Do you routinely buy food that you know you won't eat/like?

Cafe Society
#1

I do, and I don’t know why.

One is Hanover’s jalapeno pretzle pieces. I wander the aisles at the grocery store and they jump into my cart. Pretzles! Jalapeno! What a combination! And then I get home and remember that the pretzle bits are hard, the “flavoring” is a chemically dust coated an inch thick on each piece, and they are salty beyond belief. I eat one serving and the bag sits on my counter for weeks, 90% full, until I finally throw it away. But damn if I don’t buy another bag a month later.

Another thing is bananas. I like bananas, they taste good and are good for you, but I just don’t seem to find a good time to eat them. I rarely eat cereal for breakfast, so I don’t use them then, and they just don’t seem to have a natural companion for lunch or dinner. Turkey sandwich and banana? No. Salmon or beef and banana? I don’t think so. So they sit, turning to black mush in my kitchen, waiting to be replaced a couple of weeks later with a fresh batch.

#2

Yep, bananas. And I don’t even like bananas! I’ll be standing there in the store thinking about how they’re really good for me and I haven’t had one in a while and maybe I could make smoothies or something…and then I get home and think, Eww! Squishy sweet fruit? Do not want! Then I let them go bad, throw them away, and next week, buy a couple more.

I buy a lot of bagged salad mix too. Sometimes I remember to eat it before it goes bad, but whether I eat it or throw it out, I always buy more.

#3

Another person guilty of throwing away formerly fresh veggies–especially peppers (which I don’t particularly like) and tomatos (which I do) and bagged salad and the last banana or two of a bunch(I like my bananas on the green side of ripe–if they start getting freckled, I lose interest).

#4

Yeah, I’m a vegetable tease also. I’ll buy them thinking if they are around maybe I’ll eat healthier but I never do. Eventually it all gets thrown away and the cycle starts all over again.

#5

Banana suggestion: Place one banana, some milk, yogurt, wheat germ, a few ice cubes in a blender. Breakfast smoothie!

#6

Another banana suggestion: refrigerate them. They’ll last longer. Conventional wisdom seems to be that bananas don’t belong in the refrigerator, and Chiquita Banana even had a song saying it was bad idea, but they’ve since recanted.

From Chiquita.com :

#7

This way I can prolong the time it takes for me to not eat them! Thanks!

#8

My family has favorite dishes that are not my favorites at all. Currently high on that list is spaghetti. Left to my own devices, I would never eat spaghetti again. Right now, though, with a limited range of things that my kids like, we eat it once a week or so.

#9

Eggs. I loathe them. I truly believe if I was starving to death on a deserted island and someone dropped a plate of scrambled eggs in my lap, I’d go eat sand. However, Ivylad and Ivygirl like them, so I just make sure I steer clear of the kitchen while they’re cooking omelets.

Plus eggs are ingredients in cakes and pies and stuff, so I can’t completely eliminate them from my life.

#10

I just spent all evening making split pea soup, carefully freezing it, etc.

I hate split pea soup. I have no idea what came over me.

#11

I thought I was the only one that did this. I’ve taken to writing a “Do Not Buy” list on the fridge. Something I thought would be great and turned out not, goes on the list so hopefully I will remember not to buy it again when the urge strikes. And it will.

I routinely throw away yogurts. Even though I like yogurt, I will let it sit in the fridge till it goes past expiration. Then and only then, do I want the yogurt, but I can’t eat it 'cause it’s gone bad. Throw away…repeat process. Same with bananas. I’m glad I’m not the only one.

#12

If they get really mushy you can peel them and freeze them in plastic bags. That way you can put off eating them forever.

#13

Coffee from coffee shops.

I’m fairly frugal and don’t generally buy things I don’t need, but sometimes, I’ll go past a coffee shop and think to myself: “Self, some of those fancy coffee drinks sure sound tasty, with them fancy unpronounceable names and all, and what the heck, it’s only $3, I’m feeling flush today, so why not?”

Of course, once I take a sip, I realize it’s just, well, coffee, and not really much different from the grog I get at work for free, and I swear that I would never, ever waste that kind of money again.

Repeat every 2 month or so.

#14

Boxed macaroni and cheese
Canned Chef Boyardee Ravioli
Canned veggies

I despise them all, but the Kid loves them.

We were discussing this a few days ago when I made fresh plucked green beans (throw in a little butter, a little garlic, some almonds - YUM!) and she refused. When she was little she used to eat beans straight from the garden. Ditto peas. Now, with the exception of fresh corn, she will only eat canned veggies.

I also used to make marinara sauce and buy the prepackaged ravioli. She’ll eat ravioli at restaurants, but now prefers canned. And I know my marinara rocks.

Macaboni and cheese is entirely my fault. I can’t even stand the smell of it though.

#15

Around here, bananas that are past their ‘eat fresh’ date become banana bread, which can be frozen if we won’t eat it promptly. Since there are only two people here, it’s not uncommon that some food just doesn’t get eaten in a timely manner, and since I hate to throw food away, I’ve become quite creative at coming up with alternatives.

My most recent challenge is apple juice - DH had a colonoscopy last week and had to fast for a full day beforehand. Apple juice was the only thing on the ‘OK to consume’ list he wanted and he bought far more of it than he ended up consuming. So far we’ve had apple punch, apple/oatmeal bread and apple syrup. I’m sure this weekend will see me baking some more apple stuff …

#16

Chicken
Canned soup

I find myself buying chicken, because chicken is lean, healthy, yadda yadda. But I don’t really like chicken. There are a few chicken dishes that I enjoy a lot, but it’s mostly the sort of thing where I would still like them even if you removed the chicken. I buy chicken with vague plans of preparing it in some way that I will like, but once it’s in the fridge, it never seems worth the effort and I end up throwing it away.

My canned soup purchases are from this impulse that we should have a supply of canned soup in the event of … some sort of emergency where we need canned soup. It seems like a good “emergency” food item. I have never had such an emergency, and every so often when I clean out my kitchen cabinets I find a whole bunch of canned soup that is scary old, and it gets tossed. I have no idea why I can’t shake this notion that “we should have canned soup, in case of emergency!”

#17

cold cereal. I almost never eat cold cereal of any kind. It just very, very seldom appeals to me; however, the rest of the Woodhouse household adores the stuff. Silly things.

#18

Haha, bananas do seem to be a common victim of this. And the nastiest thing is not only the “waste of good food” angle, but also the horrible little fruit flies. Thing is, bananas are healthy, blah, blah, and I do actually LIKE them. Perhaps I like them best when I have none available that day, not when I know I have just bought about eight of them. Even yogurt sometimes gets the same treatment - some eaten, some left to go nasty in the fridge. :frowning:

Haha, Delphica, I bet the instant soup thing is a favourite victim too. It is for me, albeit packet soup, not canned. It just seems so classically a “useful thing to have at the back of the cupboard” (as long as you know where the tin-opener is, of course). Wait until winter, though - it is useful if you just come indoors all frozen and want to heat up before you even contemplate actual cooking.

Those cheap packets of noodles too - so cheap, so light to carry and therefore just demanding to be bought to keep for the rainy days of money shortage. Yet if I ever do eat them, it is likely I eat only about a third of the packet at most, and the rest gets binned, after living, ahem, dying, in the fridge for a while. Meantime, of course, there will still be another ten packets at the emergency bit of the cupboard. :smiley:

Oh yeah, and tinned tuna (OK that does get eaten but only after a while)… AND the compulsory tin of corned beef.

#19

Bagged salad here too. But I’m on the road to recovery. I put a bag in the cart (Very Veggie!) last time I shopped, looked at it just before getting to the checkout line, said f*** it and put it back.

I think I’ve kicked that habit.

I’ve also tossed jars of jam and jelly. Thing is, I don’t like cold jam and jelly on my toast, but you have to refrigerate the stuff. So unless I know a couple hours ahead that I’m gonna want toast, the jam’s gonna be cold. So I don’t have the toast either. Actually, I toss more bread than I should.

I’ll probably never eat most of the freezer pickles I made this summer.

#20

Defrost them and make banana bread. Yum.