AIBU to wish people would stop using flour for play dough

[Outtedagain]

Just that. Some people, like me, want to cook with it. I have just worked out (correctly I think) from Facebook feeds featuring play dough recipes that this is contributes to there being no flour.

And here we are again. Another person whose need trumps others'. FFS it's flour. You don't NEEEEED cake and biscuits any more than someone else NEEEDS playdough. You just want it.
Bread and cake is readily available in all supermarkets so buy them if you're desperate.

I don't use it only for cakes - it's for thickening sauces or coating chicken or fish sometimes when cooking.

So you use it for completely unnecessary things.

What do you class as an essential use?

People always need a scapegoat to blame for anything. its not just that the supply chain is disrupted, its some poor mum or dad keeping their kids occupied thats to blame because thats the easy option. And the culture of blame is spectacularily magnifying over the last week, especially on SM.

Blame gives people an illusion of control. It makes them feel better about a difficult situation.

www.upworthy.com/her-story-is-funny-but-its-lesson-will-change-the-way-you-think-about-blaming

Why not buy actual play dough?

I agree with PP that the responses about going without food are completely OTT.

Having grown up in Africa, people here have never actually known what it’s like to not have any food. So you can’t get flour. Unfortunate, but have something else instead.

Nobody is starving here. And no, I’m not talking about those who already had to use food banks etc, I’m talking about the average joe on the street.

Sometimes I think that some people need to go to a country where there is genuine, abject poverty and food shortages so that they’d realise what we actually do have rather than keeping on about what we don’t.

I refuse to justify my flour purchase or intentions for use.

goes off to eat cake sandwiches while having bath in flour, as children occupied with recreating the Alhambra from play dough

I’d like to bake, it helps when I’m feeling restless. I can’t get flour anywhere. I’d also like to make some Yorkshire puddings on Sunday.

Baking, making Yorkshire puddings, thickening sauces with it are all equally as inessential as making play-dough with it but I’m not begrudging those who have managed to find some and using it how they want.

YANBU about the waste of flour

The problem with flour supply isn't that people are selfish and stockpiling.

In the UK only about 5% of the flour we use in normal times is used in domestic kitchens. Obviously the flour that is used for supermarket bread is still being used normally but the flour that is normally used for supplying bread for restaurants, burger bars, cafes etc is now not being used because all those businesses are closed - and the flour is there in warehouses but is only available in these 10kg or 20kg sacks. The flour can't easily be repackaged to be sent to shops - and even if there was a way, there is a massive shortage of the paper bags that flour is normally packaged in and it will take a bit of lead-time for those bags to be manufactured.

Meanwhile lots of people who are quite sensibly minimising their shopping trips and can buy a fortnight's worth of most things are not being massively selfish to think it would make more sense to buy enough flour to make bread at home every 2-3 days rather than going to a bakery every 2-3 days.

If you have flour in the house please use it for food. It is going to be a long time before the flour supply chain is functional again.

YABU

Kids need stimulating activity more than you need processed carbs.

Why not buy actual play dough?

Because i'm sure someone would then moan that people were buying non-essential items.

*unessential not inessential

I'm a bit that some people seem to think flour is only used in cake and biscuits? It really isn't!

Flour is a staple foodstuff; if there is a shortage of it we will all suffer. And no, it won't be a question of just buying a cake instead of making it.

Our supply chains are looking really shaky right now, so we should all be avoiding food waste as much as we feasibly can. The most valuable use of food is for calories/sustenance.

@AlternativePerspective There are a lot more things to make with flour than cakes and biscuits.

I always have flour in and have made 1 cake in the last 5.5yrs.

I use it in sauces, bread, flatbread, dumplings, ie actual food.

Why not buy actual play dough?

Home made play dough is much safer for carpets. When it dries it crumbles when rubbed. Then easily hoovered.

I hate it when people use normal paint on pasta. You don’t need to fucking paint pasta for a toddler just putting it into a plastic bottle and shaking it will provide hours of entertainment and when they grow sick of it you can boil it up for their dinner.

Same with indedible play dough. The whole point of using flour for playdo is so you make cookie dough that is edible.

I’m with @HeffalumpsCantDance I’m afraid.

I think you can when people need food to eat. That trumps a toddlers fun tbh.

We aren't in such desperate times that people can only eat flour.

My daughter had pancakes every morning! I hand make the batter. Rather than buy the ready made.

Can I find any flour? Can I f**k!

Yet

Flour is a staple foodstuff; if there is a shortage of it we will all suffer.

We really won't.

You don't NEEEEED cake and biscuits any more than someone else NEEEDS playdough.

can't find a better summary than that!

Crikey someone suggesting clay, plasticine or Fimo instead? How does that fit in with all the shrill seeking threads about unnecessary purchases

I'm aware that some posters have been going on about this, but I personally haven't had a go at anyone making 'unnecessary' purchases, provided they buy it as part of their normal shop. I'm all in favour of buying a few extras to make life bearable, and plenty of supermarkets sell craft items/toys. So my suggestion was entirely in line with my previous views on that.

YANBU
eating is essential
Playing with potential food stuff isn't essential

I have a DD with a 4th birthday coming up, party cancelled, not enough flour for the one thing she's been picturing in her sleep piled high with sprinkles.

YANBU OP.

Tbh use of flour in playdough is better than making cakes. Playdough can keep for months, cake is gone within two-three days. Yabu.