Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I'm Sick of Using it Up

Before I learned about food, I bought a lot of crap. Box kit dinners, frozen dinners, ramen. Then, like now, I frequently stocked up to keep my pantry full. So, after I learned about food, I decided I couldn't, in good conscious, waste all of that food. I had easily over $150 worth of stuff in my pantry that I knew I shouldn't be eating, but couldn't bear to waste. So slowly, as the weeks and months roll by, I've been using it up. Every week I've been trying to fit one or two items into my menu plan to get rid of it, while still mostly eating much healthier. (Oh the irony of using some of my organic milk to make a box of tuna helper).

But you know what? I'm just sick of using it up. I just want to throw it all away. I know, I should take it to a shelter. But I don't even want to look at it long enough to plan the trip to go to the food pantry. At the same time, I haven't looked at this stuff for a long time anyway, when it comes to meal planning because it's just not what I want to be putting into my body. It doesn't even look like food to me anymore.

I have
1 box of Chicken Helper [$1.25]
3 boxes of Rice-A-Roni (off-brand) [$2.50]
1 box of stuffing [$1.25]
3 boxes of mac & cheese [$1.15]
1 box of crackers [$1.50]
some random white pasta [$2]
10 or so packages of ramen [$1.70]
5 cans of condensed soup [$5]
6 boxes of jell-o [$3]
30 packets of kool-aide type drink mixes [$3.50]
2 small jars of bullion cubes [$6]
6 packages of microwave popcorn [free]
2 small containers of bacon bits [$4]
2 containers of salad dressing [$4]

I just don't even care. It's not real food, anyway. But I hate to be wasteful. And this would be very wasteful. And after estimating how much I spent on these items, that's $36.85 worth of food. That's a lot of money to a frugal heart like mine. And that's probably not everything, that's just what I saw / thought of while scanning through my cupboards this morning.

Dilemma:
Give this almost-but-not-quite food to a food shelter because it's better to give this to someone than if they starved or went hungry, or just pitch it because it really isn't food, anyway?

Regardless, I have to go to work now, hurray.

2 comments:

  1. Just an idea but there are some web sites that will give you recipes based on what food is in your pantry, {although I'm not to sure if your list could be called food ;-)}. I guess the folks at the shelter would welcome it (well some of it). My dilemma is that 'crap' food just pushes all the right short term buttons, I only feel crap after eating it. Hope that this is not to negative.
    Regards,
    John

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  2. It's not too negative at all, it's exactly how I feel! And thanks for commenting! I love comments.

    And, I know what you mean, and that's part of that problem. It's not food at all--well, it's barely food.

    It's not that I can't come up with ways to eat it all, and usually as I use up all the crap, I've been supplementing it with lots of beans and veggies to make it at least not 100% junk.

    I'm gonna talk to the DH tonight and see if he's ok with me just pitching it, because, after finding a few more things in my fridge, I realize it's probably closer to $60 worth of "food" that I'd be wasting. But I just want to be done with this phase!

    We started slow on purpose so we wouldn't try it for a week and give up, but now I'm in a hurry, haha.

    Sorry for the book, sheesh. I talk too much.

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