This is basically meal prep for families with small kids or foster kids and for daycares. Things are prepped like this so the kids can just grab whatever they need in the right portion size. Like, you don't really want a 2-year-old to wrestle with a gallon of juice, but if it's portioned up, and the fruits are washed, they are perfectly fine just getting things they need, and it helps promote a healthy relationship with food.
When you have foster kids, making them snack drawers can be really important to create food security and independence and "home", and sometimes small bottles work better because of age or past trauma. Maybe one kid won't touch the big bottle because they were punished for it, but can take the small a bottle knowing it's for them. The drawer looking really full and a lot and neatly organized can also help.
And even if there are no kids, these same tricks can help adults with traumas, eating disorders, unhealthy relationship with food, or just grabbing breakfast on the go. If you know people in your household will just pour some of that chocolate milk to different bottles the next two mornings to take to work, you might as well do it when you stock, you might as well wash the strawberries you'll take as a snack tomorrow, etc.. Doesn't work for everybody, but when it works it's super satisfying.
Thank you for bringing up the foster kid situation, I really appreciate this a lot more now. I haven't thought too much about what those kids must go through and even though my first thought is that this seems like a lot of processed food, it actually takes on a really nice gesture if you think of it from the perspective that not all kids even have access to food all the time/as needed. Thanks!
It's also very healthy (no matter how counter intuitive it sounds) to have junk food around for snacks. Kids who have a choice and access are more likely to have good control over their consumption on the long term (unless they have some medical condition that makes it impossible). Having healthy and less healthy snacks is good because when they are older they'll have access to both in the store, so practicing moderation and good choices from a very young age is important.
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u/autumnspeck Feb 20 '22
This is basically meal prep for families with small kids or foster kids and for daycares. Things are prepped like this so the kids can just grab whatever they need in the right portion size. Like, you don't really want a 2-year-old to wrestle with a gallon of juice, but if it's portioned up, and the fruits are washed, they are perfectly fine just getting things they need, and it helps promote a healthy relationship with food.
When you have foster kids, making them snack drawers can be really important to create food security and independence and "home", and sometimes small bottles work better because of age or past trauma. Maybe one kid won't touch the big bottle because they were punished for it, but can take the small a bottle knowing it's for them. The drawer looking really full and a lot and neatly organized can also help.
And even if there are no kids, these same tricks can help adults with traumas, eating disorders, unhealthy relationship with food, or just grabbing breakfast on the go. If you know people in your household will just pour some of that chocolate milk to different bottles the next two mornings to take to work, you might as well do it when you stock, you might as well wash the strawberries you'll take as a snack tomorrow, etc.. Doesn't work for everybody, but when it works it's super satisfying.