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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

or is DH over this packet of biscuits?

332 replies

redviolin · 27/10/2014 11:59

I was at home alone last night, DH was out. I am 35 weeks pregnant and feeling a bit picky/faddy about food. Was craving biscuits, went to our corner shop and bought one of those Mc Vities "factory floor" packs where they put all the different types of biscuits in one big bag for 99p.

I watched TV and selected bits of the biscuits to eat: the jammy bit of the jammy dodgers, the outside of the bourbon creams. When the cookies didn't contain enough chocolate chips I'd discard one and eat another. I've done this all my life with cheap biscuits - mainly the night before my period when I'm feeling a bit low, but it's more of a few times a year thing - not a chronic habit to buy packs of things, eat part of them and throw the rest away.

Anyway, I was left with even more "bits" of biscuits, not really anything anyone can salvage, so I decide to throw them away.

DH got home and saw inside the bin (biscuit graveyard) and went mental at how wasteful I am and how I must have an eating disorder. I said I knew it looked like that but really I was just being a bit indulgent and wanted the variety and as it was a cheap pack I wasn't wasting money etc.

He has woken up this morning still pissed off about these bloody biscuits. DH grew up in another country during food rationing, so I understand where he is coming from, but surely he can give me a break at 35 weeks?

OP posts:
Itsfab · 27/10/2014 14:00

I posted before I saw that you did it every month before your period.

How has he reacted all the other months you have done this?

Maybe he isn't pissed off with you, maybe he is worried about you.

StarlingMurmuration · 27/10/2014 14:00

icimoi, we're pretty bad at wasting food. We're trying to get better at making sure we don't throw stuff away, and one way I'm trying to train myself is to visualise throwing actual coins and notes into the bin, instead of half a pie that we haven't got around to eating. When you imagine chucking a couple of pound pins in the bin instead, it does focus the mind a bit more.

OP, I can see where your DP is coming from but I think he's over-reacting, especially to be mad about it this morning too!

Original poster
redviolin · 27/10/2014 14:01

Well his strop has passed now, which is good. But it really did seem unnecessary to me to go on for so long.

I am very understanding of DH's life as a child and that's why I didn't argue with him - just apologised and said I wouldn't do it again. He grew up during a war and very poor. Despite being perfectly well off now, DH still saves every last ingredient and every last crumb of food, which is a hangover from having nothing. He will eat the entirety of something even if he doesn't like it or even if he feels nauseous.

So it is obviously a combo of both of our issues.

I do think some MNetters are being rather harsh though!

OP posts:
McPumpkinPie · 27/10/2014 14:01

Your comfort habit costs you less than £12 a year, less just now as you are pg, and he's pissed about crumbs? Wait until he has to re change the baby after its crapped in its freshly put on nappy!

monostar · 27/10/2014 14:02

how come we don't have emoticon that yawning!?

MaryWestmacott · 27/10/2014 14:03

It's odd if you always eat like this, why not buy biscuits or treats you actually want to eat all of, rather than half eat each of a whole bag of crappy biscuits?

people will normal eating habits who know they won't want to eat the whole of each biscuit in a bag don't buy those crappy bags of biscuits. Just start buying treat food you actually like, rather than stuff you are clearly eating just for the sake of eating and get no pleasure from, or is the pleasure from being able to throw bits away? Buy cake, nicer biscuits, chocolates, not just what you think of a 'crap' food so it's "OK" to throw it out.

If you need sugar, there's better ways to get it that don't involve pissing off your DH who has quite frankly, reasonable issues with food wastage.

And as you are pregnant, perhaps think about what sort of food behaviour you want your DCs to see.

Stop buying these bags of crap biscuits you know you don't like, it's maddness to buy something with the intention of throwing it out.

Expedititition · 27/10/2014 14:03

This is hilarious.

They are biscuits. Correct? Or have I read the responses to someone putting a puppy in a microwave.

Personally I think social services should be involved. She is clearly an unfit mother with her 99p a month biscuit wasting habit.

Next time put the crumbs out for the birds and this will somehow transform you from a wanton, childish, disgusting biscuit waster to Mother Theresa.

MakkaPakkastolemystone · 27/10/2014 14:07

Good grief. Your husband is sulking over a 99p packet of biscuits and a large portion of mumsnet is " clutching its collective pearls" at the wanton waste. OP, if you like it doing it for your own gratification and you can afford it and it doesn't impact your health - carry on. I bet most of those with judgy pants on probably have significantly more food waste by accident over a week. Sigh....

monostar · 27/10/2014 14:09

Well his strop has passed now, which is good. But it really did seem unnecessary to me to go on for so long.

I am very understanding of DH's life as a child and that's why I didn't argue with him - just apologised and said I wouldn't do it again. He grew up during a war and very poor. Despite being perfectly well off now, DH still saves every last ingredient and every last crumb of food, which is a hangover from having nothing. He will eat the entirety of something even if he doesn't like it or even if he feels nauseous.

So it is obviously a combo of both of our issues.

I do think some MNetters are being rather harsh though!

well...maybe it's because some people here went through what your husband went through ;)

TheBatteriesHaveRunOut · 27/10/2014 14:09

I agree Glastokitty.

OP: sometimes I buy a packet of cheap biscuits and chuck some of them away.
Some people: you are wasteful, this is disgusting and you have an eating disorder.

OP I feel I should take the heat off you here and list some foods I regularly buy and throw away - some on a weekly basis, some a few times a year:

wine
bread crusts
peach skins
hard nougatty ones in a box of chocolates
white ones in a box of chocolates
Nice biscuits in a selection box
the top bit of a wedge of brie
the top bit of a wedge of parmesan
the crumbs in the bread bag when all is eaten (apart from the crusts)
the final scrapings from the Marmite jar
the outer crust on a slice of quiche
oil I've used for cooking
chicken carcasses
bones from joints of meat
those manky sinewy bits on a chicken breast
chicken skin
the ends of cucumbers
the top and tail of carrots
and courgettes
greenbeans
and all their inedible-ended vegetable colleagues
that bit of a lettuce everything grows from
basil plants that are a stalk, not leaf
actually most stalks on herbs
huge lumpy icing on what is now called a cupcake
thick wedge of icing on what used to be a Cup Cake

And many of these are things I deliberately buy with the intention of binning them.

I am clearly alone in the universe in this, because it's utterly ridiculous to chuck out some food you have no intention of eating, one should eat food one has bought whether one needs the calories or not. No one else on mumsnet or amongst the heathens has ever not eaten a carrot skin or broken all their teeth on a lamb chop bone.

No, I'm not being unreasonable. Perhaps apart from the wine.

Redviolin - many congrats on your pregnancy, and of course, all children always eat every scrap of food put in front of them and nothing you have lovingly slaved over for hours EVER ends up in the bin. Oh no. So it's not like your dh needs to give his head a shake and prepare for that eventuality. At all. Nope.

socially · 27/10/2014 14:11

Oh my goodness this thread is mental!!!

Its biscuits. Biscuits.

Eat them. Chuck them away.

Its biscuits.

So. Fucking. What??

OP do what you like with your delicious biscuits :)

ovaryhill · 27/10/2014 14:12

I'm thinking Oreo McVitie for a girl....

TheBatteriesHaveRunOut · 27/10/2014 14:12

ps I don't mean to be unsympathetic to your dh's past, but here and now is different from there and then, and in not working out how to let go of his food issue, he could be causing more problems for himself

JustCallMeKeith · 27/10/2014 14:17

Oh my goodness, I can't believe people are actually bothered by this. It was 99p of the OP's money that she spent on biscuits for her to do what she wanted with them.

Seriously, what is the big deal?

OP, I hope you enjoyed them. ( until your DH came and spoilt your fun, that is!)

socially · 27/10/2014 14:19

does anyone remember the MNer who binned diamonds because she didn't like the setting?

Now that's wasteful :)

NotSayingImBatman · 27/10/2014 14:23

Some of the responses on here are giving me the urge to go and Chuck tonight's beef joint in the bin. Just because.

Mintyy · 27/10/2014 14:25

It's the childishness that I dislike. Not hugely, of course, but you expect toddlers to eat like this don't you?

The urge to chuck tonight's dinner in the bin in sympathy is similarly daft.

socially · 27/10/2014 14:27

why is it childish to buy yourself a packet of biscuits as a treat and only eat the bits you like?

What's with this food judginess? Its so weird!

ovaryhill · 27/10/2014 14:29

I'm halfway through licking the middles out of a packet of Oreos, but I'm not going to be wasteful, I'm keeping the rest for spares for my draughts set

monostar · 27/10/2014 14:29

Some of the responses on here are giving me the urge to go and Chuck tonight's beef joint in the bin. Just because.

go on, you'll really hurt us Grin

Moominmarvellous · 27/10/2014 14:31

5 pages of responses? 5 pages?!

It's a bag of broken biscuits and a husband with the hump.

Moominmarvellous · 27/10/2014 14:32

'I'm halfway through licking the middles out of a packet of Oreos, but I'm not going to be wasteful, I'm keeping the rest for spares for my draughts set'

Grin
Mintyy · 27/10/2014 14:34

I don't think its weird to be Hmm about very peculiar eating habits. Like I said, toddlers might eat the bits of biscuits they like, its very odd in a grown up. I completely agree with MaryWestmacott's post.

TheBatteriesHaveRunOut · 27/10/2014 14:38

lol lol lol ovaryhill

you have inspired me
henceforth I shall peel my potatoes into the shape of chess pieces, for lost bit emergencies

Fenton · 27/10/2014 14:45

You were not unreasonable to eat a 99p bag of biscuits the way you choose, when heavily pregnant.

However, if it's a habit you know someone close to you was likely to find irritating you were unreasonable to not at least try to hide the evidence Wink

I'm not appalled by it, but I would find it annoying if someone I lived with did this.