Is it too early to start running down my freezer?

[Frangipanini]

My freezer is heaving. It's not a massively stockpiled chest one, but a medium sized drawer freezer. It has been absolutely stuffed to the hilt with chicken, fish and frozen veg. I'm conscious that it will ned up staying there for months and months and we get quite a lot of power cuts.

Do you think it is now safe to start using up freezer stuff and whittling down our dried stash?

For now I would think yes as things have calmed down and whilst the shops are not fully stocked with everything, they have enough that nobody is going to starve.

When it comes to provisions my concern is more around the possibility of a second wave of CV later in the year and another lockdown. I think the panic buying and shelf clearing will be even worse than it was this time. So I'm comfortable depleting our stocks just now, especially using up things that can go out of date, but I will be gradually replenishing as and when they relax lockdown. I'm a bit of a prepper and glad for it - we didn't need to go to the shops at all, except occasionally for bread and milk, for the first 2 or 3 weeks of the panic buying madness.

I am. I’m fed up of cooking from scratch every day. Where I am, you can get pretty much anything you want anyway.

Same here. I'm cautious about a second wave,

I’ve been considering whether to clear out my cupboard of tins and packets and donate them to the food bank. I’ve got things like powdered milk and tinned curry which I wouldn’t normally use, but I got as a just in case when food was disappearing fast. My concern is if one of us starts showing symptoms and we have to isolate for two weeks or longer I’d regret getting rid of my emergency supplies. I’ve also some emergency tinned dog food I bought in case I couldn’t get the dog’s usual frozen raw stuff which I’m weighing up whether to donate to an animal sanctuary as the usual stuff seems easy enough to get.

Yes. I’m running mine down now, because
I prefer to eat batch-cooked stuff within 3 months (although I once found a frozen plated Christmas dinner in August and enjoyed it immensely! ) and there’s quite a few things in there.
Lockdown in Italy is moving to Phase 2 on 4th May so I’ll have more regular access to fresh Fruit and Veg.
A lot of the food is winter style like lasagne, mashed potatoes, soups and we won’t want it for much longer.
It’s quite a large investment sitting there waiting to be eaten!
We’re moving house in July and the chest freezer will have to be emptied for that.

So yes, I think you should.

I'm using up stuff that is older but Im actually now trying to keep stock levels higher since I think the combination of worldwide pandemic plus Brexit and deep recession means we could be in for some difficulties food wise. I think prices will increase and supply of some things could be disrupted and restricted (particularly things like soft fruits and vegetables).

With hindsight I should have cooked and frozen meals rather than fresh meat and fish. If my house had CV , I doubt I'd be in the mood to cook or eat a fancy meal. If DH and I had it, at least my DH could heat something up in the microwave. I think I'll do this for the winter/ possible 2nd wave later in year. Cook some stews and lasagnas and stick them in the freezer.

Sgtmajor I would be bloody elated to find a forgotten Christmas dinner in my freezer. What a bonus.

I started this by using up all the weird and useless stuff in the freezer to make room for proper food. So we ate our way through half tubs of sorbet, frozen berries that kind of thing. Now I'm trying to gradually replenish it with proper food that means I can shop less frequently so more meat basically but turning it into batch cooking is a good idea too.

When I end up going back to the office to work instead of WFH, I'd like the freezer to be full of meals to make life easier then as we rely so much on £30 top up shops several times a week which is so wasteful.

Of course you should be eating your freezer food? That’s what it’s for