To want to hide food?

[Bellebill]

I’m sure this happens in other households but it’s starting to really get on my nerves now...
my husband who is quite a tall big fella and naturally eats more than me (and so he should what with daily calorie intake) seems to eat all the food! I’m talking cereal, multipacks of crisps etc. I’ll eat a uite a normal size bowl of cereal but his will be a mountain of special K etc so that a box will have gone in maybe 3 days (!) and he eats a packet of crisps (maybe more than one) every day if they’re there! Don’t even get me started on biscuits! I won’t necessarily eat crisps every day but maybe every couple of days I might fancy a pack, but he will never stop to think maybe he should leave a pack for me since he’s already cleared 5 out of a 6 x multipack! It’s driving me mad and I’ve started to think I might hide food for myself so that when I fancy something it’s actually there rather than racing to eat something as soon as it’s bought! He challenged me when I moaned this evening “well what am I supposed to do?” Baffles me how selfish men are!

Please tell me I’m not alone and you too live with greedy pigs?!

banana ^

Have a secret store of things you like best.

I always always have a stash! A Tupperware style box in the cleaning cupboard guarantees that nothing will be discovered.
Ds (16) eats extremely healthily but has treat night once a week so I have a spot for his treats. Dd (8) has a sweet tooth so any goodies I buy are always on the top shelf of the cupboard. Dp takes a huge packed lunch to work and doesn't realise just how much it costs. Drives me mad.

Birthday cake is a ridiculous comparison as it wouldn’t get cut without the birthday person there to eat a slice. But thereafter, I have no issue if others eat it all and I don’t get any more, no.

Neither of us grumble if the other eats all of something. We don’t keep tabs on who had more crisps/biscuits/sweets/chocolates/ whatever, because we are no longer 12. I am absolutely sure I have eaten all of one thing or another over the years, and similarly DH will have also done the same.

If there is something such as ice cream where there is only enough for one each, we let each other know, because again, we are no longer 12.

wateroffaduckscrack you’re coeliac and pregnant I couldn’t spend a second thinking about how to soften the message as your dh sounds like an arsehole. How about ‘this is not about your weight, it’s about being a selfish fucking asshole!!’ Shouted.

If my dh ate but didn’t replace any treat food I would hide everything nice or remotely nice until he agreed actually it was nice to be able to snack and we both should be able to and he was going to contribute forevermore.

One of my teen DD's is incredibly sportive and can easily get through 3000 cals a day. Also a son who has started showing signs of puberty at 10, he's already 5ft, 4in. and has a huge frame. They eat tons so I'm used to getting through a lot of food.

But it's basic manners not to hoover everything up and leave nothing for anyone else.

I'd hide my treats.

"But it's basic manners not to hoover everything up and leave nothing for anyone else"

Not according to some people...in the banana household, eating everything and leaving nothing for others is perfectly fine

Well banana in my world, people who take everything of something and leaving none for others without checking first, are being selfish.

I guess we have different definitions for the word.

We find that it’s the kids who eat our food, so we have a little stash under our bed that we tuck into at bedtime, already looking forward to it now

I'm a little bit obsessed with those galaxy golden eggs at the min so they're definitely in my stash box

If someone is hungry they should be allowed to eat. So if some foods are rationed then okay but there should be other food instead. In all honesty I would rather DH are all the crisps than started eating more of the real food! So if he is hungry and can’t eat crisps or a large bowl of cereal as he has to save them for you, is there other food he can eat instead?

I have read the OP again and she isn’t saying he eats it all in one sitting, which is rude, but over days. I wouldn’t buy a pack of crisps or biscuits and expect some to be sitting there in a week in case I wanted one, but we shop fairly regularly so that wouldn’t be an issue for us. My DSC will eat all the snacks in one go irrespective of type and amount, 6 or 18 packets of crisps really does make no difference, now that’s annoying.

Exactly RainbowWaffles. Scoffing a whole multipack of anything in a single sitting would be greedy and inconsiderate. Spaced over a week or whatever, that is just eating.

What would happen if, when you bought a multipack bag of crisps, you removed so many packets, told him they were your share, your were putting them in such and such a place and could he please not eat them? Would that stop him? It might be worth a try.

Mine has done something similar, once. A friend bought me some whisky minatures and, having run out of any other alcohol, DP drank them all. He did replace them (though with only one large bottle, so I didn't get to try the range) and was apologetic.

I rarely buy treat food. He buys much more than me, but doesn't mind me sharing it at all. He doesn't mind me finishing stuff off either (though I tend to feel bad doing so, but sometimes I do just need a bit of chocolate). If something is mine I either keep it by my chair or in my room. He wouldn't touch it, thankfully.

@bellebill I think you might be me!! 😂 Dp used to eat 6 meals a day when we got together.....all chicken breasts and broccoli type things. He's older and does different gym now so eats.less (we also have 3 kids so he can't afford 6-12 chicken breasts a day). We constantly have discussion/arguments over food distribution. He thinks I'm tight....I say he doesn't understand a budget. Both of us are right. It's eating a double portion when I cooked enough for tomorrow that irks me. Lol. But like you and your partner we've been together ages. (Secretly I'm just jealous I can't eat the amount he does...I'm overweight he isn't). X

It's incredibly selfish and thoughtless to Hoover up all of a treat food before others get any.

Yes everyone should be allowed to eat if hungry. But treat or convenience foods should be shared fairly, as should the "best" part of any meal.

If he's starving when his share of the treat food has gone (I'd put bags of crisps in this category) then he can make toast or.something to fill himself up.

@WaterOffaDucksCrack you should be paying for something else, not good if he is eating so much more...that's not fair

Well he'll get the dodgy arteries and not you!

Seriously, do hide some. We used to have to hide anything at all "nice" from our teens, in a myriad of places, despite the fact the house always has plenty of food. Anything treat wise was the cause of all out war otherwise. It wasn't even as if I ate it myself, as I don't, but do they shared fairly! Funnily enough, they're mostly not great fans of the same stuff these days.

People shouldn't have to hide food because they are married to a selfish, greedy bastard who refuses to consider the needs of anyone else in the house!

^This

Every time this topic comes up a million excuses are made for greedy selfish men who help themselves without a thought for anyone else in the house.

So long as those excuses are made we have men being reinforced and boys being raised to behave in this entitled way. Its quite insulting to men really and akin to them being enabled not to cook or manage basic household tasks because their poor little male brains can't cope.

'Every time this topic comes up a million excuses are made for greedy selfish men who help themselves without a thought for anyone else in the house. '

It's just people. Whether it's greedy men, greedy women or greedy kids and teens. The decent food will often get eaten quickly while the healthy stuff doesn't. Just stash your favourite stuff

Doesn't everybody who shares a house with other adults and/or teens have a secret stash? I didn't get these womanly curves of mine by having ALL my goods on display you know. Sock drawers were invented for the likes of us op. Let hubby eat away to his hearts content and smile to yourself when you're chomping on a chocolate bar when he's got nothing left.

Well no, I've never hidden food in my own home.

I’d definitely stash some stuff for yourself which is strictly off limits.

Everyday stuff, like eating two apples and a bag of crisps a day, plus a large bowl of special k doesn’t sound all that excessive for a big man to me. If you bought more apples and crisps, would they last longer or would he just eat them too?

This comes up on here so often - men eating more than the woman, so that the woman doesn’t get a chance to have whatever treat it is. I think having a personal stash each for treat things is a good plan.

It's just people. Whether it's greedy men, greedy women or greedy kids and teens

No its really not. I'm struggling to think of a single post I've seen here about women behaving in this way but threads excusing greedy, selfish behaviour by men are a regular occurence.

I don't hide food, I've never lived with a man who behaved like this. None of my children would tolerate it either.

Children in my family were taught to have some consideration and check first before pigging out or finishing off items in the fridge and I taught mine the same behaviour so that they wouldn't be the greedy, self centred adults that so many women are expected to excuse.

I sometimes feel like MN is a parallel universe!
I just can't imagine dh ever acting like some of these dh's!
We always have a LOT of snack foods in the house for a few reasons. We live in a rural place with no shops in walking distance so we stock up. Dd is very close to underweight. We cook proper meals every day which she eats and she eats very well, but we also have snacks available to add to the calorie intake. Some days she eats some, other days not so much.

We always have nuts (pistachios / cashews) popcorn, sesame sticks, tortilla chips, crackers, cheese, olives, nice fruit like strawberries, mango, pineapple (in the fridge ready to eat), chocolate (lots of types), snack bars (penguins etc), biscuits etc

dd always asks - she might say something like can I have a surprise snack and as long as it's not too close to a meal we will make a small selection from the above or maybe toast and hot chocolate etc. She has no interest in how many of each thing there is. Nor does she go taking it herself, although she could. In fact the thing she is most likely to gorge on if she sees a fresh pack is strawberries and she would eat the entire punnet.

If I am shopping I buy some things I know dh loves - certain beer and honey roast peanuts and he just helps himself to them - and even though I tell him whenever I buy them that I have bought them for him so he knows there there I don't think he has ever just served himself without asking me if I would like some. Despite the fact that he knows I don't like beer or those nuts!

Similarly I buy some biscuits I know he loves even though I could take them or leave them and dd has no interest. If he makes tea / coffee he always offers the biscuits.

I don't eat many snacks (diet related) but if either of us fancied crisps / chocolate but there was only 1 left we would automatically leave it in case dd wanted it. And we would restock the next day.

I just can't imagine dh eating all the snacks and leaving nothing for me or dd.

And I can't imagine hiding food in my own home!

DP used to do this and it used to do my head in when we were on a really low budget- if he ate all the little treats that meant there was none for me and there would be none for a long time until we could afford more... How the hell is that not selfish?! Not to mention food treats were the only sorta accessible nice thing we could get so it made it 10 times worse

He's a lot better now and asks before finishing stuff up and I make sure to tell him if I'm done with something as well.

It also encourages kids to gorge on stuff as they feel they have to eat all the nice stuff in one go as otherwise it'll be all gone - DP's family are like this....