People eating food they haven't paid for....

[maddiemookins16mum]

....It just really bugs me. To the point of utter revulsion.
In a supermarket, grown adults opening a pack of 4 pork pies and happily munching their way around the shop, only to toss the empty pack to be scanned as their shopping goes through. Why do people do that, have you ever, and why??? (DD had to wait until the car for her gingerbreadman biscuit from Waitrose).

What I don't get is why posters who allow their children to graze in this way or who graze in this entitled way, themselves, are becoming so shrill about their behaviour?

just my tesco then and yes it was by the sweet aisle funny enough

will have to check to see if its stiil there next time

I've heard it all now. People actually need a sign to tell them not to eat in a supermarket. Wowsers.

My DC graze all day. They eat little and often. They are fortunate to be in very good health, active and well within the normal range for their height.
This is what works for them. It may not work for others.

I am trying to work out how you detect shrillness from written posts? Is it writing in lowercase? Typing eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee at the end of the post? I am not outraged, or shrill about others peering down their noses at me, thinking they are better than me or considering me and my family vile and slobbish - I know I that we are good people so why should I care?

"petitpois55

I've heard it all now. People actually need a sign to tell them not to eat in a supermarket. Wowsers."

Indeed.

Agree with PP who said that this type of behaviour is uncouth, walking round eating food is just so lazy and rude - in any situation. If you have a health issue that requires you to have regular snacks then take them with you and eat before you go into the supermarket. If people stopped the almost constant snacking and just waited to sit down and eat a meal there would be far fewer overweight children and adults.

thats what i mean half the people on here say they do it and who care the other saying why should we need signs

think it answers it

Why not have a snack in the supermarket cafe before you start your shopping if hunger is such a problem?

'boak' to describe being sick is as old as the hills. Although I would spell it 'boke'.I remember it cropping up in one of our novels in English lit when we were about 13 and we thought it was hilarious to see it written down because it felt a bit risque. The book was written in the 70s...

Although maybe the word is Irish or Scottish in origin...

Gosh! We only ever venture into Waitrose if we're buying veggies for the rabbits (It's hampers from Jacksons for us don't you know). And of course, I make sure that PFB has one of these to munch on on the way round (bought and paid for in advance of course)

I'm off to Tesco. I think i'll have to pack a picnic. Cant possibly last 20 minutes without some food.

As someone who worked in a well known supermarket, this doesn't bother me in the slightest.

There are plenty of 'rude and uncouth' customers out there who have never so much as snacked on a grape. Checkout staff have a lot worse to deal with than scanning an empty wrapper!

I hare to see adults/older children eating as they walk about anyway - it's just repulsive. However, I've been known to give small DCs a few grapes out of a packet, or a banana off a weighted bunch if they were peckish, and I've drunk water before I've paid for it if I have been very thirsty. As long as it gets paid for I don't see the problem (though I did once see a woman take a half-eaten bar of something that her brat child had finished with, and just stick it on the nearest shelf.

I think adults should have enough good manners and self-control to wait - preferably until they are home! (But that's just me). The only exception I would make to this rule regards medical emergencies e.g. diabetics can often experience a sudden drop in blood sugar - if they need to scoff a biscuit, Im fine with that.

I agree with you OP. It's not just the not paying for it beforehand but it's the immediate gratification at the slightest hunger pang. Why can't people eat before they go - or wait. Waiting isn't an alien concept for many of us.

And it's not the same as giving a child a corner of bread to keep them quiet, it's the adults scoffing and touching things with greasy hands as they shop. Why?

There's also the fact that some people do NOT pay for the food they've eaten. Empty packaging and leftovers on shelves. Disgusting.

Why not have a snack in the supermarket cafe before you start your shopping if hunger is such a problem?

does every supermarket have a café then? Good to know.
To be honest it's not something I would do myself and now my children are a little older I don't let them either (in any case they are too busy doing their own shopping with their pocket money). But if other people do then I'm not going to faint from the sheer outrageousness of it all.

A couple of years ago, on a trip to civilisation, we went to some place or other with joined-up shops and one had baskets of free fruit for kids, which i thought was excellent. My children however, refused to take any. Two of them thought it was just for babies and the other two thought it might be a trick and they would somehow get into trouble!

I've done this once as an adult with a bottle of flavoured water... I love thinking I wound someone up to the extent they felt like they could vomit!

This is a golden oldie on MN- we've had it before

I am with the OP. I think it's wrong to eat stuff you have yet to pay for . No one is so starving they need do that. Yes, people will justify it by saying their darling DC didn't have time for breakfast before they came out- well, tough. Get yourselves organised or pack a banana in your bag.

Eating in the street is just so bad mannered anyway , and eating in a shop just cos you can't wait 10 minutes is beyond the pale.

Who cares? Really! Take a chill pill dear, it's really not important

^^ yes

It's not the worst thing you could do - but the idea of other people's saliva on my food is pretty gross.

Saliva is the least of your worries tbh, it takes only one person of the thousands who visit each supermarket daily who does not wash their hands after using the loo and food they touch that is not wrapped will be covered in tiny poo particles. Also likely there are bogeys on it...and maybe some animal waste products..so on. This is why we wash lose food

Monkey, I work with small children, my world is awash with poo particles and bogeys.

I get that some people don't agree with this - fair enough. But do people really find it repulsive, revolting, disgusting, nauseating? Does it really fill people with 'utter revulsion' and make them want to throw up? Really?
And I hate the way in these threads that people are never just eating of drinking - they're always scoffing or chomping or stuffing their faces or slurping or guzzling.
I have been shopping in supermarkets for 30 years and I genuinely don't recognise this picture of hordes of adults trailing round Tesco ramming food in their mouth and leaving a trail of crumbs and wrappers in their wake. And as for UNWASHED FRUIT!!!!!!!!! won't somebody think of the children?
A number of PPs have said that they work/have worked on checkouts and it doesn't bother them. If they're not bothered, why all the outrage?
This thread is nothing but a not so thinly veiled attack on people that posters perceive as 'common'.

I've never noticed this in supermarkets.

Restaurants on the other hand, people eating before they pay is rife in there. Heathens I tell you, steer clear OP. stick to Waitrose and you're safe. It's a dangerous world out there.