NT shopping habits.

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My NT wife enjoys a varied diet. She seems to also enjoy shopping each day when it is her turn . I don't, and I don't get this gatherer instinct either, if that is what it is.

This means one of us goes shopping every single day and buys food for that day.

This is very wasteful and time consuming.

It would make far more sense to plan out twenty eight meals, cook them all on one day and freeze them in bags with dates on so you knew exactly what you were eating on any given date. You could vary the diet to NT tastes but coherently order food production categorization and storage . Portions could be designed to fit in the freezer, rather than having random box shapes and cartons. Most NT's would probably not retain the meal schedule anyway , so it would seem like a surprise to them when they find out what meal they are having.

This would save twenty seven hours a month tailing to the shops.

Has anyone had any success in this or a related field?

I think most people do their shopping a week in advance, that's what my family does.

Talk to your wife about it.

I would think going to the store everyday is a bit excessive. I can't imagine what you would need at the store that you couldn't get the day before. Even perishables don't perish in 24 hours....at least not that I know of.

I usually just go ever once a week to a week and a half.

If she enjoys shopping, why not ask her to do it all? That would be a win-win situation.

The only thing I like about shopping is that sometimes I buy stuff that will help me to pursue my special interests. So mostly I do my non-food shopping on Amazon, to avoid the crowds and the queues and the general discomfort of walking around our horrible town centre. Shopping sucks if you don't drive, because then you have to wear thick clothes in winter, and they overheat the shops so you sweat buckets. I also think I should carry a little sign that says "please do not ask if I have a loyalty card, as a belt round the back of the head often offends." And another sign that says "do not print my bank card details on my receipts, as this could lead to identity fraud, and why the hell should I have to carefully shred and keep every damned receipt when all you have to do is leave out the info?"

Food can be delivered to your door, though I don't use that service because I don't want the shops to use my address to profile me for advertising, and I don't want them making mistakes or delivering "comparable" items if they don't have the exact thing I want. And no doubt it only works if you can arrange to stay in for a whole day listening carefully for a knock at the door.

Your ideas for rationalising the food shopping and cooking look pretty reasonable to me. I don't cook at all, I live on raw salad sandwiches. I'd make more than one at a time, but usually I can't be arsed. Other people can play with their food to their heart's content for all I care - I suppose it could be quite interesting to do that, but it's always looked like an unnecessary chore to me, and it can't compete with my special interests. I've never met anybody who shares my apathy towards the food palarva thing. I get sick of remarks like "oh, you've got to have a cooked meal" and "oh, you can't eat the same thing as you had yesterday," and the classic "what will people think?"

My dad does that

Not freezing the meals - most food is better when freshly made - but he does have a plan for dinners, and shops maybe once a week. We've got months worth of the foods that don't go bad stocked up. It saves money too, buying in bulk when its cheap, and travel expenses.

Though, if your wife enjoys the shopping, it would make more sense to let her handle it.

You could be my parents. They have this problem. I think it is maybe a male vs female thing. Although, i like to go into the supermarket a couple of times a week to pick up things on offer.

I have noticed the NTs in my family tend to be larger consumers than the Aspys.

I do not understand.
My sister complains to me nearly every day that I should buy food, when there is lots of food in the house.
Then she says that that is not 'dinner food', when it is perfectly good for eating for dinner, each kind of food is.

She might like being spontaneous, rather than varied. That way she can eat whatever she has a slight craving for that day.

I like the idea of cooking lots of meals and putting them all in the freezer but I don't think I could devote a whole day to cooking food.

She certainly is an oddball.
I kind of giggled when this exploded in her face, so to speak, when she got herself something she did not enjoy.

Apart from the time/energy wastage.

I think it is the problem of having random box shapes in the freezer that do not fit together properly
that is most on my mind at the moment . Random packaging does not stack together well
( tessellate ) and you have to take out all the boxes on the top all to get at things that have been incorrectly stacked at the bottom.

If food production/storage was rationalized, food could be placed in the freezer in the order of the rota, ie reverse order, there would be no problem with stacking and having to take everything out.

Also I would like to use white rice + chickpeas as a food base every day and add fresh vegetables until I decided to change. But these are the sacrifices you have to make .

This is like hearing part of me speak ... the part that is rational and sensible ... I wish I could be like that all the time.

memesplice, is it only your wife that stops you from organising your food and other aspects of your life in a rational and efficient way? Or is there part of you, too, that is chaotic? I find it hard to imagine that anyone could be completely organised and have no chaos in them ...

doh-lag-double post

Last edited by anxiety25 on 25 Feb 2010, 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have tried many times to organize my freezer, and absolutely dread the task, especially after dealing with people and everything in the store, which would be ideal timing if you aren't getting things already frozen that need freezing.... so that everything isn't stuck together later when you try to handle it. But when I go back to attempt it, it's still a lot to work with and take in, and a lot of time to take doing something I don't like when I can just open the boxes up and use things as needed... so I guess I procrastinate it or get lazy about it essentially-well, it winds up moreso... I just DON'T WANT TO DO IT. lol. It's a big job and I don't know where to start.

It's interesting you mention this today, because a few hours ago I was in the dentists office (in a magazine that the assistant always flops down onto me while I wait) and saw an article on organization-one of the ideas was to get small bins and mark them. Like "veggies" "entrees" "snacks" etc. and only put those things into them. Which, in the picture looked nice and neat and organized at least, but to be honest, I don't know many people who have large enough freezers for that to even work in, and stuff would be crammed between the bins in no time at all because it just wouldn't fit, especially if the bins were full of odd sized/shaped boxes that take up a lot of room in the bin itself... then losing space to the actual bins, ugh. There's just no way it would work in my house.

Mentioning this at least did give me a little bit of an idea... I'm not gonna spend an entire day trying to cook food and another day trying to catch up on the dishes, but I am thinking a lot of our snack type stuff sits in there for a good while because I don't feel like digging out the boxes once too much is piled on top of them. I think I will start opening boxes and separating things into smaller portions using ziplock bags and find a way to make them easy access for the most part this evening... (wait, technically it wasn't my idea... so I should say you inspired me to put it to good use, or somewhat good use)

Yes, there are a lot of people who do their shopping and cooking the way you describe. (Usually they do it for the sake of frugality rather than because they are bothered by stacking different size containers in the fridge/freezer, but it would work for your needs just as well.) Just Google for "once a month cooking" and you'll find hundreds of sites with recipes and shopping lists and step-by-step instructions on how to do it.

However, your wife might like the taste and health benefits of eating fresh food, so you should be flexible and consider her needs, too. The two of you could have a talk about it and plan a system together as a team, so she knows what bothers you about the current system and also sees that you are willing to do your share of the work (planning, shopping, cooking, storing, and washing up) to get the efficiency and organization you desire.

I live by myself and rarely shop for more than a few items at a time, but I live in the city and work at a grocery store and pass like 6 others on the drive home. So I spend no extra money at all by deciding "I feel like spaghetti today" and picking up noodles from one guy because they're cheaper than the other guy two blocks down the road, who's selling sauce and mushrooms for cheaper than the noodle guy.

The 28 meals in the freezer idea sounds like a fun experiment, but I don't enjoy reheated meals enough to make them ahead.