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AIBU a generation that can’t be bothered.

(355 Posts)
Sago Mon 07-Feb-22 09:59:17

Our dreadful local paper sent one of its journalists to Aldi to see if as a mother of two children with a husband she could do a weekly shop for £60.
This till receipt showed she had purchased, ready mashed potato and carrot and swede there was also grated cheese ,microwave rice pouches and antibacterial surface wipes.

It never ceases to amaze me what rubbish people will put in their trolleys, the generation that are banging on about climate change and saving the oceans buying anti bac wipes and plastic containers of mashed veg!

Too lazy to peel,grate and mash.

AIBU?

silverlining48 Wed 09-Feb-22 23:01:48

DH does the curry DJ plays the music ?

silverlining48 Wed 09-Feb-22 22:59:23

My DJ does too,

Callistemon21 Wed 09-Feb-22 22:50:29

Hands up everyone who makes their curries from scratch, pounding all the spices
Come to think of it, DS does. Perhaps it's a man thing.

Callistemon21 Wed 09-Feb-22 22:49:09

Hands up everyone who makes their curries from scratch, pounding all the spices.

I prefer Loyd Grosman!
Even Tesco onion bahjis are better than mine, although I did make my own a couple of weeks ago.

Doodledog Wed 09-Feb-22 22:44:56

That's a really good point, Alison.

My grandmother (born 1912) used to see tinned tomatoes and teabags as convenience foods, and apart from fish and chips from the chippy, which she loved, wouldn't have dreamed of doing anything but cook everying from scratch.

(I wonder where that phrase comes from, incidentally? Scratch what? grin)

AlisonKF Wed 09-Feb-22 22:24:35

Most of your comments are thoughtful and not judgemental. My generation (born 1937) had to cook most things from scratch or go hungry. During the war, meals were usually shopped for every day and cooked according to what was available, however much effort it took. Supermarkets and convenience foods only started to appear from the late 1950s. I had no cookery lessons at school being in the "academic" stream. But my mother, a skilled cook, taught me a lot. Think back another three generations and often chickens, for example, had to be plucked and dressed at home, before being cooked. That's really doing things from scratch. Now in my eighties, I buy mashed potato and ready sliced frozen onions when I can. Cooking for one is a real bore.

MissAdventure Wed 09-Feb-22 21:38:45

They should have trolleys with hoods on them, I think, to save nose ointments from looking.

Happygirl79 Wed 09-Feb-22 21:35:46

I honestly couldn't afford to buy ready prepared vegetables or meals
As a pensioner living alone on a very limited income I do the best I can. Everything is cooked from scratch.
But I do have the time others don't.
I eat well. Because I know how to cook I can eat healthier and more cheaply than most which is just as well given the cost of everything. It allows me to put the heating on sometimes. I can pay my bills. I can keep my dignity and my head above water.
For now at least

MayBeMaw Wed 09-Feb-22 20:34:30

Good attempt to backtrack Sago but unfortunately it is too late to unwrite your thread title and there is only one way to read
AIBU a generation that can’t be bothered

Not a “journalist” but a generation.
When in a hole……..hmmhmm

Yammy Wed 09-Feb-22 20:11:45

Sago

Yammy The point of my thread was that this was a JOURNALIST trying to see if she could feed a family of four for a week on £60 yet she bought foods that saved time but cost more!

I was amazed she didn’t plan the shop better to provide more nutrition for her family, I put it down to the fact that even though this was an experiment for just one week she couldn’t be bothered to peel, chop, grate and mash!

I hope you complained on the letters page in the rag.

Marmite32 Wed 09-Feb-22 20:09:04

I admit I haven't read the whole thread'
But I judge my adult children by different standards.
Mainly, they work longer hours, food/ meals are in a different category of needs from ours in the last century.
It's like apples and oranges -we can't compare.

JaneJudge Wed 09-Feb-22 20:03:40

who looked after her children?

Callistemon21 Wed 09-Feb-22 19:51:11

She's probably about 18, AmberSpyglass, and was sent out on her first assignment alone.

AmberSpyglass Wed 09-Feb-22 19:20:45

I’m just gobsmacked that a journalist on a local paper can afford to feed two kids at all. The pay is…not good.

Callistemon21 Wed 09-Feb-22 17:47:33

I thought the journalist was pretending she was a married woman with two children, consequently had no clue but of course - she might be in RL.

Sago Wed 09-Feb-22 17:34:45

Yammy The point of my thread was that this was a JOURNALIST trying to see if she could feed a family of four for a week on £60 yet she bought foods that saved time but cost more!

I was amazed she didn’t plan the shop better to provide more nutrition for her family, I put it down to the fact that even though this was an experiment for just one week she couldn’t be bothered to peel, chop, grate and mash!

Germanshepherdsmum Wed 09-Feb-22 16:25:43

Indeed you are Yammy.?

Yammy Wed 09-Feb-22 16:23:18

Yes, I think it should be open to all discuss what we want,though perhaps we should put a bit more thought into what and when we do it. To post about a meal of a lifetime costing £200+ only to complain that people are getting lazy and wasting money a few weeks later so that it is still fresh in our minds is cutting it a bit short in my opinion. Which I am allowed to have.

Germanshepherdsmum Wed 09-Feb-22 16:17:44

That’s fine but I do object to a poster deciding to ask if I thought about reliance on foodbanks when I bought my last car - a post written ages ago. Had she just been waiting to give me a poke in the eye? Sheer pettiness.

Riverwalk Wed 09-Feb-22 16:07:22

Yammy further back you said you regret contributing to the Meal of a Lifetime thread because some people are relying on foodbanks. I also contributed to that thread and don't regret it - it wasn't about foodbanks or budgets so there was no insensitivity or boasting in my opinion.

Many posters talk about how their huge garden is too much for them and they now have to employ a gardener; or their 5-bedroom house is too large and they want to downsize - is that insensitive to those who are renting poky flats with not even a balcony?

And are we not to have threads about husbands who make a mess in the kitchen because there are members who are widowed or divorced; and no talk of holidays or weekends away as some are living on pension credit?

We have to talk about something, unless it's all to be about grandchildren, as lovely as they are!

Yammy Wed 09-Feb-22 15:38:43

Past posts are being dragged up here. I have just been castigated by maggieme for doing such a thing and told it was against GNrules.
It strikes me there is an inner circle on Gransnet who back each other whatever and change or try to change the rules when it suits them.
How has a post about shopping turned into one about cars?

welbeck Wed 09-Feb-22 14:54:52

i think this is all related to the decline in religion or religious practice.
value judgements that once would have been about serious sins are now smugly put upon those notorious and evil livers, > pun intended<, who dare to brazenly purchase grated, i say grated !
cheese in full view of their neighbours, to the scandal of all the upright.

Scotsmum Wed 09-Feb-22 14:54:44

When newly married and very hard up, I worked full time, husband was a very busy farm manager working long hours and needed his dinner fast so he could go out again.
I ran a 2nd hand chest freezer (remember Bejams?) I planned the menus for a week or more, shopped to the list and then never had to think about what to do for a meal because I batch cooked the basics at weekends: lots of mince for example, portions frozen down in flattened plastic bags for quick thawing, and then you could do a 5 minute transformation into cottage pie or spag bog.
Cooked chicken for curries, lamb and beef for stews and goulash and more curries. Whipped out of the freezer the night before, veg also pre-prepped and ready for me coming home.
We also shared bulk purchases with friends - so if someone had been to the Fruit Market and bought a stone of ripe tomatoes, we would split them and they would be cooked down to a pulp and frozen.
Ready meals then were awful - Vesta curries, anyone? And as for Angel delight or instant Whip - ugh: shades of Sundays at boarding school when the cook was off!
Whilst my mother brooked no helpers in the kitchen and delighted in telling me I was doing it wrong, I did learn to make a (disgusting) veg soup at school and rock cakes; they also taught the invaluable life-skill of smocking!
It wasn't until I was a student that I began to teach myself to learn to cook. I didn't even know how you bought potatoes let alone cooked them so would probably have chosen ready-mashed!

Dylis Wed 09-Feb-22 13:59:49

When I was first married in the 70s I didn't have a clue how on earth I was supposed to produce a meal. We lived on tins of potatoes, boil in the bag meals and tinned meat balls etc for the first year!
My Mum had never shown my sister or I how to cook and we weren't interested. I cringe when I remember how young and unworldly I was!

Germanshepherdsmum Wed 09-Feb-22 13:22:28

Sago

OPhere I will not apologise for either thread.

Firstly the one regarding the best meal was literally that, a sandwich on top of a hill or a gourmet experience.

I did have the meal of a lifetime and it was expensive, It was our Xmas gift to each other.
Food and cooking is my passion,what is obscene about that?

This thread has provoked discussion isn’t that what this site is all about?

GSM I seem to remember you telling us about an expensive car you once purchased, did you think about all the people using food banks then?

That car was bought was 17 years ago and I still have it and intend to keep it until I can no longer drive. Why dredge it up now Sago? It was a good while back that I mentioned it. What a good memory you have. Why are you being so unpleasant? Because I didn’t join in your ‘best meal’ game? It’s like being back in the school playground.