{"id":166,"date":"2025-09-15T22:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/good-worldwide.go-vip.net\/upworthy\/2025\/09\/15\/food-hoarding\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T22:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T22:20:00","slug":"food-hoarding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/2025\/09\/15\/food-hoarding\/","title":{"rendered":"A millennial was annoyed that boomer parents hoard food. But there’s a deeper reason for it."},"content":{"rendered":"

Millennials<\/a> and their boomer<\/a> parents don’t see eye to eye<\/a> on many things. As one millennial pointed out, that includes their food shopping habits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A frustrated millennial posed a question on Reddit<\/a> to fellow millennials: “Why does our parents generation feel the need to keep so much food in the house?” They went on to rant about whenever their boomer parents stay with them, their fridge is overstuffed with food. <\/p>\n

<\/span>“They buy so much food that we literally run out of room and our countertops end up lined with a bunch of junk,” they wrote. “I\u2019m talking like multiple types of bread, endless amounts of snacks, enough meat to fuel the an army, 12 different kinds of drinks\u2026I mean even staple things like butter, salt, condiments. It\u2019s pure insanity.” <\/p>\n

\n

\"groceries,
Grocery Store Halloween GIF by Laff Giphy<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

After expecting to be met with similar gripes, many millennials instead expressed a more tender understanding for their parents’ full pantries. “THEIR parents lived through the great depression and\/or WWII rationing,” one commented. Another added, “Yep they all have the reverse of scarcity trauma, call it abundance disorder lol.”<\/p>\n

Many millennials could see the connection between their boomer parents being raised by Silent Generation (born between 1928-1945) parents. “My grandfather felt that if he saw the fridge fully stocked, everything else in life would fall into place,” one millennial commented. <\/p>\n

Hunger was rampant during the Great Depression. According to the Library of Congress<\/a>, one in four people were unemployed by 1932, and hunger and malnutrition were widespread. And during World War II, rationing became law and part of the effort on the home front to support the United States. According to the National Park Service<\/a>, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Office of Price Administration (OPA) under Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. It was the beginning of rationing, and Americans began receiving ration cards in May 1942.<\/p>\n

\n

\"rations,
Rations during World War II. Image via Wikipedia\/U.S. National Archives and Records Administration<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Another millennial pointedly shared, “That\u2019s because you\u2019ve never known what farming\/harvesting takes or what going hungry feels like. We are a blessed generation for even having this conversation. Probably the first in tens or thousands of years of our existence.”<\/p>\n

Other millennials tied together the cultural reasons why their boomer parents shop and store food like this. “And, when they were growing up there were still things like Blue Laws on Sundays, stores didn\u2019t open on many holidays, and more limited grocery store hours,” another shared. “Even in the early 90s, 9 p.m. was a fairly common closing time for full-service grocery stores.”<\/p>\n

\n

\"fridge,
Hungry Food GIF by Kawan Foods Giphy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Some millennials owned up to hoarding and overstocking their pantries, too. <\/p>\n

“I’m a millennial and this is why I have a deep freezer and enough pantry items to make multiple meals,” one wrote. “I’m sure part of it is learned behavior from my mom who, in turn, learned it from her parents whose formative years were The Great Depression.” Another added, “Add in a bit of borderline poverty and food insecurity growing up yourself on top of their trauma, and you\u2019re left taking pride in a pantry full of non perishables.”<\/p>\n

The discussion among millennials also focused on better understanding the generations that came before them. <\/p>\n

“Some people\u2019s response was to be hyper aware of waste and make things stretch as far as possible,” one wrote. “Some people\u2019s response was to panic if there\u2019s spaces in the food storage because it might mean it\u2019s running out. Trauma impacts different people differently.” Another concluded, “Man, generational trauma is real.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“My grandfather felt that if he saw the fridge fully stocked, everything else in life would fall into place.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":187803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"alternative_headline":"","alternative_description":"","alternative_featured_image":0,"rkv_announcement":{"visible":true},"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"partner_boost":false,"hide_partner_badge":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[208,382,146],"tags":[135,697,964,356,1805,1806,1807,1808,1809,1810,1811,1812,1406,950,1813,1814,1815,705,312,1816,1817,1818,971,1819,1820,1821],"sponsor":[],"rkv-people-shadow":[238],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-modern-families","category-popular","tag-popular_source-pageview","tag-boomer","tag-boomer-parents","tag-boomers","tag-buy-in-bulk","tag-food","tag-food-insecurity","tag-food-rationing","tag-food-scarcity","tag-food-shopping","tag-generation-gap","tag-generational-trauma","tag-great-depression","tag-groceries","tag-hoarding","tag-hoarding-behavior","tag-hoarding-food","tag-millennial","tag-millennials","tag-pantry","tag-rations","tag-silent-generation","tag-trauma","tag-world-war-2","tag-world-war-ii","tag-wwii"],"edit_link":null,"apple_news_notices":[],"rkv_author":{"id":238,"name":"Mandy Coles","display_name":"Mandy Coles","first_name":"","last_name":"","nickname":"","url":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/author\/mandy-coles\/","link":"https:\/\/goodinc.com\/qa-upworthy\/author\/mandy-coles\/","description":"Mandy Coles is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and co-director of the Child and Adolescent Trans\/Gender Center for Health at Boston University.","slug":"mandy-coles","avatar_urls":[],"email":false},"yoast_head":"\nA millennial was annoyed that boomer parents hoard food. 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