Is your kitchen full of food all the time?

[Croissantsfordinner]

I was at a friend’s house last weekend and she opened a few shelves and fridge in front of me and noticed every single inch was stocked with lots of food - I mean lots! It made me realise that the only times when my fridge is full is when we get our bi-monthly grocery delivery and then we eat what’s in it and it gets emptied quickly. I do a weekly refill of fresh products but generally I don’t keep loads of stuff around, just enough to feed us for the next 3-4 days. So in my fridge, even when well stocked, you will only find 1 pack of meat (we don’t eat much of it anyway), 1 type of fish, some eggs, some cheese, plenty of veg and fruit and 3-4 condiments. And milk. That’s it. Cupboards are generally stocked with a few packs of pasta/rice, some canned tomatoes, coconut milk and a pack of porridge and one of cereal + some peanut butter, tea and coffee and 1 or 2 packs of snacks for DC. I don’t tend to store lots of snacks and other type of food unless I am having guests over.
I wonder if I am a bit unusual and most people are more like my friend?

also as my username suggests, we bake a lot or roast vegetables daily, have fried sea food on the go. All healthy. If the main bill payer like it this way, so good so far - every family is very different on how they buy and eat

I'm half Irish half Italian. Nobody leaves my house unfed. And usually with a Tupperware or two.

I hate food shopping so will get a delivery every couple of weeks.

I cook extra each time so there's something for lunch (sometimes breakfast) the next day, so I always have space in the fridge for that.

My cupboards are well stocked though. I like to cook from scratch and have a good selection of ingredients on hand.

I also like a tidy kitchen. Everything is put away. No one would know what I have unless they started looking around!

We don't have masses in the cupboard, but we don't have much space in this house. In our previous house we had a lot more purely because we had a lot more cupboard space

We are an "ingredients" household. There's me and 18mth old DS and DH who used to be a chef. We plan our meals for the week and only buy what we need to make them. We have things hanging around like tins of tomatoes or the pasta that didn't get used in the pasta bake etc and we have lots of fun things that DH likes to experiment with such as herbs and spices, pastes, and various salts. Other than that, we don't have a lot.

4 meals a week are now provided for us at DH's place of study so our fridge in particular is virtually empty most of the time.

It doesn't really make sense to me to buy tonnes of things that we may or may not use and risk them going to waste nor to buy a load of stuff without knowing what it will be used for.

I like running the supplies down so I can rotate longer life stuff, and on a rare occasion clean the fridge shelves when they run empty.
I enjoy seeing the fridge go from nearly empty to full! It means stuff is less likely to get missed & need chucked out.
Having said that, I'd love to have a bigger fridge-freezer and I fantasise about having a proper big pantry so I could buy in bulk & stock up on stuff I buy every week.

My cupboards are always full of ambient foods (pasta, rice, tins etc etc). Freezer is packed with frozen fruit/veg, meat, homemade meals.

But my fridge I keep it at what we need and what we'll eat in a reasonable timeframe. I don't like throwing food away.

Grew up in a big family and never lost the mentality of cooking for a crowd! I get great comfort knowing my freezers and cupboards are stocked. However I am trying to eat it down a bit and not keep such a large amount stored as I realise now it’s not necessary.

I stock my kitchen as if I am expecting a siege, if I had to I could live off the contents of my cupboards for weeks. I'd get a bit bored of beans and pulses though. My parents house was the same, and although I thought it was all down to Mum, Dad keeps a good supply of tinned goods these days. Surprisingly, my daughter barely keeps enough for the next meal, though now she does have a small stock of pasta and sauce and might survive a couple of days away from the shops.

I’m a Northern woman. We are never knowingly under catered!

In laws are from Oxfordshire. Oh dear.

I do the weekly food shop on a Friday and just buy wht we need. So by Thursday night the fridge is pretty bare.
Whenever I go to my daughter's house ths fridge is absolutely jam packed. It's like that all the time. I don't know how she ever finds anything.

We meal plan and pride ourselves in having very little waste and finding recipes to use what we have. I’m not sure how that would work with a perma-packed fridge.

its not a financial thing. It’s an aversion to waste thing. Having a fridge full of perishable food at all times must lead to waste, surely.

I’ve just had a quick google about food waste in the uk. Genuinely shocking:

The average UK household wastes about 3.2 kilograms of food each week, which is the equivalent of eight meals. This is a waste of money and contributes to climate change.

Explanation
The majority of food wasted in the UK is edible.

Food waste is responsible for nearly 25 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.

The cost of food waste to households in 2021/22 was £17 billion.

The biggest sources of household food waste are bread, potatoes, milk, leftovers, drinks, pork, poultry, carrots, and chips.

41% of food waste is thrown away because it wasn't used in time.

28% is thrown away because of personal preferences.

25% is unwanted leftovers.

Glad it’s not just me! I think I feel wasteful or extravagant… even though I barely waste
anything.

Food cupboard is always full, main delivery once a month. I have two baskets of "packets", then trays with two of each beans/toms/jars/soups, then jars kept full with baking items and dried items, six plastic boxes for cereal that always get topped up. I sound like a cross between Stacey Solomon and a prepper!

I have a freezer delivery once a month so depends when you're there.

Then I top up bread/milk/fruit/meats when needed as our "corner shop" is a little (but normal priced) asda.

There was always lots of food in growing up … but the good food and things like juices, branded goods, nice breads, treats and ham not made of plastic were for my mum only. We had basics and were strictly rationed. Food that children and husbands had were seen as wasted.

Pretty much full with loads of stuff that I can make meals quickly. Eg this morning I made a quick vegan chili before work with stuff that I already had in without thinking too much, ie. chick peas and kidney beans, onions, spices and stock cube and puree. I could have made about 7 or 8 maybe more different meals with what I have in and I haven't done a big shop in a few weeks.

Big shop once a week that fills the cupboards and fridge. Towards the end of the week it will start to look a little bare although meals are planned and there is enough.

I hanker for the market town/ village life that my parents lived. A supermarket shop monthly for dried goods etc, but meat and veg etc bought every other day from the butcher, bakery, greengrocers. Our diet growing up was much more ethical and seasonal without even intending to be.

Never have absolutely nothing in but yeah by the end of the month we are often on tinned soup and bags of dry pasta!! Usually always have potatoes, flour, eggs and butter. Tinned tomatoes, bread and porridge.

Anything pricy like packaged snacks or fresh seafood or berries.. will be gone by week 2 and we will be back to strict budget food!

I’m intrigued- those of you who say you are always fully stocked- how do you keep track? How do you prevent waste? How do you know what you need to buy and what’s in stock? I shop twice a week and pre shop day we are down to the last few bits. There will be cereal/pasta etc but all tins used, fridge just has condiments and a carrot left. I appreciate in a siege I’m stuffed!

Food cupboards are full, both freezers also full
I shop weekly for fresh stuff so full at start of week nearly empty now as need to go again

I’m a careful planner fridge-wise. I know what meals we’re having each day of week and shop accordingly in the weekly supermarket visit. I always pick up cupboard stuff (pasta, rice, tinned stuff, cereals, etc.) whether it’s running low or not so there’s always enough. Plus containers of leftovers in the fridge which never seem to bloody get eaten.

While I do meal plan, i tend to have staples that are always in and that I replenish as soon as they get low. so, for example, if I'm meal planning and we're having spaghetti bolognaise - I'll buy in the meat but will assume I have all the other ingredients as they're staples - onions, carrots, tinned tomatos, herbs, stock, wine, lentils etc.

For me this gives me the flexibility I like even within meal planning.

We also eat quite a lot of different foods so my cupboards and fridge have a lot of different condiments, herbs, spices, oils, pastas, tins, rices etc. so theoretically, in addition to meal planning, I could dprobably feed us for quite a long time with what's just available.

Cupboards and freezer always full, fridge varies
Freezer has soup, pasta bake, cottage pie, meatballs with onion gravy all frozen into portions

There's always eggs, cheese, milk, butter and some form of bread

My mum was like you , but busy which meant no tops ups so after a couple of days no milk for cereal no bread etc. she had grown up with a post war mum who kept the cupboards rammed, spare deep freezer and a hall cupboard with tins.

I couldn’t get the balance right, DH thinks I’m nuts and if run out of something we buy more the next time. If we have too much we work out how to use it up and then find the balance. He’s obsessed with having bread though.

I wouldn’t say we’re overflowing but enough we can chose a different meal or if schools close (which happens due to weather reasonably often here) I don’t need to rush out for extra food. Another question is why do teens eat a set amount when their in school but turn into locusts when their at home all day?

I would find having empty shelves very stressful. I like having plenty of backup food. I don’t know why as I’ve never gone without.
If I had the energy and my DH wouldn’t think I was nuts I’d be a prepper I think.

I shop in bulk. I grew up in poverty with bare cupboards and I genuinely feel ill when things run down. Plus I love to cook.

Chest freezer and kitchen freezer are always full - mostly frozen veg and portioned out meat (IE I'll buy a pack of 6 chicken breasts and pop them in separate freezer bags).

I batch cook so there are always 2 out of the 4 portion meals in tubs in the freezers too. I've just bought some freezer soup containers.

Full sized larder cupboard is full of ingredients - tomatoes, legumes, pasta, sauces etc. Plus stock of condiments, jam, peanut butter, tea, sugar, baking stuff etc.

I have a full door sized herb/spice rack.

And a utility room with spares x4 minimum of all bathroom/cleaning/toilet paper/shampoo type stuff. Minimum 3 months worth of dog/cat wet and dried food, litter etc.

Fridge usually only has veg, condiments, cheese, butter etc plus whatever is defrosting for the next day. And a big fridge shelf water filter thing.

I do a bulk shop every 3 months or so, lots of BOGOF and I swear the poor Tesco delivery man cries when he sees my order.

If I didn't need any fresh fruit, veg, butter etc I could probably feed myself and the animals for at least 4 months.