I have a fun know yourself better question inspired by a friend’s Facebook post.
Are you an ingredient house or a meals house?
We are definitely mostly an ingredient house, although we do have a pantry cupboard of granola bars, pretzels, goldfish, etc. We stock frozen pizza on the regular and sometimes Uncrustables, but we generally are not a prepared meals/snack kind of place. Harry goes through Hot Pocket phases, and Ben bought a box of frozen cheeseburgers on buns (BARF) at Costco the other day, but generally, we just don’t buy that stuff. We do eat chocolate chips out of the bag and put frosting on graham crackers, so it’s not all clean living or anything silly like that. I just tend to buy ingredients at the store— which is why PB&J with Doritos or a salami sandwich with corn chips and mustard are 2 of my favorite snacks from childhood through college to now LOL.
Growing up was the same— as you can tell by my ridiculous sandwich penchant (unless my dad was shopping— then it was all Bagel Bites and mini corn dogs and frozen egg breakfast trays— but my mom was a SAHM so the groceries were almost always her responsibility).
I wonder if this is a gendered/default parent thing- do women or family caretakers buy ingredients? Are we socially shamed for selecting pre-made stuff in a way that the partner who is in the role of household helper is not?
What about you? Ingredients or meals, and is your partner the same? Is your shopping preference about gendered expectations or is it a result of the way you grew up?
We're primarily an ingredient house. We have granola bars and chips crackers, but most meals are prepped from scratch. That said, we eat a lot of repeats (scrambled eggs in wraps is a STAPLE that we eat at least once a week - usually for Sunday lunch after church). I don't spend much time being creative with meals (life goal for once the chaos of little years/regular solo parenting quiets to a dull roar); I find things we all like that are relatively nutritious and just cycle through those.
ReplyDeleteAGREE-- when something hits and is easy and cheap-ish, we eat the heck out of it.
DeleteMore meals here! Salad kits, rotisserie chicken, and Greek yogurt are all staples.
ReplyDeleteSALAD KITS! YESSSSSSSSS.
DeleteWe're an ingredient house, but the ingredients are all there to make meals. Because of my husband's dietary restrictions, we almost never buy prepared or convenience foods, but the idea of having a frozen pizza in the freezer makes me really wistful for a time in my life when food wasn't always a huge issue all the time. I don't think this is how we would prefer to live our lives, but it has been foisted upon us by circumstances. Ha!
ReplyDeleteWe DO have granola bars and cheese sticks, but that's because my husband takes those to work with him for lunch. I sometimes wonder what we would eat like if my husband could just eat like anyone else...
We are really lucky to have no food allergies in the house. I can't eat bananas, avocados, olive oil, egg yolk, or pineapple, but these are easy to avoid.
DeleteWe are mostly an ingredient family. We have packaged snacks for on the go, individual chip bags because they keep portion control easy, and a few quick meal items (veggie rolls, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, etc). But the bulk of my shopping week to week is ingredients.
ReplyDeleteI do really appreciate small bags for portion control.
DeleteWe are also mostly an ingredient family, too. That is partially due to me having a gluten intolerance - so most of those pre-made meals are off-limits. My kids do eat some store-bought "meals" - like veggie-fortified dino chicken and cauliflower tots because that is the only way I can get them to eat veggies sadly (I feel so much shame typing that out but repeat exposure has not worked for us - our pediatrician assures me this will get better when they are more, um, rational). I grew up in a house that was mostly an ingredient house, too. Like store-bought cookies or box cakes mixes were unheard of. But we did buy a lot of stuff from the Schwann man like individual pizzas, chicken drummies, etc. But I can't blame my mom for doing that as they were both working full time/running a business and they had 5 kids. I imagine the # of meals they bought increased as the # of kids increased. I really don't know how my parents did it when I look back... Those store-bought meals weren't a prominent part of what we ate but my mom would use them when need be. Otherwise, we often had the stereotypical midwest meal that included a protein, a starch, and a vegetable. And for much of my childhood, we did not have a grocery store in our town (I lived in a tiny town of 500). The nearest store was 30 minutes away, unless they bought stuff at the gas station which they never did.
ReplyDeleteReally really really the veggie thing will resolve itself-- or it has in my experience anyway. I forgot all about the Schwann's man! Childhood flashback for sure.
DeleteIt is so funny -- I first interpreted this as ingredients = you just toss meals together vs meals = you come up with a meal plan for the week. (In that case, we do a little of both. I mean, I plan meals but then the plan inevitably falls apart.) But now I get what you mean! I think we are more an ingredients household. I think this is because of me -- I am so picky, it's rare to find a prepared meal that I want to eat. My husband would probably be fine buying Lean Cuisine and frozen lasagna though -- he doesn't have the day-to-day patience to make something from scratch, plus he hates dirtying multiple dishes.
ReplyDeleteWHY DOES THE PLAN ALWAYS FALL APART?
DeleteI have an attachment fr my mixer to make pasta, but that's a bridge too far when I just want to make a relatively healthy dinner and serve it with relatively little stress, you know?
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ReplyDeleteWhen I was 9 years old, my grandma handed me a box and said, “Make this cake.” I had never seen a cake mix box before because my mom ALWAYS made cakes/cookies/banana bread/etc. FROM SCRATCH. So, I didn’t know what to do with the box. [I guess I could have READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, but I didn’t, oops.]. My grandma scolded my mom for not teaching me this “life skill” and said that a 9 year old should be able to make a box cake on her own! 😬
ReplyDeleteMy grandma stayed at home with 6 kids. My mom worked as a teacher, but only had 2 kids. So, maybe it’s not work vs SHM, but just priorities/time preferences?
Yes, I think you’re right. Ben and I talked about this last night, and both of us ate more processed food than our parents did AND then our kids do, and I think marketing and advances in food science play a part. Think about the convenience foods that exploded in the 80s, for example.
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