What is it with women in their 80's & 90's who will keep food in the refrigerator till it's unrecognizable?
My mother and MIL, both, will keep food for the longest time, and swear it's good. Yesterday my mother tried to make some bean dip with a partially used jar of salsa - that she had opened for the Super Bowl! This morning, I was going to make cinammon rolls, and when I went to unwrap the cinammon roll container, it exploded, literally. We had problems with our refrigerator the past week, and just got it repaired, so I'm a bit hinky about things in it anyway. The cinammon rolls were just barely out of date - August 2013. Mom insisted they were fine, I insisted they were not, I let my husband be the deciding vote, and he said they were probably ok (sigh). I made them, but didn't eat any. Somebody's got to call the ambulance.
This kind of thing goes on all the time. Anybody else have this problem with Mom's not wanting to throw away food? Is it a generational thing because of the depression? I don't see that getting sick and going to the hospital would be a great savings over throwing away the food, though. It's a heck of a risk.
47 Answers
Popular Questions
Related Questions
- How do you cope with feeling alone? Husband is 90 % bedridden with Parkinson's disease. Saying goodbye to what use to be.
- My mom is staying up longer and longer. What can I do?
- Gas lighted by siblings, what do I do?
- Husband 83 w/ AD wakes up every morning now in mean mood, no good morning, just derogatory mean statements.
I think it's partly a personality trait. I'm kind of a hoarder, and I hate to waste things. I have to get my daughter to throw stuff out, because it sort of hurts.
These women did grow up in the early days of refrigeration. They remember when lots of foods were stored in the cupboard, not the fridge. Mustard, peanut butter, bread. They were probably raised in homes where any food that came into the house disappeared pretty quickly down someone's throat, because they had less food available. They are less likely to be germ-phobic.
Then there's this method of deciding if a left-over has spoiled. Leave it in the refrigerator for two weeks, and then you'll be able to tell if you should throw it out! Ya gotta laugh. Good luck.
But you also have to remember that older people in that age bracket lived during the depression and didn't throw anything away and used it two or three times if they could. My 92 year old Mother, if she uses a paper towel to wipe up water, will let it dry to re-use it, sometimes more than once. When she had cookouts or something, it drove me nuts that she'd wash the plastic utensils to use another time. They are much more frugal than we are today. While it hurts me a bit, I know it is best, but lately I've been throwing away tons of food at Mother's because she just isn't eating. Oh, if she had her right mind, she'd be mortified at the amount of food she has been wasting. I go over and will find 4 or 5 dirty paper towels folded that she's intending to use again. I just toss them.
If our economy got much worse than it is, that older generation would survive much better than today's younger generation. They've been through it before.
My mom also "saves" her good nightgown for the time she might go to the hospital. I keep saying, "Mom, you're almost 94. You've been to the hospital many times. When did you ever use that gown? Start wearing it at home!!" She also saves her good address labels and uses the free ones they send her in the mail. I tell her when she goes, I'll have 5,000 very nice address labels of hers I can't use. You just have to laugh about it.
It irritates me quite a bit watching my older brother throwing away good food for the reason of not having enough room in the fridge. God knows there's plenty of room, but he does just that, and then he goes on complaining of the high prices. I keep my mouth shut as this is his house. But this isn't happening at my place, oh no.
Everything to his own, I guess.
I tell her it might give her "the runs", so she'll throw it out!!
But then again she's still alive at 91.....
i have a female friend who wastes more food than i could ever eat. she always profoundly states that " joey wont eat leftovers " . bullshit. joey would eat backhand if he were my spawn..
I've got one that tops it all: a jar of oregano from 1961. Granted, herbs & spices do have a longer shelf life, but not that long!!!
Spoony, yup, I'm the same way... Captain, oh yeah, I don't slap a steak on the grill unless it's room temperature and has been sitting out awhile... Assandache, that post made me lol...and I bet that works, too...
I used to work as a server at Golden Corral. Omg, the waste... You would not, can not, believe waste on that kind of scale. After awhile I became kind of numb to it, but still... it never failed to boggle my mind... People that piled their plates to overflowing with food...then pushed the plate aside, barely even touched, only to go get another... I mean...what? And these were grown adults! I was trashing whole chicken legs and breasts, piles of vegetables and salads, mounds of mac and cheese, rolls with a single bite out of it... And most of the leftover stuff at the end of the night went into the garbage. I asked my manager if we couldn't box up the food in clean containers, bag it up in several layers of bags, and leave it close to the dumpsters at night, for anyone homeless that might appreciate that untouched food not going in the garbage...he said no, it was against the law... Lawd! What a world... If it's not bad, we eat it around here, period.
I tend to try to eat our leftovers within 3 days. If we haven't eaten it by then, we're probably sick of it. I have been known, however, with a large roast, to freeze part of the leftovers for later.
I don't like decomposing meat Captain. I like mine nice and red. When it starts turning brown or gets that little bit of a smell to it, it's just nasty to me. One step above maggots. Sorry. I won't eat fuzzy food, either, unless it's peaches. My MIL insists both are fine, along with sour milk. Blech!
No ambulance was needed for the cinammon rolls. But both of them took really long naps LOL.
The funniest thing I ran across was a sweet potato pie from 1990. I told my mother I was tossing it. She said no, no, it's still good. Well, personally I don't eat sweet potato pie. Nor did my father. So I asked my mother if she was going to eat it. No. I asked her if Dad was going to eat it. No. I said I wasn't, either. And into the trash it went.
I don't think it is a depression era thing. I really think it is an "out of sight, out of mind" and "too lazy to clean the freezer and refrigerator" thing. There was so much old food in the refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets, there wasn't enough room for good food.
When we moved into this house 2 years ago we cleaned out my mom's refrigerator at her condo. We found things in there that had expiration dates from 2004 (7 years out of date). Same thing with her canned goods and spices.
My MIL is even worse. I dread the day we have to go up and clean out her house. She has been saving cool whip containers for years. She intends to sell them some year when she has a garage sale for 10 cents each. She's been going to have this garage sale for 15 years now - when she gets organized. She's 90 now. Her refrigerator is so full with stuff that you can't ever find anything. She actually has 2 refrigerators that you can't find anything in. I fully expect her to get a third and start filling it up.
As a seasoned cook and baker, I would agree with others who say that the dates on containers frequently only indicate when the best flavor/texture of items will end. The most important thing to bear in mind is that anything manufactured (i.e. canned/preserved)--like salsa!--has tons of preservatives in it, and as long as it's properly refrigerated or frozen after opening it will likely keep for ages (unless there is cross-contamination with, say a fresh food). Fresh, non-preservative-packed foods spoil more easily, but in these cases the spoilage is generally quite evident (i.e. sour milk, moldy bread).
This whole scenario sounds a bit like me--today I discovered a month old Dunkin' Donuts iced tea, some radishes so old they were black, and some petrified cheese in my fridge! All went to the garbage immediately. And bear in mind that some people are more "waste not, want not" than others. Some families don't eat leftovers, as another commenter said, some--like me--can't tolerate throwing something useful out, even to the point of forgetting it! Just bear in mind that standards of usefulness vary among people--most young 'un nowadays wouldn't know what to do with sour milk. I, as a baker, know it has many excellent uses!
I am a little confused here. Are you trying to help your loved ones, or else do you want to change them and their habits to your liking? A few extra can openers stored in the basement definitely don't present any danger, that's what I am thinking. Of course it wouldn't make any difference either way. But the way I see it, you are trying to change your loved ones' habits to your standards.
I hope that I won't grow that old, so that someone else makes decisions for me. Just saying.
In my world, if you can maintain it (basement, garage, pantry, whatever) then you have the right to say what goes/stays. Once you turn that responsibility over to someone else, they get to choose. Ultimately I'm doing the best I can to keep my mom healthy and happy. It that means I throw out stuff she would save, so be it.
But seriously - no mold or bacteria can be allowed to grow, it goes bad, it goes out. In the garbage can and not even the kitchen trash. Now a few bad spots or items doesn't mean throwing out the batch, though; even if I have to put on a mask (allergic to mold), I will pick it over and salvage the good part. Meat smells bad, trash can gets it unless just a little iffy then the dogs get it. Milk is bad when it smells or tastes bad, and you don't need any for baking. Those cinnamon rolls were probably fine too...yeasts make carbon dioxide, its their job! Expiration dates are just suggestions :-). Sell by dates on the other hand I tend to respect. Stores want you to buy more, but to be happy with what you get. Now, believe it or not, I have gotten food poisoning from restaurants, but never ever from my own kitchen.
I have NO idea how I got this way. Other than being hungry so much of the time due to my genetically high appetite plus getting migraines if I miss a meal. My mom would YELL at me to "throw it out" - food that was perfectly good, cards and letters, things used once that are multi-use - and I'd pretend to, but usually manage to save it. She always prided herself on NOT having to be thrifty, sort of the anti-Depression. I guess I got it in my head to always be prepared, to never be without; I guess I have that phobia of being without, which is not without some realistic basis (ask me about my toilet paper system :-). And deep down I believe that if, and perhaps only if, we are not wasteful, we are promised we will always have enough. The only thing that keeps me from being a real full-fledged hoarder is giving stuff away, which I can do easily as long as there is a good cause in town. And I compulsively recycle. And I'm 55.
It's also a matter of overall safety. Her house is very clean but it is so cluttered that I'm sometimes afraid that something in the basement could catch on fire because of having so much stuff around the furnace and boxes packed up to the ceiling. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.