Hmmm…for me it’s lunchmeats. Every household seems to keep bologna, summer sausage, ham, salami, or hot dogs in their fridge. I don’t have any of that. I can’t stand it - all cold and slimy.
In fact, the only meat I regularly have is some chicken breasts in the freezer, but that’s about it.
I have no idea what Golden Corral is, but here fresh veges are among the cheapest things to buy, especially if you make sure you buy what is in season. May be different where you are, I guess. I can buy heaps of groceries for the $10 it would cost me for a salad at a restaurant.
Not in this house:
Meat of any kind
Eggs
Canned anything. I can’t remember the last time I used a can opener.
Microwave meals
Salad Dressing
Mayo, mustard, relish (blech!)
Pizza. I hate pizza.
Thank goodness no one visits. I’d have to order out to feed them.
For $10 at Woolies I can get: 3 tomatoes, 1kg carrots, 1 iceberg lettuce, 1 cucumber, 1kg onions and 1kg potatoes.
Why would you want kg carrots, kg onions or kg potatoes? I’ll stick with the regular variety, myself. 
Right now, I have virtually nothing at home as I’ve recently moved and not really managed to get into the spirit of things yet. Usually, the only big staple missing is coffee. I loathe the stuff. Anyone wanting coffee at my house had better bring their own (it’s happened, too - not to be aggressive or anything, but if I had to bring a syringe of heroin whenever I went to dinner in a house where they didn’t have heroin, I’d be worried).
Processed food, frozen meat or fish, powdered herbs/seasonings, ground pepper,
pre-grated cheese, margarine, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup", canned soups other than plain broths, white mushrooms, “processed cheese food”, prepared “spaghetti sauce”, frozen pizza, store-bought ice cream, Crisco.
I would prefer to shop daily, planning meals around the best and freshests ingredients available.
That’d be me, and probably other people who live in one- or two-person households and haven’t mastered the art of cooking for one or two people.
Sometimes I want a big meal – meat-fish-chicken, something starchy, a vegetable, and dessert – and those frozen dinners are the only way to get that without having a lot of leftovers.
At least it’s the only way I’ve figured out.
For me it’s not so much about mastering the art, it’s that it’s so incredibly boring to cook only for myself.
I am not sure if this is true or not, but I do know Golden Corral serves Salmonella and Botulism for free.
We call the place the Hog Trough.
Here they have a program where if you pay a small amount you get a box of fresh fruits and vegetables at the start of every month. There are three sizes you can get and the most expensive is $20. That takes care of the majority of our fruits and veggies for the month. Some things don’t really get eaten, but most of it does.
Freezing, that’s the best way I’ve found. A pot of spaghetti can make 5 meals for us (2 adults and a toddler) with enough for lunch the next day. Make some meals on weekends and stick leftovers in the freezer in meal size packets. Some stuff doesn’t always freeze well, but usually the main dishes do and it’s easy enough to mash a couple of potatoes and cook up a vegetable to round it out.
I found when I was cooking for myself I would make a lot of easy stuff, I still do but my meal planning is rounded out by the pots of whatever I make on my days off.
kg vegetables taste better, don’t you know? As if you’d have lb vegetables.
I tend to make everything from scratch, also. So, I always have most ‘staples’ on hand. I always keep fresh fruit and vegetables available at all times, as they make great snacks.
There ARE things that we will NOT allow in the house, such as t.v. dinners, generic soda and canned spinach (fresh is fine, but NO canned.).
I save so much money buying lb vegetables that I can afford to buy more than 2 of them for every 1 kg vegetable I could buy…
LOL…I have this book of short stories published sometime in the '50’s, called the Family Book of Humor, and in it there’s a story by Scott Corbett called “You Can’t Cure an Epicure.” It’s the story of a guy who just can’t resist buying gourmet items…and buys them all the time, even if they turn out to be not as exciting as expected. Your post reminded me of that story.
No meat.
No bread, little pasta (gluten intolerant).
No salt.
Sugar’s hidden away somewhere.
Very little ready-made food.
No oven chips.
No biscuits or crisps. No sweets at all, actually.
No kiddie food, despite having a kid.
We don’t drink coffee or tea, but there is some taking up space in a cupboard, because our guests usually want it.
God, that makes us sound like paragons of virtue, which we so are not - I often buy a bag of crisps on the way to work, for example, which is why I don’t keep them in the house.
(NB: crisp packets in the UK are about a third to a quarter of the size of a bag of chips in the US).
What we do keep as staples that most people don’t, and have to replenish surprisingly often:
Pine nuts
Cinnamon
Honey
Brie
Icing (we bake a lot)
Sunday breakfast staples - veggie sausages, hash browns/waffles, mushy peas
Carrots in huge quantities
Jars of red peppers
To the OP: perhaps your Dad is trying not to tempt you into unhealthy eating. Milk is great, but in moderation; bread and cereal are good, but not if they’re consumed at the expense of foods with higher nutritional value.
I’m confused as to why your brother would put butter on bread and then put it in the microwave. Bleugh!
People always seem to have ice cream cones in their cupboards, something I don’t have nor do I understand. May be a regional thing.
I didn’t really realize how well-stocked my kitchen was until reading this. I have everything, and fairly fresh and ready to use, too. I rock! (Oh, except crap like baloney and spam. We are spam-free.)
No offense, but I think I might understand your father. Your brother and sister sound like absolute freaks, and it seems as though your father is (imperfectly) attempting to control obsessive/very odd behavior that he does understand. I certainly don’t understand it. They sound like they have prader willie syndrome or something.
Meant to write, “That he does not understand.”