My mother has excelled herself today.

[TwoSwansFromMyWindow]

Recently she moved home and gifted me two carrier bag loads of stuff from her kitchen cupboards that she didn't have space for in her new kitchen. It was mostly jars and packets, dry soup mixes, herbs and spices, various jars and bottles of condiments, the majority of which were unopened, but out of date by between 2 and 5 years. Needless to say I binned most of it.

This morning I realised I had completely run out of white pepper and DH is very partial to white pepper on his roast dinner so I asked my mum if she had any she could bring when we picked her up for lunch. She said she did and would bring it.

The jar was open and half full, with no proper lid, just the sprinkling cap with the little holes in it. She handed it to me and said 'I don't use white pepper often so it might be a bit old, but it looks fine.'

I narrowed my eyes and said 'how old? How old are we talking exactly mum?'

She looked sheepish and mumbled that she wasn't sure.

Guess. Just guess what the 'best before' date was on this jar of pepper.

In today's clear out special, we had cranberry sauce that went out of date 25 years ago. Mum had insisted it was fine until she tasted it, at which point, she did concede that maybe it was 'a little past it's best'. 🤦‍♀️

Last week, she allowed me to remove 12 jars of olives dating back to around 1997. Having already placed an online shopping order to include another 2 jars, because she thought she was getting a bit low.

I know in my mother's case that it goes way beyond war time rations. It is obvious there are some profound MH issues going on. After 60 years with my father, I am not surprised.

Yesterday I was as diplomatic as I could be, but the MiL has 2 freezers full to the point of bursting with duplicate or even triplicate stuff that she has in the fridge.
They often comment about having to go shopping so often for stuff that is so expensive.
My gentle mention of actually using stuff in the freezer didn't go down well!
Sure we all leave stuff for a while but they expend so much energy & money buying stuff they don't need?
Thankfully my SiL agrees but nothing we say seems to have any effect!

@WtP
What was their reaction? That the food storage must be kept intact as it is?
It's sometimes hard to find out what the actual fear behind the behaviour is.

Maybe if it is about cost for them, some energy providers (or sometimes even libraries) offer to rent (for free) a measuring device, to measure energy use. You plug it between the application and the socket.
It's not like a smart meter as when you like to find out what uses lots of energy you'd need to switch the item off, which you cannot do with a freezer or fridge. Instead, it measures the usage of one device while it's running.

Then it could make people see how much energy their storage is using and how it could be cheaper to eat the contents of a freezer first.
I've been meaning to hire one from our energy provider for my relatives; I think that would help more than just talking to them. But again, the irrationality is not helping.

@ForestAtTheSea
Honestly its always been a bit of a struggle with them & I've known them for 44 years!
They are both hoarders, not to the point where the house is utterly full of stuff but in some aspects it's got out of control.
I worry more for my SiL as she is only 10 minutes away, I'm 180 miles away. We both have lasting PoA on finance and health though.
I guess I'm finding it harder as both my parents are long gone so in a way they are like my Mum & Dad now, I love them dearly and want them both to have the best possible life but feel so guilty when I bring these things up.

@WtP yes, I can see this. On one hand they are autonomous people and it's their own life, on the other hand it helps with health and decluttering the house if they'd see it for themselves how it could be dangerous for their health.
And if you are designated to help in case they need support later, the support is much easier to give in a house that doesn't have health or fire hazard traps, as you can't always be around in case they (accidentally) eat something from a 15 year old packet. Especially as some elder people can't taste or smell to such a fine degree anymore, it makes it harder to identify food that's truly gone off.

My dad passed away a couple of years ago. We had to clear the house. An old freezer in the lean to had to be prised open with a chisel, inside...some meat that was older than me. I'm 37

My parents do this. There's not much in their pantry that isn't off. They get offended if you bring food to their house because they have plenty hut you just can't trust it.

I went to open a jar of olives (1 year expired) and found mould on top so I opened the other one (6 months expired) and tasted one but spat it out because it tasted like vinegar.

They turned up at our house to stay and put some potato chips out. I had one and it tasted stale. It came out in conversation these were the chips they opened when we visited them 3 months earlier. They had saved the open packet for 3 months and brought it on the 10-hour journey to our house all so we could have some stale chips.

It came out in conversation these were the chips they opened when we visited them 3 months earlier.

This is my parents! Haha!