Why don't you set limits? Say, ok, if you want to try something healthy, we'll limit it to 2 items/stuff to prepare 1 new dish/$20 week or whatever. And if your family incorporates that one thing into the diet, then you can start buying it more regularly.

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I complain that when my DH very occasionally goes shopping, he brings home things like frozen vegetables, canned soup, and boxed mac n' cheese that I, normally the one in charge of meal preparation, wouldn't serve unless a protracted snowstorm prevented me from acquiring actual fresh food.

Sounds like you need form a mutual game plan.

Frozen veggies are often healthier than fresh! Depends on time of year and where grown, of course. But there is nothing wrong with frozen veggies (not talking about the ones with butter or sauce but the plain). I am annoyed by people who think and say that frozen veggies are not healthy because you are spreading false information. (stepping off my soapbox now)

meal plan, 4-5 must be meals that you/she already knows how to make.
grocery list.
1 new/unusual item or recipe per week.

You should do the shopping and/or cooking.

Not true about canned but frozen can often be as healthy.

Anonymous wrote:how is buying the more expensive perishable thing "healthier" it may be fresher but buying canned goods can be as healthy as the marketed organic bullshit craze we have been programmed into believing.

Yeah... no.

how is buying the more expensive perishable thing "healthier" it may be fresher but buying canned goods can be as healthy as the marketed organic bullshit craze we have been programmed into believing.

If you're not fat and you don't eat an unhealthy diet, I would drop it.

This may be costing you a couple of hundred dollars a year. No, it's not good to waste food but is it worth it to gight with DW about it?

Why not agree to try one new "healthy" food per trip? Rather than trying to buy 20 different veggies at once and then ignoring all of them, you'd buy, say, Kale and try that this week. Next week, you could test out a new snack food.

What are you eating in the days after she goes on one of these buying sprees? Each day figure out what is likely to no longer be good in a day or so and use that as your base for dinner.

My partner gets into coupon frenzies -- resulting in 6 monstrous cans of pork and beans, when we eat pork and beans maybe once every 3 years.

The problem with buying healthy is that you're buying a lot of fresh stuff, which you have to eat within a couple of days. Best to tell DW "yes, we should eat more kale, but we can only eat so much. Let's shop more frequently instead of stocking up, since we can't eat all this before it rots."

As for the healthy snacks? Feed them to the birds.

I hope you get some good responses/ideas. My DH does the same thing. Especially at Trader Joe's. I hate to waste food and I get kinda mean about it. I recently asked him when he would stop buying stuff just to throw it away? His response was that he would stop doing it when I would stop nagging him about it. And, I will stop nagging him when he stops doing it! Ugh!

Woah. I just posted, then read the "moral cook" thing. I'm not like that-- promise. I just like the balance to swing more toward fresh food rather than preserved foods.

But my DH will buy cans of creamed corn... blech.

Interesting. I complain that when my DH very occasionally goes shopping, he brings home things like frozen vegetables, canned soup, and boxed mac n' cheese that I, normally the one in charge of meal preparation, wouldn't serve unless a protracted snowstorm prevented me from acquiring actual fresh food.

Sounds like you need form a mutual game plan.

How can i get my DW to stop buying food no one eats? She goes through these fits of "We've got to eat healthier" and then goes to the store and spends gobs of money on things that then don't even get prepared. So eventually they rot, or whatever, and end up in the trash. Or, the "healthy" snacks clutter the pantry because they're just nasty.

Seems like it happens once a quarter or so.

No, we're not fat, nor do we really eat an unhealthy diet. It's just like this weird compulsion. It's very wasteful.