Help! DD is constantly starving!!

annaangeluk_2 · 22 February 2010 at 11:32PM

At the moment my DD (just turned 8) is eating me out of house and home and is constantly starving! She's quite tall and extremely thin. (I'm very jealous!) Sometimes at school she's complained that she feels physically sick she's so hungry but I'm at a bit of a loss as to what else to feed her. I've taken her to the doctor to have her checked out and they are confident that she is a healthy weight, good bmi, not diabetic etc but just has an extremely fast metabolism and is generally bit of a greedy piggy! :rotfl:

Our main struggling points are breakfast, packed lunches and snacks. So most of the day really!

DD is a fantastic eater, never been fussy and will happily try all sorts of weird and wonderful food! As it's just the two of us I've never cooked seperate "kids" food for her and we always eat together so she always eats what I eat which i consider to be proper adult food with sometimes just a few modifications. She loves her fruit and veggies and easily gets her 5 a day. Apart from the morning juice carton, she only drinks water, milk and the occasional cup of tea when she's cold! She's always full of energy (and I mean always!! She never stops!) she has lovely shiny hair and pink cheeks so is really healthy but just sometimes miserable because she's so hungry!!

THe main problem is breakfast. She's not really a morning person so finds it really hard to have a proper sit down breakfast. She much prefers something "handheld" often eaten on the bus as it takes her a little while after getting up to be able to face anything. She loves cereal for supper but will not eat it in the morning. Won't eat toast, eggs etc at breakfast time. That kind of leaves us with cereal bars which are packed full of sugar and various other rubbish:eek:. DOes anyone have any recipes for healthy muffins that would be suitable, or some kind of loaf that she could have a doorstep slice of to eat on the bus! Or any healthy cereal bar recipes!

To give you an example of a typical day, here's what she;s eaten today:

Breakfast: Fibre plus cereal bar, banana, small carton orange juice.

Lunch: Ham & cucumber sandwich on thick granary bread, carrot sticks, cheese cubes, yogurt (not healthy one:o) water. She never seems to get a lot of time so can;t manage much else for her packed lunch.

After school snack: Cheese nibbled off the block while standing at the fridge! (It's like living with a mouse! There are teeth marks in everything! An apple and a pear.

Dinner: Pasta with grilled chicken in tomato sauce with extra tomatoes in, spinach salad and a slice of garlic bread. Rice pudding for afters with a glass of milk.

Supper: Bowl of cereal and a chocolate biscuit.

I think the portion sizes are ok, she eats what she can and leaves the rest when she's full. There is always extra available if she wants it. The problem is she just gets hungry again an hour later, to the point where I can hear her stomach rumbling from the other side of the room:rotfl:! She never sits still so she must just burn it all off really quickly!

I'm now at a loss what to give her to fill her up without piling cr*p down her!

Sorry for the long ramble!

Thanks in advance for all tips, sugestions and recipes that will hopefully be forthcoming!

Anna x

jbreckmckye · 22 February 2010 at 11:52PM

I found the following muesli bar recipe:

Ingredients List:

Makes around 25 bars

2 oz/50g low fat margarine
200 ml runny honey or maple syrup
50g brown sugar
3 oz/75g wholemeal flour
6 oz/150g rolled oats
4 oz/100g chopped nuts (hazelnuts, pecans etc)
3 oz/75g pumpkin seeds
3 oz/75g sunflower seeds
7 oz/175g chopped dried apricots, dates and sultanas mixed
1 oz/25g sesame seeds
Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180c/340f/gas mark 4.

In a pan over a low heat, melt together the margarine, honey and brown sugar. Cook for a couple of minutes then leave to one side.

Combine together the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and then pour over the syrup mixture. Mix well.

Pour the mixture into a well greased shallow baking tray. Press the mixture down well to get an even spread. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until golden.

We hope you enjoy this healthy low fat recipe.

Apparently, they can keep up to a week in the fridge, in an air-tight container. I guess you could always experiment adding different fruit and nuts to it, too. You might even get away with adding a touch of ground ginger, to give it a *slight* heat.

Counting_Pennies_2 · 23 February 2010 at 12:03AM

Banana muffins
Mash 4 medium sized bananas.

Mix or blend together 4 oz soft marg, 4 oz light brown caster sugar, 2 beaten eggs, 6 oz SR flour, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt.

Add the bananas and mix well.

Pour into muffin cases bake at 160 for 30 mins

To be honest though, it doesn't sound like she is eating you out of house and home, that is what I would expect my two under 6 year olds to eat on an average day. I would put in a mid morning snack for when she is at school and something else for her journey home. Say a banana, or a cereal bar.

Instead of a few bites of cheese I would give her cheese on toast when she comes in, and then eat with you later on for the main meal.

I would expect an average child to have 6 small meals a day, and if yours is permanently active and starving I would up it to 7 or 8. If she needs to eat every few hours, then so be it, as long as she is healthy with it.

hth

BitterAndTwisted · 23 February 2010 at 1:01AM

What about a spanish omelette served cold between two slices of bread or some ciabatta so eat on the way to school? Might keep her going until lunch-time without feeding her sweet stuff first thing?

A peanut butter sandwich on wholemeal bread might be better too, as the carbs are slow-release ones.

Maybe a banana in her lunch-box might have a bit more staying-power than an apple.

bitsandpieces · 23 February 2010 at 2:05AM

I'm not a morning/breakfast person - I'll sometimes eat some walnuts and a piece of fruit instead of a 'proper' breakfast. Walnuts have lots of calories in them, and the energy releases pretty slowly. Or peanut butter and banana sandwiches are good

Then again, from what you say I don't know that there's any need to stress about a cereal bar as part of breakfast. If your daughter eats a generally healthy diet and needs lots of food, it's likely not anything to worry about...

donny-gal · 23 February 2010 at 6:59AM

She is getting her milk and her cereal, be it at the opposite end of the day. Why not just make her an extra sandwich to eat on the bus. It should keep her filled longer than the bar.

Another thought is the content and find both fast and slow release carbs, like the suggestion above inthe post above. Make a different kind of tomato sauce for the pasta in the SC with tomatoes, lentils and veg then blitz, and it makes a thick sauce with the slow release carbs of lentils in.

My final thought is yes she is eating a good balanced adult diet, but kids especially lively burn up energy ones need other food groups, with sugars and fats, she is lively and skinny you say, so maybe more kid like food would help.

DG

281273 · 23 February 2010 at 7:42AM

I know you said your doc said she is perfectly healthy, but did they consider coeliacs disease. The reason I'm saying this is that my DD1 who is now 6 used to eat constantly was very thin but looked perfectly healthy. We took her to the docs with a funny looking toe nail and from that he suggested the blood test for coeliacs. Now that she is on the gluten free diet she has but weight on and eats a lot less. Hope you don't mind me saying this at all

rachbc · 23 February 2010 at 8:38AM

complex carbs and proteins will fill her - so maybe some oatcakes with the cheese at snack time, a small bag of nuts/ seeds in her pack up or to nibble in the afternoon at school, peanut butter n crackers, sardines on wholemeal toast. Omelette wraps for brekkie or a wholemeal roll with bacon/ eggs rather than sugary bars which will give her a short term energy burst but make her more hungry later

ubamother · 23 February 2010 at 9:42AM

I found a good savoury muffin - cheese and bacon - by googling - sorry can't remember the site - and a healthyish sweet muffin with mashed banana and blueberries. Loads of muffin sites around. I find they freeze well too.
I hear the 'don't have time to eat' complaint quite often from packed lunch kids (not mine, no-one can take his food from him - no-one!). Is it worth having a word with the school? The school may also have a healthy snack policy at breaktimes which would be a good time for her to have a nibble on something.

BitterAndTwisted · 23 February 2010 at 11:20AM

It sounds like this little girl might be going through a growing-spurt if there's nothing else going on health-wise. I'd be serving or offering meals and snacks more often, especially ones with complex carbs and plenty of protein. I'd also be cutting down on sugary foods as advised as they have a tendency to cause a sugar-rush and then have a deflating affect once the blood-sugar levels drop again.

falady · 23 February 2010 at 11:48AM

Hi there,

I an echo the thoughts of others that slow release carbs such as oats are probably the way forward in keeing your daughter fuller for longer.

I've had a quick look through my recipe collection (many taken from this site!) and have found a few things that you might like to try....

Potato pancakes (could be good for breakfast?)

500g/1lb 2oz floury potatoes, peeled and chopped
60g/2oz plain flour
3 eggs, separated
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh chives

Cook the potatoes until tender and mash until smooth. Allow to cool.
4. Beat in the egg yolks, parsley, chives and flour and season with salt and pepper.
5. Whisk the egg whites until they reach the soft peak stage. Fold into the potato mixture.
6. Heat some oil in a frying pan and cook tablespoons of the mixture until golden on each side.

Snack ideas....

Oat biscuits

4oz margerine, 1 dessertspoon syrup and 2 dessertspoons of water melted together in a pan. Add this to 3oz sugar (I used unrefined caster), 3oz self raising flour, 3 oz oats, 1 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda. Mix it all well and then put walnut sized blobs on greased baking sheets. Bake at 200C for 10 mins. Admittedly the mixture did seem a bit runny when we made it (I'm a bit slap dash with quantities) so I added extra oats and flour. The biscuits still spread nicely and taste scrummmmmmmy.

Weetabix cake

4 Weetabix
8oz SR Flour
6oz Sugar
6oz Currants/Sultanas/Peel/Glace Cherries
8floz Milk

Crush weetabix in your fists into a bowl, add all dry ingredients. Mix in milk in a few steps. Bung in a greased loaf tin in a lowish oven (mark 4 / 170C).

To test if cooked prod with a knife. If the knife comes out clean then it's cooked!

Basic muffin recipe

2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
½ cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar

1 egg
¼ cup of sunflower oil
1 cup of milk

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Add the wet ingredients to the dry mix and quickly spoon into muffin cases.
Cook middle of the oven rather than lower down as they rise better.
Makes 12 well risen muffins.

Add blackberries to the dry mix as they won't sink to the bottom if they're coated in flour. Stir stewed apples in at the last minute before putting into the oven.

Twinks hobnobs

8oz sr flour
8oz sugar
8oz porridge oats
8oz margarine
1tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp hot water
1/2 tsp bic soda

Mix the flour, oats and sugar, melt marg, syrup and water in a pan. Stir in bic soda and add to dry mix.

Then mix well and make into smallish balls which you then put on a greased tray and flatten slightly with a fork. Put in the oven at 180 degrees C for 15 mins and cool on the tray. The aim is to get them golden in the oven not brown.

Weetabix brownies

4 crushed weetabix
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100g chopped chocolate

Mix this altogether then take 4oz of melted marg and stir this into the mixture along with one egg.

Mix well and put in a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes at electric 180.

I put this mix into a square tin which measures 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. I suppose you could use anything a similar size it would just turn out a bit more or less deeper. I also line the tray with greaseproof paper to save any sticking. Once out the oven let it stand for about 5 minutes then turn out the tray and cut into squares.

Apologies to those I have copied the recipes from - I didn't keep a record of who originally posted them.

HTH,

Ali

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Help! DD is constantly starving!!

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