Help please RE: Mum's food waste

lelaina

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker on the OS forum and it has helped me immensely through being a poor student and beyond. However, I'm having a bit of a dilemma in my new situation - I'm really hoping some of you guys have some good tips up your sleeves for me

I've moved back in with my Mum for a couple of months after 10 years living away, as I've just gone through a bad break up.

My Mum is being an absolute star having me back home and I'm ridiculously grateful for all her help.

But the amount of food she wastes and her grocery bill (which I'm paying half of now) would absolutely fear you!

- She shops practically daily, and has quite the stock pile of food at home (cupboards and freezer) but insists there's no food in the house.
- As soon as something is open in the fridge, if it isn't used up within 24 hours - she'll throw it away.
- Leftovers the next day are a no no! Even if you freeze it to have later in the week, she'd turn her nose up at it
- She has a yellow sticker phobia - absolutely determined it will lead to food poisoning and she can't fathom how I haven't died in the ten years I've been living myself from eating them

What's worse is - it's not like she's a mitchelin star cook. She eats mostly ready meals and quick-to make items, but it's costing the pair of us a fortune and I really miss being able to get stuck into the kitchen and make some cheap but tasty meals.

Is there anything you guys think I could say to her to make her change her ways?

Also, any cheap meals I could make that aren't in bulk or require a million ingredients that I'll use an 8th of and then she'll throw away the rest the next day?

She might be receptive to some Vegetarian meals if it had a lot of cheese in it - other than that she'd probably consider it half a meal :rotfl:

Thank you all ever so much, in advance, for any advice/help xxxxxx

DomRavioli

OP, if those are her ways and she is happy with them then there isn't anything you can say to change her ways.

There's a Complete Menu thread on the Old Style board, including some links for single portions.

I don't blame her for not liking veggie meals if she has the palate of ready meals - please stop trying to force your ideals on her; you'd be pretty hacked off if she made you eat ready meals 24/7 and had her diet.

Why don't you just buy your own food instead of contributing to a joint budget if your tastes differ so much? It seems like you're creating drama for drama's sake.

lelaina

Thanks so much for your reply

i don't really feel that I am forcing any ideals onto her at all, merely being saddened at the amount of unnecessary food waste and I just wondered if anyone had some nice ideas for me to try out is all. You know, to be able to save my Mum some cash as well. She doesn't have a lot of spare money.

I think calling me dramatic is a little uncalled for though. I only asked for some help and constructive feedback.

I think I've realised I need some thicker skin before posting in this forum again - but thank you for taking the time to respond

kazwookie

Why don't you take over the cooking for a bit and buying of food.

Tell your mum, she had done so much for you, you would like to do something for her.

Show her the old style board on here and the food threads.

lucy_lemon

I'm not in the same boat in that I don't live with my parents, but they sound quite similar. They also spend a crazy amount on ready meals, and throw out stuff I would keep. It used to drive me mad (still does, except now I take leftovers home with me!)

I think maybe a good idea would be to address why your mum eats the way she does. I figured out that the reason my parents eat so many ready meals is because they both get in after 6 and can't be bothered cooking. So maybe you could offer to cook some nights (if you don't already), cook meals that are similar to the ready meals she eats, stuff like that.

I think that you do need to be a bit firmer though, and tell her that if you're paying half the bills, she can't chuck your food out without checking with you first.

I didn't think you were being dramatic at all :-)

Wysiwyg49

I think you could go really slowly - maybe you could start by offering to cook and do something that's like one of her ready meals (moussaka or lasagne?) Once i'd done things like that a few times I realised the ready meals weren't as filling and were wayyy more expensive!

I had the Delia Smith "One is fun" cookery book when I was a student and it was good for tips on not buying too much of things at once or making 2 slightly different dishes from almost the same ingredients...

Good luck and you would be helping your mum in the long run I'm sure.

[Just edited to add when I saw the other new messages - good we're all saying the same sort of things!]

lelaina

Thank you all so much - these ideas are really helpful.

i do all my own cooking just now, and also for Mum when it's something she would also eat.

I think the idea of replicating her ready meals is brilliant - it's so obvious but I never thought of it. I may even invest in some plastic ready-meal style tubs for the leftovers to see if i can get her over her phobia a wee bit.

Thanks again

FrugalWorker

I've friends who won't eat left overs. They roast a chicken, eat some of the breast and the remainder gets chucked. criminal as far as I'm concerned, but I'm not going to change how they eat, so I'd be recommending that they buy chicken breasts only. leave the thighs for me to buy cheaply in the shops.

My FIL in my opinion has cooking for one nailed. He shops daily, or as close as, he walks over to the butchers and buys one pork chop, enough veg, etc.. walks home and cooks it. I don't think I'd try and change that, but could you start with say tonight, say I'll cook dinner for tomorrow, ask her what she'd like and give her the list of 1-2 items required for dinner. The key here will be you will be asking her to buy very specific quantities so there are no left overs. Most of us don't have time to shop daily, but if she does, you'll get the freshest of food.

I think then a jump in to left overs / preprepared food is soup. It's real easy to re-heat and far nicer home made. There's nothing nicer than coming home hungry and having hot home made soup heated up in 5-10 minutes. I wouldn't go down the lasagne route, it doesn't taste as nice re-heated - stews / soups taste better the next day

There's a series on BBC, eat well for less - a lot of it was about families over shopping or an over dependance on processed foods. Maybe when she sees what they save, she might be more open to listening to you.

thriftwizard

I suspect people lose confidence... my Mum is now fairly elderly at 89, and does more or less exactly what yours does; I'm always coming back from hers with bags of food "for the chickens" that's "nearly" out of date, which usually goes straight into OH or one of the offspring! Yet she's the one who taught me not to be wasteful, and gave me the grounding & skills to manage to raise our 5 kids on one wage. In the 70s, she kept my younger brother & I thriving on a pittance, and never wasted anything, but now she'd rather die than cook for herself, and will throw out half the contents of her fridge rather than let anyone eat anything "dodgy" or within a couple of days BEFORE its sell-by or best-before date. Luckily, unlike in her earlier life, she can afford to be wasteful now, and in view of her heroic efforts when we were younger, we don't begrudge it one little bit.

But it does seem to come down to confidence; the more cookery programmes she sees, the more she's convinced that she was a hopeless cook, which is far from the truth. And the more "consumer protection" programmes about dubious food producers, the more she thinks we shouldn't "risk" eating food near its sell-by-date. She's horrified that I buy most of our food from the local market & thinks it will all have fallen off the back of a lorry, and only trusts upmarket supermarkets "finest" ranges. Yet she's utterly delighted when I take her something home-cooked, and always stunned by how much better it tastes!

So my suggestion would be that you make her a meal or two as a treat, and see how that goes down. Then maybe suggest that you buy in some of the supplies, and do some of the cooking, on days that work for both of you. Plan a couple of meals that deliberately leave useful left-overs... as one of my uncles (born & raised in India) would say, "slowly, slowly, catchee monkey!"

iammumtoone

can you suggest a week on / week off rota. With a rule that the other person is not allowed to interfere

One week she does all the shopping and cooking and you pay half at the end of the week. The next week is your turn. Hopefully when she comes to paying her half for your week she will see the savings she has made and will have enjoyed the food that she will start to see things from your point of view. Likewise you might find that you don't mind the odd meal her way.

Surely it would be nicer for both of you if you can find common ground so you can share the cooking and eat the same meals together.

Good luck. I hope before you move out again you will have helped her save herself some money.

armyknife

Thanks for the thread, there's some interesting issues raised in the OP and the replies.