AIBU to find using food as play material really irresponsible at the moment?

[Gabilou]

Just as the title says really. I keep seeing people making salt dough decorations using half (!!!) a bag of flour. That's over 2 sour loaves... also painting pasta, using it for sensory play, along with flour. It just seems there is a shortage of those ingredients and people aren't even using them for food! Am I being an unreasonable grump or is that just plain irresponsible and wasteful?

It always makes me cringe when people do this.

You know some people not having access to food isn't a new thing right?

It’s an odd balance, all of a sudden these parents now have to feed and entertain their school aged children for at least 5 extra meals a day (that’s a lot more pasta than they used to buy). And create educational resources on potentially very limited finances, given many (not all) families haven’t got a guaranteed income of what they were used to previously.
So a bag of 60p flour to make dough is a great resource compared to a pack of Playdoh for £10 for Argos.
Same with pasta, £1 for a bag of pasta conpared to a bead kit.
Hopefully most people have thought to ensure they and those close to them have enough before they use it for alternative purposes to food.
It’s not unreasonable to be annoyed, but it’s not unreasonable for a parent to think I can’t afford play doh so I’ll make my own x

Again, there's no food shartage. People have calmed down a bit, there is plenty of food in shops. What is the problem?

Depends. I have these ingredients in my cupboards.

I'm likely to fuck it up. I'm not a skilled cook.

My daughter can have a go

Yabu. There's no food shortage

THere is no food shortage now, but there MAY BE. It is basic common sense to assume that what you have now has to last, as I said, if only if it means less trips out when are only supposed to be making essential trips to the supermarket. I wouldnt class it as essential to buy more pasta because your kids made necklaces out of what you could have fed to them.

Isnt it amazing how many people are slagging others off for walking their dog but think that this is ok?!

YABU

This competitive race to the bottom over who can be the most draconian and miserable during this lockdown is getting quite tedious now.

Plenty of people have leftover pasta, until two weeks ago it was one of the most common items on people’s weekly shop. It’s always likely people will have spare, I know life is boring for a lot of people right now but finding reasons to be outraged isn’t the way forward.

Where are you all living, if your supermarkets aren't cleared out? Not that I can get hold of food at all right now, single parent, no car, not being let into supermarkets with children and not near any local small shops unless I walk for an hour there and back! There may not be an actual shortage of food, but the accessibility of food right now is not there for all of us. Getting very worried about feeding me and my children, to be honest. Jarring when we can afford a food shop.

I used flour and water today to do messy play with my son. He loved it and it kept him entertained for an hour. I don't see the issue.

@Beepboop22 My supermarket isn’t cleared out. Medium sized Asda, I was there today and got all of my shopping list including pasta, flour, toilet roll and all the things everyone seems to think the country is running short of. I even managed to get hand sanitizer in Boots when collecting a prescription.

We had a shortage because people were panic buying, the panic buying has stopped and people are shopping normally now they realise that there is enough (including toilet paper) for everyone.

@Beepboop22 The fact you can’t get to a supermarket isn’t the fault of people using pasta and flour for messy play. I’m not sure why your reply is relevant to the conversation?

And if that’s the case, surely you should be able to get a priority online delivery slot?

I have moral hang ups about pasta as a play thing. Although we didn't even have pasta to eat until I was about 12! However, we do, against my instincts, have play lentils, which toy trucks move about. They are in their own tub, in a different place to the eating lentils! It's the plastic trucks I SHOULD feel guilty about, being plastic and not biodegradable. The lentils won't harm the planet.

@TheTruthAboutLove you are only eligible for a priority delivery slot if you're elderly or high risk, not just a parent or without a car. If that were the case, too many people would be eligible for the priority slots to mean anything. Ocado, sainsburys, waitrose, tesco, morrisons, Iceland all have no delivery slots at all, even skipping to mid April when you cannot go forward any more. I check every day, even waiting up in to the early morning, the slots are gone before I get there. I was responding to the food shortage comments and the fact people are able to freely get their hands on stuff in supermarkets now. Every supermarket within a 20 minute drive radius has no pasta, no flour, hardly any sugar, still no soap, calpol, toilet paper, kitchen roll, milk, eggs, real butter, nappies and wet wipes. There was one crate of cat food when my friend was there yesterday, which is only one thing on a long list of things we need!

This sort of fun police idiocy makes me want to play the loo roll mummy game tomorrow 🤣

ITs not about a race to the bottom or moralising, its just about common sense.

Things ARE going to get worse before they get better, we know this as a fact. We need to stay at home as much as possible. We know cases will increase dramatically, which inevitable affect the supply chain. So making use of what you have and making it last is simply the right thing to do.

I am not talking about feeding the kids one spoonful of bare pasta each and telling them to be grateful, just not wasting things uneccesarily. What in that is is a race to the bottom?!

I've never liked to see rice being used in a big trough for toddlers to play with at nurseries. I can't help thinking how many people it could feed. It's nothing to do with there being a shortage or not, it just seems to me disrespectful of the food.

Shops not fully stocked here- I went on Saturday, no flour, no pasta, no toilet rolls, no soap, no baked beans, no branston pickle!!

Brassy “ I've never liked to see rice being used in a big trough for toddlers to play with at nurseries”

I didn’t know this was a thing 😱😱😱😱

Beep do you mind me asking whereabouts you are? That’s awful.

@Beepboop22 I am currently doing food shops for 5 houses due to family being high risk, if you are anywhere near me (east/west mids border) I will happily add you to my list. I am a single parent too but thankfully I do have a car and older kids so I can do it alone. I dread to think how I would have managed (or not) when they were all little.

Actually not as upset as when school asks 300+ kids to decorate egg(s) for a competition at Easter. At least we are spared that this year.

Just encourage people to buy their kids expensive play doh in plastic pots then.

There isn't a food shortage, there just isn't exactly what people want in the shops at the moment. Personally I prefer the use of biodegradable pasta and rice and flour for early years activities than plastic toys.

I feel more guilty about get more worked up by people buying expensive supermarket birthday cakes or bottles of gin when there is a food bank collection next to the checkout.

And it would have been chucked otherwise.

Jelly past its sell by date does not need to be chucked fgs.

@Hippee aren't the eggs supposed to be blown, so the contents are still eaten?