Moms and junk food

So, I have an issue which is both good and bad depending on how you look at it. Growing up, my wife and I had pretty typical diets-fruit snacks & granola bars for snacks, but never an excessive amount, dinners around the table throughout the week, and fast food every once in a while. I also had grandparents whom I would spend a day or two with out of the week at their house while my parents worked and a second set of grandparents who lived out of town but I still saw a few times a year. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

Since my wife and I have had children, our moms, both of whom live very close by, have been extremely helpful in terms of child care during the week, which is a blessing. However, this comes with a caveat-my mom will always come loaded with food every time she comes over-mini muffins, tons of fruit, dinner that she'll make for us and other miscellaneous items as well such as ice cream. My wife's mom will usually bring similar items and then bake cookies at our house as well. Plus, when my mom picks up the kids from school a few times through the week she’ll frequently take them out for ice cream, McDonald’s, and the like.

Again, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining too much, as they're both sweet women who've been helpful and all of this is undoubtedly done out of kindness. My issue is that I try to stick to a pretty healthy diet and I want nothing more than for the rest of the family to follow suit-for the most part, when we go shopping, we do, though I still feel like there's a few things we could change in that regard...however, that's another story. The bigger problem is the moms-my mom's dinners, for example, are not spectacular, as they're meals I grew up with and, quite honestly, didn't care for at all, which resulted in some terrible eating habits I'm still trying to overcome (she's a very bland cook). She also makes dinners that are absolutely massive, with the mentality that we won't have to cook for the rest of the week-this is a problem, as I don’t feel like eating these meals and we desperately need variety in our dinners throughout the week. Plus, although bringing fruit is one thing (I wish it were vegetables, but that's just me), it's not the end of the world. It's the mini muffins, for example, and yesterday she brought us donuts, caramel apples and a gigantic bag of apples from an apple farm she visited with my son while I was working. Not only are the donuts and caramel apples not spectacular in terms of health, but I had planned on making a healthier donut recipe with the kids, as well as take the family apple picking this weekend-not anymore, I guess.

On top of that, my wife's mom brought us even more apples today, and I can hear her making M&M cookies as I type this. These examples represent this particular week, but every week that they come over has similar issues in terms of food they prepare/bring us. It's too the point where I wonder why my mom never makes a meal I actually enjoy, and my wife & I agree that the sheer volume of food they bring seems to indicate that the moms think we don't know how to properly feed our children. Our cupboards are so full of junk food it's ridiculous.

What do we do about this? I'm very disappointed about the apples & donuts that my mom decided to unload on us-I realize she didn't know that I was planning on this, but still, it's a lot of food once again. The same can be said about my wife's mom and the cookies, mini muffins (she and my mom buy the same exact brand for some odd reason) and so forth. I know that there's people around the world who would love to have this problem and I again can't deny the kindness, but I'm starting to worry about the health of my children, who spend tons of time in the kitchen looking for snacks. I can see the beginnings of some bad habits on their end-my son, for example, rarely touches his dinner, which I know is due to all the snacking he does. I've tried to put limits on the food they get from the pantry or fridge, but another issue is that due to the sheer volume of food much of it tends to go bad before we get to it, which is also upsetting.

Please don't pounce on me about this-I don't want this to come off the wrong way. This could easily be dismissed as grandmas being grandmas, but truly, if you saw what I had to deal with, it’s at a different level than that. I just want this to stop, or at least drastically cut down on. My wife's understandably tired of my complaining about this, but I fear if I bring this up to either mom they'll be very upset and offended as both are fairly sensitive. As a final note, I mentioned trying to eat healthy myself which is very difficult when the house is packed with bad food. My mom has even stopped by unannounced with giant boxes of donuts and has said, verbatim, how she's here with bad food for us. What can I do?