Why do we buy so much food?

Rosa_Damascena

This might sound strange and is not necessarily something that everyone does, but why do we buy so much food?

I'm having to empty my kitchen and made a start with the food cupboard. I was shocked by the amount of stuff I have, including staples I never use because I don't cook! So much of it was OOD, not just a bit but (gulp) expiring in 2007! I also knew I had a lot of biscuits, chocolates, cakes and crisps hanging around for "unexpected guests" (I don't cook so offer a good high tea instead) but didn't expect to fill quite so many 40L tubs with it.

Its not as if I'm going to starve, the only time I am truly without a supermarket is for 7 hours on a Sunday morning. So although I can spend the next 3 montsh getting these supplies down (which wouldn't be a smart move health wise) its made me think hard about my shopping habits going forward.

lapis_lazuli

2007 is an excellent vintage!

Do you meal plan?  I’m just wondering because that has saved me and my partner heaps of wasted food, although we’ve ended up with some ingredients, especially spices, that we only use once or very occasionally.

Pollycat

I think you probably have unused food because you don't cook .

Why would you buy 'staples' if you know you're not going to use them?

I have different types of pasta - spaghetti, twists, penne - but I do use all of them.

I have different types of rice - basmati, risotto - but I do use all of them.

Perhaps other people buy so much food but don't use it because they are seduced by advertising or packaging.

As lapis_lazuli does, I mean plan and make out my shopping list according to the plan.

Very little wastage in my house.

The only thing I've bought that is a waste is some muesli from Aldi. I picked it up by mistake instead of my usual granola.

The birds are working their way through it.

C_J

It’s a bit of a balancing act, isn’t it? On the one hand I want to have a reasonable stock of tinned and non-perishable stuff so that I am prepared for the zombie apocalypse or whatever (and these preps were incredibly helpful when I was unwell recently), and on the other hand I have cupboards full of stuff I may never use.

In my defence, the majority of the things in the kitchen cupboards are ingredients/herbs/spices/sauces etc because I do cook, but there is definitely stuff there which is quietly ageing and probably needs a good cull when I get the time.

Your post is interesting, Rosa - it wasn’t all that long ago that you moved house was it? So did you take all the OOD food with you when you went? I might have used that as an opportunity to clear things out a bit (but I am notoriously bad at being able to let go of things!)

[Deleted User]

We run with a good store cupboard partly because I'm a prepper, partly because we don't have a major supermarket within 10 miles of us just a fairly small Co Op which is good but expensive, we're inclined to be cut off by flooding on the roads here and we get quite a lot of snow some winters which means big lorries can't get in to deliver so making sure I've enough for a couple of months makes sense.  I regularly go through the stocks and make an inventory to make sure we don't run out of staples and I check the dates regularly and pull out any that are short dated and take them up to the kitchen to use in meals that week, very little wastage and it means we don't run out of necessities. Gives me peace of mind.

-taff

I buy it because I like to experiment with different foods, spices or flavours. I don't very often get rid of anything that's out of date, I used up a tin of mandarins the other day I'd brought with me when we moved in, it was a few years past it's date but fine. I also buy things on whim that I MIGHT cook, so there's two tins of pie filling I haven't used yet. I had a hankering for the kind of tinned cherry pies we had in the eighties, but I didn't get round to making one. It will all get used bar the odd one or two things, it just might take a while.

Rosa_Damascena

C_J said:

Your post is interesting, Rosa - it wasn’t all that long ago that you moved house was it? So did you take all the OOD food with you when you went? I might have used that as an opportunity to clear things out a bit (but I am notoriously bad at being able to let go of things!)

Believe it or not I moved in December 2017 so it has now been 3 1/2 years! In the end I got so sick of packing I just slung everything into boxes and moved the lot. I had a small 3 bedroom home and the removal men commented that I have enough stuff for a 5-bed home which I think is putting it diplomatically.

The item marked 2007 is a 5kg jar of dried kidney beans, unopened. Would you use them? They look fine so I am tempted to keep them and cook when I get my new spacious kitchen.

Slinky

Given that kidney beans can kill you if not cooked properly, I'd be swerving rather than serving those, personally. Who knows what the aging process will have done to them in 14 years.

Pollycat

Slinky said:

Given that kidney beans can kill you if not cooked properly, I'd be swerving rather than serving those, personally. Who knows what the aging process will have done to them in 14 years.

I think the issue with red kidney beans is that you need boil them to get rid of toxins.

Older dried beans will take much longer to cook and may never be as soft.

5kg is a lot of beans.

From what you say about cooking, if I was you I'd probably get rid of them.

If it was me, I'd cook them properly and see what they are like.

Frugalista

I have also been having a cupboard clearout and am a little embarrassed to confess to finding some Reggae Reggae cooking sauces from 2015!!  We used one a few nights ago and it was absolutely fine - only six more jars to go!

theoretica

I overbuy food in two classes - habit buying without a list of things I buy everytime I go shopping whether I need them or not and then discover I have rather a lot.  Or that looks interesting/a good deal on things I don't usually buy and then forget to do anything with because I am not used to having them or try once but don't use up.