A Food Dilemma ? A Frog In My Soup

Obviously, since I have 6 sons (3 of which are teenagers) there is definitely a lot of food consumed in this household. When I had 4 sons, food was provided and consumed at the meal time with snack options provided that they were free to graze on throughout the day. The older boys understood that mom was not going to spend the entire day in the kitchen preparing food.

Enter Bugs and Monkey, aka. the Tweebs, and suddenly the world is a very different place. You see, when they entered school it immediately became evident that they feel that not eating whenever they feel they are hungry equates to them starving to death. Where on earth did I go wrong?

I have tried everything.

They eat a healthy and filling breakfast. They do not have cold cereal and when they do, it?s typically granola with yogurt. A typical breakfast will be oatmeal and toast. Or toast and egg sandwiches, or biscuits and eggs. I may not do a lot of baking for breakfast but they have absolutely no reason to walk out of this house in the morning hungry.

Yet when they arrive at school I cannot tell you how many mornings Bugs has tried to purchase breakfast when he gets there. Much to the poor lunch lady?s chagrin, who looks him in the eye and tells him that she knows mom fed him and doesn?t want him to pay for another breakfast. SIGH!

The teachers and principal have asked me to send in extra snacks for them to eat during the day saying ?they must be going through quite a growth spurt right now because they are always hungry?. Welcome to my world people?. welcome to my world!

So, a couple times a month I go to Costco and buy a big box of healthy snacks. I pack these up in gallon size bags and ship them off to each teacher to use through the day. Yet it?s still not enough.

Lunch arrives and Bugs is spotted (yep, again) heading through the hot lunch line at school. The story is that he decided to eat his lunch at snack time, or maybe just the snack part and drank the milk, but regardless he has decided he needs more than one lunch.

This year, I decided to send them lunch as much as possible. I do not feel that school lunches are even remotely healthy these days. Kids are offered foods that should not be consumed regularly and if they happen to offer foods that are healthy, those are the items that children do not take. Not to mention the expense. So, sending them lunch each day helps me know that 1) they have been sent plenty of food to eat, 2) they are sent healthy options that I control, and 3) it is less expensive in the long run (hopefully).

Now, just so there is no confusion, let?s look at an average lunch that is sent with them from home. It will typically contain ALL of the following?

• Sandwich (pb&j typically)
• Drink (chocolate milk)
• Fruit (orange or apple slices)
• Carbs (pretzels, fish type crackers, tortilla chips, etc)
• Veggies (carrots, celery, snap peas)
• Cheese stick &/or yogurt
• Fruit Snacks (real fruit type) or other not-too-unhealthy small portion dessert.

As I read through that list (and look in their lunch boxes each day) it is a full and filling lunch? or at least it should be! Especially when you consider that I send a second bag of whatever ?carb? food is in their lunch to act as a buffer through the day if they need yet another snack.

So I ask all of you this?.. do you have a child that eats incessantly? I?d love to hear suggestions and tips on all of this people because I am sincerely lost about what to do at this point!

Source: http://afroginmysoup.com/2012/a-food-dilemma/

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