity tomorrow.

Yep, that's the plan for tonight. Going to Costco today to really stock up. Tonight I want to make chicken pot pie. I'll make 4 9 inch , deep dish pies. I think I'll make broccoli, sweet potato fries and fruit salad as well. Ice cream cake for dessert.

PP, I guarantee that if you listen to the PPs and you keep feeding your kids like this, they will become obese adults. This is not healthy eating. Quantity is important and quality. Ice cream cake for dessert on a regular weeknight? After chicken pot pie??? You need to remember you are teaching them how to eat and the more fat and sugar and salt in the food, the more addictive it is. There is "stomach hunger eating" and "mouth hunger eating." If you feed them this crap, they will not learn to stop when they are full. They will overeat. When you eat healthy food, you tend to stop when you are full. Lean meats, brown rice, vegetables, fish, whole grain pastas, beans and legumes... And make tons of it. Your kids might ask for pizza afterward but that does not mean they are hungry. It means they desire junk food! People on this thread are going way too far in the other direction. I saw one poster say that 20 chicken wings is an appetizer for two people! OMG!!! Only in obesity world. Please take the advice on dcum with a grain of salt!

I said that. (So did someone else). Not only am I not obese, I'm not even American. I'm also 5'9" and 145 lbs. My teens can eat more than that. DH is 6'3" and 200 lbs. Nobody is obese. Or even remotely fat. No need to generalize, some people are very active and eat more than others. Note that I also don't eat or serve them with any regularity--definitely a "big game" sort of treat.

This is a non-sequitur.

What does your nationality have to do with anything?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay for Mother's Day, I asked to go to a really nice buffet place. I got a feel for exactly how much food my family would eat in a sitting. Well they ate for what seemed like an eternity. So, I see how much they can put away, I just need to figure out how much they really need to fuel themselves.

Okay, OP. Here's the problem. You started this thread 3 weeks ago and in 3 weeks, you still have only made small strides in adequately feed your family based on 19 pages of responses.

You need to stop trying to "figure out" what they need, and to start cooking *MUCH* more than your have been. Instead of incrementally increasing the amount by a couple of hundred calories a meal, cook a few meals like you are planning for dinner for 15, like you invited another family like yours for dinner, and look at the leftovers and then calculate backwards if you can cut back on the amount of food you prepare. If you don't have leftovers, you don't have enough food yet. Just remember that dinner leftovers can be breakfast or lunch the next day, so you aren't going to be wasting food. But stop starving your family. And stop treating them like middle-aged women on a diet. That's what you are doing. You are using your personal metric for what you consider a normal healthy amount of food instead of a metric more appropriate for a man, two teenage boys and two grade schoolers. All the while, they are eating all that you prepare without leftovers, which means that although they are eating, they are still not eating their fill. And are they still snacking after dinner before bedtime? You used to have the problem that they were eating a second dinner afterwards. Now, I suspect that they are eating a more filling meal, but still need a snack before bedtime.

You should plan to triple your weekly budget for the next 2-4 weeks. Figure out how to feed them by going overboard and then cutting back rather than trying to slowly increase what you make until you make just enough. That's why people are getting so flabbergasted with you, because you seem more intent on saving money than actually feeding your family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so, there were almost leftovers again. My son specifically said he loved the food.

Does this mean they ate everything you prepared? If so, time to make more quantity tomorrow.

Yep, that's the plan for tonight. Going to Costco today to really stock up. Tonight I want to make chicken pot pie. I'll make 4 9 inch , deep dish pies. I think I'll make broccoli, sweet potato fries and fruit salad as well. Ice cream cake for dessert.

PP, I guarantee that if you listen to the PPs and you keep feeding your kids like this, they will become obese adults. This is not healthy eating. Quantity is important and quality. Ice cream cake for dessert on a regular weeknight? After chicken pot pie??? You need to remember you are teaching them how to eat and the more fat and sugar and salt in the food, the more addictive it is. There is "stomach hunger eating" and "mouth hunger eating." If you feed them this crap, they will not learn to stop when they are full. They will overeat. When you eat healthy food, you tend to stop when you are full. Lean meats, brown rice, vegetables, fish, whole grain pastas, beans and legumes... And make tons of it. Your kids might ask for pizza afterward but that does not mean they are hungry. It means they desire junk food! People on this thread are going way too far in the other direction. I saw one poster say that 20 chicken wings is an appetizer for two people! OMG!!! Only in obesity world. Please take the advice on dcum with a grain of salt!

I said that. (So did someone else). Not only am I not obese, I'm not even American. I'm also 5'9" and 145 lbs. My teens can eat more than that. DH is 6'3" and 200 lbs. Nobody is obese. Or even remotely fat. No need to generalize, some people are very active and eat more than others. Note that I also don't eat or serve them with any regularity--definitely a "big game" sort of treat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I'm giving my kids ice cream cake. Most nights we have dessert and it isn't going to kill anyone. If each person are an entire ice cream cake, maybe but once slice which is about the equivalent of a piece of cake and a scoop of ice cream is not unhealthy. [/b]I grew up eating dinner and dessert every night and I'm perfectly healthy.

Moderation[b].

I don't know anyone who eats dessert every night. I am heathy, on the thin side and no food issues, but to me, dessert every night of the week does not equal "moderation." Maybe if you were having a small peice of chocolate every night, but certainly not a slice of cake every night ...

Anonymous wrote:I want to know who cooks like op every night, and can op invite me over for dinner - one night it is homemade manecottis, wings and pies, the next night it's homemade chicken pot pies and ice cream cake - and all on weeknights - wow. The caveat being, of course, that there wouldn't be enough food for me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so, there were almost leftovers again. My son specifically said he loved the food.

Does this mean they ate everything you prepared? If so, time to make more quantity tomorrow.

Yep, that's the plan for tonight. Going to Costco today to really stock up. Tonight I want to make chicken pot pie. I'll make 4 9 inch , deep dish pies. I think I'll make broccoli, sweet potato fries and fruit salad as well. Ice cream cake for dessert.

PP, I guarantee that if you listen to the PPs and you keep feeding your kids like this, they will become obese adults. This is not healthy eating. Quantity is important and quality. Ice cream cake for dessert on a regular weeknight? After chicken pot pie??? You need to remember you are teaching them how to eat and the more fat and sugar and salt in the food, the more addictive it is. There is "stomach hunger eating" and "mouth hunger eating." If you feed them this crap, they will not learn to stop when they are full. They will overeat. When you eat healthy food, you tend to stop when you are full. Lean meats, brown rice, vegetables, fish, whole grain pastas, beans and legumes... And make tons of it. Your kids might ask for pizza afterward but that does not mean they are hungry. It means they desire junk food! People on this thread are going way too far in the other direction. I saw one poster say that 20 chicken wings is an appetizer for two people! OMG!!! Only in obesity world. Please take the advice on dcum with a grain of salt!

Have you read the whole thread?