Family members having different needs

I'd probably go the route of making a healthy meal that has a mix of higher and lower calorie foods, and just adjusting portions. So maybe the husband gets a double entree portion and some higher calorie sides, and you take the single entree, less of the higher calorie sides and some more lower calorie fare.

I have a family of four and every person has different needs, both due to nutritional issues and allergies.

We adjust portions at times, but as rank insect mentioned, we also sometimes do different side dishes, to help compensate for nutrition, calories, etc...

However, the problem with that is the extra afford. As you've probably already run into, when you do something like that, just making more dishes to choose from, you can end up doing the work of making 5-6 meals-worth of food a day rather than just three. It gets old really fast, and can be frustrating as a result.

So for most days, I focus on sauces, broths, dips, and accompaniments. So we might have, say, roasted chicken, and there is a low calorie fruit compote that one could use, or a higher calorie gravy, or an even higher calorie cream sauce that could be added. The sauces are often not too difficult to make, and the nice thing is they can often be frozen in things like an ice cube tray, so you can save them for individual use later, for multiple meals. It cuts down on the workload significantly, whereas the extra side dishes can be quite time consuming to do every, single day.

Also, re: the sauces, something similar can be a simple ingredient change for an ingredient that is added at the end. For example, a Mexican beef soup might be pretty low calorie, but if you have chopped avocado added into the bowl after the soup is served, just for your husband, it will significantly increase the calories. Even more with avocado and cheese, you know?

A good way to get ideas for this is to look at recipes for a favorite recipe, and then look at low fat or low calorie versions. Whatever ingredients are left out are likely to be good additions for your husband's dishes.

My husband eats quite differently than I do, but we manage it without too much drama. I eat about twice the veggie and salad portions and half the meat he does; he eats bread and I largely do not. We both cook without butter or oil - based sauces, but he will add those condiments and I won't.

I also almost always have some veggie soup on the back burner or in the fridge, so if he wants to cook something that's really high calorie ( ribs, pasta) I'll enjoy a small portion but fill up on veggie soup.

cessi0909 wrote: »

We are a family of 5, myself, husband, teen daughter and two boys under the age of 8. Myself and my daughter are really focusing on healthy eating and getting fit. My calorie goal per day is 1650 and I am focused on weight loss.

My husband on the other hand has a calorie goal of about 2500/per day for weight gain. I prepare 75% of the meals for our household and find myself struggling a bit with dinners and meeting the needs of my family when it comes to food, calorie intake, and nutrition.

Would it make sense to just make part of a dish that only certain people eat and leave the main dish as a lighter fare? Or make a regular dinner that may be a little higher in calories and have myself only have a small portion and more veggies/salad? How do you think you would handle this?

I very well could be way overthinking this It's my nature.

I also have s family of five, and I try to cook a main dish that everyone will eat, but there are always sides that not everyone eats. I'm the only person in the house who eats mushrooms, but I make a package at least once or twice a week for myself which I then eat leftover. My son is very picky and eats a limited amount of vegetables, so we have corn almost every night. I know that's not a high quality vegetable, but it's what the kid eats. I like corn, but most the time I don't eat it unless it's in season, roasted on the cob.
Everyone in the house eats broccoli except my son, so we have that several nights a week. I steam it and anyone who wants shredded cheddar can add it, or it can be eaten plain.

We take turns cooking in my house. There's four of us currently, three of whom eat together (dad is very fussy and prefers to get all his calories through a very big late lunch). We all eat the same basic meal but adapt it for our different needs. So if today was lasagne day:

Skinny teen brother: Big helping of lasagne + salad + at least two pieces of garlic bread. Ice cream bar for pudding. Almost definitely an evening snack of something like milk +fruit.

Me (small build but trains a lot): Decent helping of lasagne + salad, maybe a piece of garlic bread. Perhaps pudding or supper but depends what else I've eaten that day.

Mum trying to lose a few pounds: Smaller serving of lasagne + more salad. Piece of fruit for pudding or small yogurt.

Makes cooking fairly easy, but we can all take what we want for our own needs. That one meal of the day eaten together doesn't need to get too complicated to accomplish that. We usually plan our meals for the week before either my mum or I do the food shop.

rosebarnalice wrote: »

My husband eats quite differently than I do, but we manage it without too much drama. I eat about twice the veggie and salad portions and half the meat he does; he eats bread and I largely do not. We both cook without butter or oil - based sauces, but he will add those condiments and I won't.

I also almost always have some veggie soup on the back burner or in the fridge, so if he wants to cook something that's really high calorie ( ribs, pasta) I'll enjoy a small portion but fill up on veggie soup.

This is approach we take as well. Sometimes we'll eat very different portion sizes of the same dish but I'll bulk out mine with lots of veg. Other times I'll just have my own lighter veg alternative.

We tend to batch cook at the weekends so I usually have one veg curry or stew I can have as & when needed. Also freeze portions so its easy to grab something healthy without too much stress.

Edited to add -I still cook with oil/butter/full fat everything as life is too short already, so I don't buy special foods for either of us. My man doesn't eat veg (except spuds) so I guess that's just for me!!