To be slightly irritated to have missed being the generation that got to live life guilt free?

[Beetle76]

I opened a packet of smoked salmon for supper and then had to decant the bit I’m not going to eat now (dinner for 1) into a bulky glass container to keep in the fridge for tomorrow. I felt a twinge of irritation that I couldn’t just throw it into a zip-lock bag or use a bit of cling wrap. I then felt guilty about throwing the non-resealable, non-recyclable packaging away and then started to think about how I would need to avoid buying it again unless I could buy it by weight somewhere. But then I thought I probably shouldn’t be eating fish anyway because of the antibiotics they are fed as well as the slightly uncomfortable fact it was once a living thing.

AIBU to be irritated that I wasn’t born into a generation that could live a convenient life, where they didn’t live under the constant feeling of guilt for every little thing that they did?
I’ve had a long and tiring day today and living in ignorant bliss just seems very appealing right now

@racecardriver

Oh really? Good to know. I’m not condemned to using brown paper forevermore then!

And yes I agree about coffee cups

Salmon wasn't always posh. My grandfather was a labourer in Scotland and often worked on jobs away from home. Salmon was so plentiful and cheap that it had to be written into their contracts that they would only be fed salmon three times a week rather than all the time.
(misses the point of thread)

It’s good you give a shit

Look we have many good things . We are more likely to survive cancer and a major accident
Our kids are less likely to be bullied and sexually abused
Sexism , racism and homophobia are becoming less acceptable
The next generation will I hope be far more sustainable and tolerant

When I look at children today I have a lot
Of hope for the future

if previous generations hadn't been such careless bastards, we'd have less to be conscientious about now. I'm really trying to teach myself that these little conveniences come at too great a cost, but yeah, I'm still trashing the planet with single-use plastics.

I don't think that the fact that other countries do it more and worse is a decent excuse for us to give up.

I agree op. I wonder what it was like to just throw stuff in the bin without worrying about recycling and if something is recyclable or not. I spend a lot of time thinking about recycling. I know it's right and how it should be, but sometimes I think how good it would be to just chuck everything away without a second thought.

Previous generations ? I think it’s OUR generation

My granny certainly didn’t cause this

Not sure if the previous generation was guilt free - smoking, coal mining etc. However as a child my parents had a small silver dustbin that the refuse men collected once a week. No recycling but we didn’t throw as much out either as a lot more food was home cooked/grown/ bought from small shops in paper bags. My mum used disposable nappies and they didn’t have wipes or nappy bags. Life just wasn’t so disposable in the 60s.

Smoked salmon certainly isn’t new, but we plebs never got to see any. Salmon came in a tin and was served on Sundays at tea time. I never saw a fresh pineapple when I was a child either, let alone taste one. The man from Del Monte was in charge of pineapples.
(We worried about different things in the 1950s/1960s - a worldwide polio epidemic for one)

Smoked salmon can’t possibly be a new thing?

You're right, it's not

www.gourmetfoodstore.com/history-smoked-salmon-15150

I know what you mean OP. I also find it stressful that we're being bombarded with conflicting information. So we're hearing about how plastics are destroying the environment, we shouldn't buy palm oil, etc and then the next minute we're seeing adverts for Christmas, Black Friday, etc telling us to buy more stuff. Buy plastic toys to make your child happy.

I know we're adults and we can make a conscious decision to not buy more unnecessary stuff, but I'm already conflicted about Christmas. I should give my children experiences rather than stuff to eventually add to the landfill. But DD really wants Shopkins and Smiggle tat and it would make her happy, and would not buying them really make any difference anyway when everyone else is probably still buying plastic tat?

Smoked salmon is not a good example to use. Previous generations woukd certainly not have eating things like that.

We had smoked salmon every Sunday, either on bridge rolls or rye bread. It was a staple for tea along with mashed egg, cream cheese and pickled and rolled herring (urgh) so definitely not new

A certain % of the population DID worry about things like (when the pill became readily available in the 1960s ) the shedding of excess hormone into the water supply and its effects, about the common place use of pesticides etc.
My mother was pretty obsessive about eating well and eating organic. She still died of ovarian cancer we're sure it'd have been caused by something from those 'carefree days'

I totally get you OP and surprised so many others don't, seeing as we are bombarded with the knowledge and message that almost everything we eat, and everything else we do, or buy; e.g. free range eggs, organic eggs, all meat, even free range organic meat, mobile phones, driving, flying, giving to charity, not giving to charity, giving to the wrong charity, buying cheap clothes, make up, plastic bottles of stuff.. basically it all damages someone or something, and it's impossible to pretend we don't know about it, as it's all out there. Ignorance was bliss I suppose!

The guilt-free generation doesn’t exist. For example, in the 80s antiques were a big thing. I remember a friend of my mother’s practically having a heart attack if you bought ‘reproduction’. Yet my grandmother found it bizarre that my mother would buy antique goods when she could afford new. To her, antique meant old; second-hand. She would have probably thrown the ‘new’ items in a skip a few years later.

I suspect the unspecified generation you talk of had other things to worry about, like how they could feed themselves on meagre rations but hey, your 'dilemma' is far more pressing.

The o-zone layer disappearing isn’t a thing any more, I seem to remember people worrying about that in my childhood so I guess it is
always just new things to stress about.

I'm 50 and we had smoked salmon when I was a kid.

I use a large ziplock bag for my smoked salmon, just keep using the same one for every pack I buy.

I popped the second of two cod fillets into a washed take away container, I'll have that Friday. Tomorrow is the second of two chicken breasts which is still in its pack, covered with stretchy reusable cling film stuff.

I know what you mean, sort of. But, it's just routine for me now. I try to be organised to avoid waste.

Yanbu

I’m with you op! I feel girl every time I throw away a nappy or use cling film etc (nanny so cant use reusable nappies)

*guilt

To be honest I put food back in the fridge in the packaging, and I'm now wondering why people are decanting. I thought it was only tins that weren't safe past first opening.

I remember going into a friends house and their being two huge salmon in the bath (dead) her Dad had been poaching them (didn’t know that then)

Don't eat salmon?

Job done.

I think about these things a lot but i think its anxiety. The reality is the state of the planet is the result is due to a lot bigger fish than us. Its one thing to make positive changes, but its another thing if its actually affecting your wellbeing. You are not responsible for fixing all of the shit in the world

I think you are thinking about the baby boomers generation, who hadn't started worrying about the environment and plastics but had plenty of modern resources. Of course they were worried about the nuclear holocaust.

Incidentally did you know the Victorian Gothic movement was inspired by their feeling that the countryside was being destroyed by industry and one day this would lead to the end of the world as we know it.