To be taken aback by just how much of my life is devoted to food

[CrimeaRiver]

And I'm not even a farmer!

Seriously, since becoming a SAHM I must spend hours each week:

• thinking about what to cook, trying to ensure a varied and balanced diet
• shopping for food
• bringing it home and putting it away before it melts/dries out etc
• cooking it
• washing up

Eating it only takes a few minutes! As it happens I quite like/don't mind any of it (except the first one on my list), so it not displeasing. But my goodness! Makes me wonder how tough life must have been for women of yore, who didn't even have dishwasher or online shopping etc.

Maybe I'm missing a trick somewhere. Has anyone managed to reduce the time they spend on food each week, while maintaining a healthy and balanced diet?

Sorry for typos. Too busy thinking about what to make for dinner tomorrow...

Tesco delivery and cooking very simple things

It's not that time consuming.

But with deliveries don't you find you don't get good quality fruit/veg? And what if you miss stuff they have on offer in the store? Or new things just in?

And cooki simple things: do you eat the same thing each week/fortnight? There are only so many "simple" things you can make, IMHO.

I'm much the same, especially as my son is in a very MC school. Feel pressured to provide a very nutritious packed lunch indeed!

I'm not a great cook so this takes a lot of time.

But you should spend time on your food! It is such a privilege to be able to choose our food and there is nothing wrong with taking your time over choosing and preparing ingredients.

Maybe you're right, maybe I should be spending this much time on food. It's crucial to our existence, after all. I'm just taken aback by it really. Some days it feels as though you barely finish with lunch before it's time to start doing some prep for dinner...

I start thinking about dinner at breakfast There are much worse things to spend your time on.

Yes. My day follows this sort of pattern:
Breastfeed the baby
Feed the cats
Feed the baby food
Think about baby's lunch while breastfeeding
Grab something to eat if possible
Play with baby
Feed baby lunch. Eat if she's feeding herself.
Start to think about tea for husband and baby.
Go to shop for missing ingredients
Breastfeed baby
Make tea for baby and feed it to her
Bathe baby and breastfeed to sleep
Feed cats
Cook dinner for DH and me
Prepare baby's packed lunch for childminder tomorrow
Wash up residue of all that feeding.

YANBU, I feel exactly the same

Same here.

I feed all three kids. I feed the guinea pigs. I do the food shopping and put it away. Cook most of the meals. The day is arranged around feeding times.

By the time I have cleaned up after the last feeding time, it is time for the next one. I am tempted to switch to paper plates and cups. I do have at least one day when I make samdwiches and cook ready made food to give me a break.

I know exactly how you feel. I wonder what heights I might achieve if I wasn't constantly planning / buying / cooking / clearing away food
Hence my name change

Yanbu, I'm sick of having to feed myself too tbh.

I think it's normal until it gets to the point where food is on your mind 24/7, and not shopping or preparing it just thinking about eating it.

Cripes, Hippy you're in non-stop feeding mode.
Do you ever get tired and confused, so you breastfeed the cat and serve up Whiskas to your DH ?

I work full time. DH works full time. We have (teenage) dc. We both do voluntary work. We both spend a couple of evenings a week doing sport. And we have a healthy, nutritious, home cooked meal every evening, which we eat together as a family. Meal planning, shopping and cooking take up a small per centage of our week, because we simply don't have the time to let it take up more.

Sorry, I really don't get what the problem is. What sort of meals are you preparing? Can you work out why it's taking you so long? Do you cook in bulk and freeze?

Online shoping means food shopping takes very little time and it usually works out cheaper.

I used to love cooking, but now understand why my mother loathes it, because it's become a chore. I have two young DCs, one with multiple food allergies, both of whom are too young to sort themselves out or in the case of the allergy kid, be fed via the school canteen. So that's 7 days if breakfasts, seven of lunches, seven dinners. I get so bored with re planning, shopping, prepping, cajoling. It's just so relentless, and that's with sharing the load with DH, buying my own lunch everyday when at work, getting DH to fend for himself for 60% of the time . Our budget is generous, I outsource a lot, but it BORES me to tears!

I've been up since 4.30 making tonight's dinner and a frittata and salad for today's lunchboxes.

I couldn't do it yesterday because we had a sporting event miles away.

I love cooking, but providing nutritious, home cooked meals to keep teenagers interested in nutritious home cooked food can be pretty relentless!

I'm having a cuppa now, before starting on the fruit for breakfast...

Bulk cooking is the answer. I devote an entire Monday to shopping and cooking in vast quantities, and this feeds us for most of the rest of the week. Also train your children to get their own breakfasts and make their own packed lunches as early as possible. Also enlist whole family for help with chopping and basic cooking. But yes, much of my life is devoted to food. Get a big chest freezer.

It's actually putting me off food myself

I agree hogwash I don't have breakfast anymore so that means only two meals for me a day. I cook nice food for my DC and DH but just end up having an omelette myself because I can't be bothered

God yes I seem to spend my entire life chopping onions! I'm so with you on this OP.

I'm with those who advise bulk cooking. During the week, I quite often cook 2x, we have the leftovers from those 2 meals 2x, and I might make a huge salad: that's 5 evenings done. DH often cooks at weekends.

Everyone is now old enough to get their own breakfast and sort out a packed lunch/have a school dinner/eat only fruit because on a diet etc.

But I do know exactly what the OP means: between the kids, the pets and all the rest of it, I quite often have toast and bovril for lunch... Just can't be bothered to make an interesting lunch even though I do quite like to cook.

God yes, I feel like this. I used to love cooking, but left to my own devices I would happily live off toast.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I bulk cook, don't spend ages shopping, cook simply, but still it feels like a chore.