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Works for Me Wednesday: Rationing Fruit

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Yes, you read that right: rationing fruit. How sad is that?  Sad, but completely necessary.  See, my youngest, Megan, can wipe out a whole grocery run of fruit in two or three days.  I’m talking five pounds of grapes, two or three pounds of strawberries and two or three pounds of apples.  The girl likes her fruit.  There’s nothing wrong with that, except, well, the rest of us like fruit, too.  We don’t like going to the fridge to get some fruit and finding that it’s all been eaten already.

So, last week, when I was lamenting the problem with my mom, she offered a suggestion that I jumped all over:

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Individual fruit stashes!  Last Friday, when I got home from the store, I immediately washed and separated all the fruit.  Into bowls.  With names on them.  Once your fruit’s gone, it’s gone.  Megan’s was gone by Sunday.  The rest of us, though, could still enjoy fruit on Tuesday.  Do you want to know how mad I’d have been if I’d gone to make my deluxe grilled chicken salad and discovered that all my fruit was gone?  Thanks to this brilliant idea from my mom, though, my fruit was safe.

I did have a little hidden in the back of the fridge, so last night I restocked everyone’s fruit bowls and all is well with the world…for a day or so.

Visit Kristen at We Are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday tips.

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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12 Comments

  1. My kids power through fruit, too. I have a bowl on the counter with oranges and apples that they can get any time they want, and they can get a carrot out of the drawer any time they're hungry. Other stuff (berries, grapes, mango, the "good stuff") gets doled out. That works for me. We do get a lot of half-killed apples, though!

  2. Froggy is right there with Megan. She can eat a pound of strawberries in a sitting. The vast majority of my food budget goes to fruit. She gets a daily stash rather than weekly to minimize complaining and keep her regular.

  3. what a great idea! We don't eat processed food at our house so snacks are usually fruit- the problem is that my 5 kids also eat a weeks worth of fruit in a day.

    I'm totally going to use this idea!!!

  4. My daughters love fruit too! I think this would be an excellent idea for us as well. I will have to test it out, although my oldest offender is just about three, she thinks the fridge is fair game. This may be a great lesson in self control! I keep thinking to do something like this with crackers and breakfast bars and other snack items too, maybe it's now time.

    ~ Michelle @ FTSN

  5. Haven't needed to do that with fruit, but we did with the lunch snacks (granola bars, pudding cups, fruit snacks, etc.). It really works! Thanks for sharing.

  6. @ Dee — You made me laugh out loud. I could totally see my kids doing this to each other. That could explain why my son still have so much of his fruit left. He did make a big show of eating it — with lots of "mmmmmmm's" — in front of Megan Sunday night when hers was gone.

  7. Excellent Tip! I have the same issues when it's anything exotic or out of season. I set aside what is intended for my husband's lunch, rationed by area, and the rest goes in stages. The strawberries/grapes go quick, then on to oranges and/or bananas, etc.

  8. I've been rationing fruit at my house for a few years. When my daughter was 3, she sneaked into the kitchen and ate an entire container of blueberries and then put it back into the fridge as if I wouldn't notice they were gone. 🙂 She would eat fruit for every meal and snack if I let her! 🙂

  9. LOL, I'd say she likes her fruit! And fruit ain't cheap, especially berries. Ouch.

  10. Oh I so like this idea~!
    I'm jumping all over it too. Thank you mum for me .. and thank you for posting it. 🙂

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