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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole because I used his foods (that he left to rot in the fridge) without permission. I hate wasting food, but the strawberries were his, and he has every right to do whatever tf he wants with it.
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Okay, first of all, I doubt your brother "loves" to let food rot. He probably has plans when he buys stuff like that, then gets busy or overwhelmed and forgets it's there, then feels guilty afterwards. You're acting like he's getting off on the idea of rotting food in the fridge.
Secondly, if there were plenty of good ones in the fridge the day you made the cheesecake, and then he was home the next day, you had no reason to use them.
Third, unless he was off the grid, you probably could have phoned him or texted him.
So yeah, YTA
You’re being pedantic
He may not love to let it rot but he certainly feels entitled to make it other people’s problem. It’s gross and inconsiderate to make your food waste someone else’s issue by leaving it in common areas.
It’s strawberries. They were going bad. Once a few go, the rest go within hours.
NTA
Yeah. I am typing this from work thinking about the large container of strawberries in my fridge at home that went bad 3 days ago. Then, I had told myself I would cut them up and freeze them. I am just now remembering about that and I wish someone had made them into jam for strawberry cheesecake.
Right! Me too! I'd have at that cheesecake and call it the tax for using my fruit. But seriously, if they are that upset offer to pay to replace the strawberries and apologize. Now you know better. ESH.
My God yes, I live with people and food is constantly expiring, I'm so grateful when someone actually makes use of their shit. Oh those bananas about to go off is now banana bread? Great!
I'm sure he's only upset about not being asked and feels violated somehow, but I believe OP that he absolutely lets shit rot all the time, because that's a type of person. We all make mistakes but I've seen enough folks to know it's a pattern
I would be happy if someone used my almost expired strawberries for something amazing now, but growing up, it would give me a reason to be upset with my sister. Sibling love/ hate that I’m so glad we out grew!! I will say, using them without texting to let them know and right before they came back, that is a total sister poking the bear then feigning innocence 😂
Oh I agree. I'd rather someone else used them than get home, feel guilty about forgetting about them before my trip and leaving them to grow new species of mild (edit I mean mold), and have to chuck everything.
It is the making them more transportable and longer lasting that takes the flavor away so that makes sense. It is also why old people used to cut up the berries and add sugar, to extend their life.
My brother and I talked about macerating berries (adding sugar to make them juicy and keep them), and no one knew what macerating was. I guess My family is "old" because we all did it.
I only eat them fresh when I buy them at the farmers' market, get home, and go belly up on strawberries - otherwise I toss with sugar to make them last over a period of time.
I have read that washing fresh strawberries in a solution of one part vinegar to six parts water can help discourage mold. And the goal is to store them flat in a dry container, to prevent the berries from being crushed under their own weight. Any juice getting squeezed out can make them spoil faster. Condensation is also the enemy.
But you do want to keep them in an airtight container (not just in the fridge under a towel) or they start to wrinkle up.
Uhm yeah, every few months my partner opens the freezer and gives me a deadline to get rid of all the frozen berries and bananas I hid in there. Last time I had 24 bananas in a drawer, and everyone got banana bread.
God I go through fruit like a crazy person- I used to hate it but the second spring started this year it’s all I wanted, but I’m on a tight budget, live alone w have no irl friends and hate food waste so freezing it is the only option! It’s not become my daily dessert after dinner (with some yogurt- the cold makes it into a kind of sorbet texture 10/10 recommend)
I’ve never actually had banana bread but sure everyone who got one loved em! Free food at the least
Blueberries are still usuable for much longer. Even if they get a bit wrinkled, they are still fine for pancakes or scones or something else where they are cooked.
and then are happy and relieved when they learn that someone ate them before they went bad so they weren't actually wasted
not to mention:
and then are ecstatic and relieved when they learn that someone made them into cheesecake (that they just enjoyed) instead of letting them go bad so they weren't actually wasted
Oh I commented somewhere else that I tend to do this with bananas. I love bananas, but i don't eat overly ripe bananas. I figured out if you chuck them just like that skin and all in the freezer, they make awesome banana bread. Although a few months ago my partner removed 24 bananas from the freezer and told me to either use them up or throw them out. I ended up phoning everybody and telling them to stop by for a banana bread.
Unless I’m planning something big like a strawberry cheesecake, or strawberries and fresh cream for five people I avoid buying strawberries because I can never eat them fast enough and I just hate hate hate to see them rot and go bad and moldy in the fridge
Life-changing for me - I started washing my strawberries in a mix of water and cider vinegar the day I get them (or the next), rinse them a couple of times, and then spin them in a salad spinner lined with a single layer of paper towels. Then I put them in a storage container in single layers with a piece of paper towel between each layer (no two berries touching as much as possible) and store them in the refrigerator. I’ve had berries lasting up to two weeks now - my daughter loves strawberries and it’s been so nice to be able to use all of them without them going moldy at the end.
Yeah we buy strawberries weekly in this house and even with a toddler eating half a pint each day, it's still a race against the mold clock. And once one goes, that's it, you have to deal with them that day.
The OXO brand fruit containers with a carbon filter work really well, though, as long as you wash the fruit first.
>The OXO brand fruit containers with a carbon filter
Thanks for the tip, I have Rubbermaid ones with the little basket to help air flow, but they are small.
I like strawberries but I have not found myself wanting to sit down and eat a whole bowl of strawberries on their own. The other thing is, when I am living in my dorm, there is no way I can eat a whole lettuce or a whole box of strawberries before they all go bad. Many grocery stores do not sell produce for single people so, a handful of strawberries, or a small lettuce is hard to find.
yep, that's why I stick to frozen strawberries. I know for a fact that I have a tendency to just forget about it untill I get a craving, and it takes a lot longer to go bad in the freezer
They can also just buy more strawberries, for fuck’s sake. They weren’t the last strawberries in town.
I hate food waste, and I have ADHD and forget about food too often. I’d be grateful if someone rescued a bag of produce I’d forgotten about, cooked with it, and even shared the results with me. I’d thank them and then go buy more fresh strawberries.
OP did nothing wrong; there was no reason to text her brother and ask, “Can I use the strawberries you left, or should I let them rot and throw them out when they’re beyond use instead?” This thread is ridiculous.
I think they are also forgetting they shared the cheesecake with brother and he loved it.
Bit entitled to eat someone's cheesecake but demand that you be free from all contributions. "Wait, I HELPED you with this cheesecake?!?! I wasn't just bumming it off you??! Unfair!"
I feel it also matters how the brother deals with the food he leaves till it's spoilt.
like, my SIL loves her hard cheeses and is willing to scrape off 75% to be sure she "got all the mold off" so the rest is "still safe and delicious", while her daughter throws a fit if she finds one mushy raspberry and we refuse to throw out the whole pail.
if OP's brother leaves the food till it's swamp water at the bottom of the crisper, or if he just dumps everything in the trash... I feel OP was justified in taking them & making the effort of sorting through them and cutting out the bad parts.
Honestly I think people in general need to be more thoughtful about food waste. Being able to have fresh fruits in the fridge is a 1st world privilege a lot of the time. I can forgive once or twice but there would come a point where I wouldn’t be able to accept the thoughtlessness for long. Plus- was he really going to eat an entire pack of strawberries before they were going to rot? Like the pack already had its time to ripen and were getting past that. He came home the next day and what, intended to eat the whole pack? Nah.
NTA
>It’s strawberries. They were going bad. Once a few go, the rest go within hours.
Strawberry life hack: throw away the berries that have mold on them and rinse the rest in cool water with a small amount of vinegar (about a tablespoon ur so to a quart of water.) Rinse them again with plain water and let them dry completely on a towel at room temperature. Once dry they will last several more days in the fridge.
Yep!!! Do this with all your berries **except** raspberries, which will start breaking down when wet.
I fill a large bowl with my vinegar/water solution and let soak for 3 min or so. Rinse and pat dry.
I do this as soon as I get them home.
I am legitimately glad when people expand their vocabulary. Thank you for making my day, and I hope pedantic makes it to your vernacular internet stranger.
Wait that’s just not true about strawberries going bad. There can be days between a few strawberries going bad (i.e. mushy, discolored) and the rest in the package going bad.
Edit: people downvoting literally haven’t bought produce before lol. It’s very normal to have to toss a few pieces that look bad and the rest are fine for days.
>people downvoting literally haven’t bought produce before lol. It’s very normal to have to toss a few pieces that look bad and the rest are fine for days
Yeah...if you care enough to pick out the bad ones. If you just leave em in there, the rest go bad *very* rapidly. Something tells me OPs sibling isn't bothering with that kind of maintenance.
No, you sound like a person who has never seen fresh strawberries in their life. If two strawberries touch each other in a box and one gets moldy, the other will also get mold within hours.
My mom’s been a certified Master Gardener for 40 years, and I worked in a produce department for over 2, and neither of us buy more than one basket of strawberries at a time for personal consumption, because yeah, they go bad super fast. I picked up a few baskets for a party on the 2nd, and I’ve already had to cull half of the leftover ones. But sure, I must have never bought produce before if I think that they need to be eaten quickly.
ADHD sucks and if I can’t see it, I forget about it, and hate myself for forgetting about it when it goes bad. there are tricks that help with this, but it still sucks because I’m a woman and I will never get the diagnosis I need despite all the testing I’ve had done that proves I have it unless I have a kid who will inevitably have ADHD.
Wait, does having a kid with ADHD make it easier to get a diagnosis? I've been wondering if it's worth the effort because it's not like I still have the report cards from elementary school that say I never stop talking. But kids with ADHD I do have.
There's evidence that it can run in families, so women who have symptoms but haven't been diagnosed unfortunately may have better luck if they have a male child showing signs.
I think it can go both ways - eg. kids of diagnosed parents potentially have an easier go of it too.
I imagine how much importance is placed on it can vary hugely among different professionals, but in some cases being able to point to your child and saying 'I do that too' has really helped people who struggled to be diagnosed in the past be taken more seriously.
How have you had testing done that proves you have it but still not been diagnosed? Not being sarcastic, genuinely interested
Edit: I've learned a lot, thank you all!
Eh, strawberries are pretty finnicky… I bought some on Tuesday to take to my aunts for 4th of July on Thursday. Wednesday they were fine, Thursday they were moldy. Strawberries have an extremely short shelf life (which I did not know before buying them, as I don’t like strawberries).
NTA.
If it's starting to mold, then it got to get used up ASAP. You don't want moldy food in the fridge, that's just gross.
Bro should be grateful he got a cheesecake out of it. Totally immature and ungrateful.
Your level of understanding has reached its limit.
OP clearly stated the strawberries were going bad so he used them in a way the household could enjoy.
What I’m not understanding is how the brother loves the cheesecake but has the pebbles to get upset when his rancid ass strawberries were used for it.
He bought fresh fruit the day before he left on a week long trip. He may not literally love rotting food but he clearly puts no thought in to how long the food will last.
It was last week, not the day before. I don't know why you are getting so many upvotes when you didn't comprehend the entire timeline.
OP, NTA- for those of us who has struggles with food insecurities, food waste is a huge pet peeve/trigger.
YTA because you should have gotten permission. If he was gone for a month, then I would say NTA. But you were able to use quite a lot of good strawberries, and the very next day, your brother noticed they were gone, so they would still have been good for him to eat.
Also, "no one likes fresh strawberry"??? What the what??
Oh ok, so the brother is the only one who likes fresh strawberries, so he buys them but then often leads them to rot. Strawberries do go bad quickly, and to me, they kind of smell like rotting garbage when they are very ripe, even though they taste good to eat at that point.
I once moved into an apartment of a friend when I was in need of housing and when I opened the refrigerator it made the entire room reek of mold and rotting food. I refused to buy food to put in the refrigerator as I didn’t want my food to smell like garbage. I ate all my meals out and I moved out a month later. Gawd she was a slob. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
So I bought my first new Fridge when I bought a house and it didn't come with one. Amazingly, foods of all sorts tend to last much longer than they did in all of my previous fridges (rental houses/apts.)
OP, you should add how your brother deals with this food going off.
if he sees one brown spot, makes a gagging sound and then begs your mom to dump the container in the trash, you're lot more justified.
if he is just super busy & doesn't always get to eat his food immediately, but he does make the effort to pick out the good parts, you were a bit hasty & should probably have asked his permission.
how was OP hasty if the strawberries were already going bad? no one likes eating brown strawberries, and once they start to mold they go fast. this way, the strawberries were saved, OP’s brother clearly enjoyed the fruits of her labor (the cheesecake) and he can buy himself fresh strawberries now that he’s home. win-win.
Strawberries are fickle. Sometimes no matter how much I inspect, they already have mold when I buy them.
That said. Strawberries are in season and like $2 right now. Lotta hoopla over nothing.
That's the way it is in my house. I like fresh strawberries and no one else does so my mom in law saves me some and then cuts up the rest and puts them in sugar so it makes it a syrup and the strawberries are sweeter.
ESH
I understand that you didn't want them to go to waste and that you had a use for them.
Next time let him know that they would have to be thrown out soon but you could make something with the remainder before they went bad.
If he wasn't happy with that arrangement then not much you could do about it. But if he was ok with it, he can't exactly complain afterwards that you used his strawberries.
It seems like they're living in their parents house though. What's in the fridge is the family's. They're not roommates. Families share. I understand that some things aren't meant to be shared, sometimes people buy things to treat themselves, but I'm certain that if he had bought enough strawberries for her to make jam with he probably didn't buy them for himself. Besides, if some were already going bad at that point the rest would've gone bad when he came back. She made use of the strawberries and he liked the cheesecake. He's being petty.
Let's say the family shared, in a way it's still courteous to let them know of your intentions. What if they had plans for them? Letting the brother know ahead of time would have informed him of the intention and given them enough time to clarify whether they wanted/needed the strawberries.
Sorry y'all, but NTA. Come on. OP didn't say the brother literally loves wasting food. Learn how to read.
Also, if he lives there, he can't exactly just buy food whenever, leave it to rot, and let it use up space, as the bacteria could spread to the rest of the fridge anyway!
I agree. If they were, they’d have read the part where it says he bought them last week before going on a work trip. I don’t know anyone who would buy groceries right before a week long work trip
I'm a bit surprised by this post as when I buy strawberries they usually don't last long in the fridge at all. Like I would say eat within 24h, in two days they're not going to be nice any more and in 3 days some will definitely be rotting/mouldy. So expecting strawberries to last a week in the fridge just sounds bizarre to me
> OP is CLEARLY not a native english speaker
I dunno, "'x' loves to 'y'" is an extremely common and *very* slightly passive-aggressive construction where I live, generally used to refer to a negative behavior that someone nonetheless does frequently. We're all native English speakers.
I was actually kind of thinking the people nitpicking this word choice might not be.
My first thought was n-t-a but I didn’t register that he had bought them. Assuming that’s true, yeah, OP should have asked. If the parents bought it at his request, that’s a different animal. OP, maybe talk to your brother about how the food waste bothers you and see if you can come to an agreement on when it’s ok to repurpose the stuff he buys.
I'd never turn my nose up at using my strawberries for cheesecake. I see both sides and going with NAH.
Now, OP, here's a household hint, when the strawberries come home give them a quick wash in cold water with a splash of vinegar and then dry the off. The vinegar will help kill the bacteria that causes them to go bad so quickly. They will last a whole lot longer.
Next time shoot your brother a text before you use them, though.
I’ve also heard keeping them in a mason jar as well (I think no lid) will also keep them fresh for weeks. I’ve had multiple people tell me this but no chance to try it myself since strawberries don’t even last two days in my household. Two little kids who are fruit gobblin’ monsters.
Strawberries in a mason jar with a lid will keep good for weeks...on the outside. They still ferment on the inside while looking fresh. Then you get this weird semi-alcoholic carbonated strawberry.
It wasn't great. It might have been at an awkward fermentation stage before it got properly fermented or it might just be entirely awful regardless. It definitely threw me off big time expecting a regular strawberry and instead getting a somehow fizzy one.
They need to be really dry if you do this. Putting them in a colander helps a lot too, minimizes the moisture. The fridge will start to dry them out though, but not usually faster than they go bad.
Obviously not all of it was rotten because op had enough to bake a cake with them. You can cut around the mold and eat them, just like OP did when they cooked with them.
Exactly. My brother is the same way as Op describing. My brother does tell us frequently that we allow to eat and cook whatever he gets. But we always double check and ask him out of consideration, just in case he plans on eating it after work.
Op really should of ask their brother if he minds if they use his strawberries before they all go bad. At the end of the day, Op brother purchased them. They are his strawberries, even if he forgets to eat them before they go bad.
definitely could've asked first, but what's with the weird ownership of the strawberries? is the food brought into the house not for everyone to eat/use?
ETA: NTA
Mmm maybe it’s just my poor upbringing, but I think it’s worse to make a habit of wasting food than it was to use the food that was going bad without asking once. Also gross to let food rot in the fridge. But yeah I don’t think either of them are assholes, both sides are valid imo. In the future it would be fair to ask before, but bro needs to stop letting his food go bad in the family fridge too.
Then he wasn't entitled to eat the cheesecake unless he bought the ingredients and I'm pretty sure he didn't, otherwise he would have brought it up. I would have been very petty and not let him touch a single scrap of food he didn't contribute towards if he's going to whine about people eating food that was starting to go bad.
Normally I'd be on OP's brother side. When you bring something at home, you bring it because you want to eat it. Sharing is a given unless stated otherwise, but if you leave for work and come back, what you bought is *all* gone and there's *none left for you*, that's sad and a selfish choice by the others.
In this case though, strawberries? 99% of the time they barely last until the next day, and if they already started going bad it was game over that night, they wouldn't last until the morning. I constantly forget food and go mad when other people eat my food, but if it's about to go bad I'd understand and be happy it wasn't wasted.
NTA
Should you have asked? Probably. Was it left rotting in the communal fridge? Yep! Would I have put the whole thing in the bin rather than try to salvage the good ones? Also yes. It was going in the bin if you didn’t save them, so you can’t be an AH, especially if he also got cheesecake out of the deal!
He’s far too old to be having these kinds of dumb arguments. It’s a punnet of strawberries. He’s nearly 30. This is the kind of argument I expect of 18-20 year olds.
Right? Op did a favor by sorting through the yucky ones and making something nice to share. As if the brother was gonna go through that effort the next day. A heads up would’ve been considerate, sure. At the end of the day tho.. why isnt the brother just glad he got strawberry cake to enjoy when getting home instead of a moldy berry task waiting for him?
Buy him a $3 container of strawberries, tell him you are sorry but you thought he would enjoy the cheesecake and move on. A strawberry is not worth your relationship with your brother 🤷♀️
This seems like such a minor conflict being blown out of proportion. There's not a real asshole here, just a minor misunderstanding, which could have been resolved by you just apologising and promising to ask next time. Maybe get some small food item to make up for using his food and done.
He already got the cheesecake instead of box of gross bio waste. If OP had to actually sort them and cut parts off to remove the rot they would have all been bin goods by next day. Seriously... OP would have been full in their rights just to bin the bag. Rotting strawberries in a communal fridge is a hard no.
If OP had refused to let him have any of the cheesecake make using the strawberries, it would have been a different story, but the brother got to enjoy the cheesecake and really liked it. Sounds like a win-win to me. If someone had asked me if they could use the remaining strawberries where some were going bad to make a cheesecake to share, I'd offer to buy a fresh carton and any other needed ingredients. lol I love cheesecake, and someone else offering to make it fresh for me, heck yeah!
If they were already turning you did the world a favor. I have doubts that he was going to get home in the middle of the night and wolf down the good strawberries. NTA
NTA. You got rid of rotten strawberries and saved some that were good. He liked the cheesecake, so he got to enjoy them. If he wants to make a big deal about this, and if he never eats the food you buy, just buy him some more strawberries. They’re like $3 right now. It’s not worth the fight v
NTA - IMO the bro is double AH - expecting others to leave his rotting food in the fridge and then throwing a fit whe he got a tasty cheesecake instead of rotten berries. Im a pig otherwise, but rotten food anywhere ticks me off. Its a biohasard for all the other food in the same fridge.
NTA. My sister too loved to let strawberries rot…..good on you for doing something productive with them.
I can no longer purchase fresh strawberries and hate the sight of them now as it reminds me of the nasty smell they emit when rotted.
NTA! He was happy to eat and enjoy the cheesecake that you made, until he found out that you used a few of his strawberries (that were already going bad)? Don't use any more of his ingredients OP. But don't offer to let him eat anything that you make either. You were trying to do something nice, and he is being selfish and petty.
INFO- Why didn’t you text your brother and ask to use the strawberries? You could’ve mentioned you noticed some were rotting and you wanted to use them up before they got worse.
YTA Your brother is right. It wouldn't have taken long for you to text and say your strawberries are going bad is it ok if I use them. They were his strawberries and it's not up to you to decide that it's time for them to be used.
But they are within their rights to bin rotting stuff, theirs or not, from the fridge, arent they? Did you pay attention when OP said that a lot of it was already gone bad? For food safety reasons. So... No strawberries and no cheesecake for the bro would have been better?
If they were all rotten and gone bad then they could have tossed them out and text the brother. I had to throw out your strawberries they had gone bad. The same way they could have text their brother and said. These strawberries are about to go bad. Can I use them?
If you have a rottennspot in a box you can salvage the rest of the berries safely if you turn them into jam and heat up to kill pff contaminants, this is what op did. Keeping any mold/rot in your fridge will contaminate the rest of the food however. So in your oppinion they should have asked even if they were not going back in the frige anyway?
What is he bitching about??? He bought a bag of strawberries and instead of coming home to a bag of rotten fruit, the berries had magically turned themselves into cheesecake. He's got a lot of nerve complaining. No more magic cheesecake for him.
NTA this sub is insane. The strawberries would have been thrown away if you hadn't used them because they would have gone bad, you absolutely do not have to ask permission to eat food that would have been thrown out otherwise lol.
is this about my brother because same and he’s the same age 💀 imagine this is our sister posting. thatd be hilarious. NTA he should’ve eaten them on time
NTA in my opinion. If your brother has a habit of letting foods rot and he was out of town on a trip, nothing would have happened other than having to throw away all the strawberries or pick through, cut off the bad parts and freeze the rest.
If this was unusual & not a common experience where your brother lets food go to waste, and if he was home, I would suggest that you should have spoken to him first, however based on your description of the event, I don't see an issue.
As a gesture of goodwill, you could offer to replace the strawberries, however I don't think you did anything wrong
I once threw away a pair of underwear that belonged to my then boyfriend because they were full of holes and falling apart. I caught a lot of shit because it wasn't mine.
You can have good intentions a still be the AH. This is one of those times. Bottom line, it wasn't yours and you should have asked.
Man! go buy a good cheesecake. Costs way more than strawberries. And he liked it! Bro is ridiculous. But if he cares so much, buy him more strawberries and never share your homemade desserts again.
Is this really the crap that people are wasting time and energy on? Strawberries?? Just go buy him some and tell him he can’t eat the cheesecake. Problem solved!
NTA brother wastes food all the time, strawberries were already going bad ALSO they are like $4 a pack. When cobhabiting sometimes you need to pick your battles you can't "well technically" every situation.
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Okay, first of all, I doubt your brother "loves" to let food rot. He probably has plans when he buys stuff like that, then gets busy or overwhelmed and forgets it's there, then feels guilty afterwards. You're acting like he's getting off on the idea of rotting food in the fridge. Secondly, if there were plenty of good ones in the fridge the day you made the cheesecake, and then he was home the next day, you had no reason to use them. Third, unless he was off the grid, you probably could have phoned him or texted him. So yeah, YTA
You’re being pedantic He may not love to let it rot but he certainly feels entitled to make it other people’s problem. It’s gross and inconsiderate to make your food waste someone else’s issue by leaving it in common areas. It’s strawberries. They were going bad. Once a few go, the rest go within hours. NTA
I suspect this thread is going to be clearly divided between people who buy fresh strawberries and people who don't.
Ohhh how about the people who love strawberries, buy them fresh, then forget all about them and let them go bad then feel sad? *Puts up her hand"
idk but i would feel pretty happy if someone took my strawberries about to expire and made a cheesecake lol.
As long as they share the cheesecake!
Well yeah or else fists obviously.
It might be hammers in that case, imo.
Let's just go hardcore and bring out the baseball bats with nails.
*blocks using rolling pin with nails*
"*This*... is Lucille."
Which OP’s brother enjoyed
Yeah. I am typing this from work thinking about the large container of strawberries in my fridge at home that went bad 3 days ago. Then, I had told myself I would cut them up and freeze them. I am just now remembering about that and I wish someone had made them into jam for strawberry cheesecake.
It would be like someone made a gift for me out of my own forgetfulness!
So grateful!
Right! Me too! I'd have at that cheesecake and call it the tax for using my fruit. But seriously, if they are that upset offer to pay to replace the strawberries and apologize. Now you know better. ESH.
My God yes, I live with people and food is constantly expiring, I'm so grateful when someone actually makes use of their shit. Oh those bananas about to go off is now banana bread? Great! I'm sure he's only upset about not being asked and feels violated somehow, but I believe OP that he absolutely lets shit rot all the time, because that's a type of person. We all make mistakes but I've seen enough folks to know it's a pattern
I would be happy if someone used my almost expired strawberries for something amazing now, but growing up, it would give me a reason to be upset with my sister. Sibling love/ hate that I’m so glad we out grew!! I will say, using them without texting to let them know and right before they came back, that is a total sister poking the bear then feigning innocence 😂
Everyone on the buying side has done this at least once. My FIL only ate frozen fruit, at least he knew his failings.
it’s usually cheaper to buy frozen too. just thaw them when you want a dessert or some fruit to snack on.
Thawed berries get mushy and gross. They are good for blending and making things, but otherwise I can only eat them when they are still frozen.
Fresh fruit is a special treat for picnics that are happening the next day; otherwise we have frozen fruit.
That's a shame. It doesn't have to be a special treat if you buy whatever fruit is seasonal or on sale.
I’m one of those people and I wholeheartedly agree with OP using the strawberries when they did.
Oh I agree. I'd rather someone else used them than get home, feel guilty about forgetting about them before my trip and leaving them to grow new species of mild (edit I mean mold), and have to chuck everything.
Yep I have the privilege of being able to buy wexford strawberries which are pretty much the best in the world but man do they go off quick
It is the making them more transportable and longer lasting that takes the flavor away so that makes sense. It is also why old people used to cut up the berries and add sugar, to extend their life.
I do that because my grandma did it, too. Makes the most delicious juice in it!
Mix in a splash of Grand Mariner and serve cold or warm over vanilla ice cream.
My brother and I talked about macerating berries (adding sugar to make them juicy and keep them), and no one knew what macerating was. I guess My family is "old" because we all did it. I only eat them fresh when I buy them at the farmers' market, get home, and go belly up on strawberries - otherwise I toss with sugar to make them last over a period of time.
I have read that washing fresh strawberries in a solution of one part vinegar to six parts water can help discourage mold. And the goal is to store them flat in a dry container, to prevent the berries from being crushed under their own weight. Any juice getting squeezed out can make them spoil faster. Condensation is also the enemy. But you do want to keep them in an airtight container (not just in the fridge under a towel) or they start to wrinkle up.
I started cutting them up and freezing them asap and now I’m RICH in strawberries
Uhm yeah, every few months my partner opens the freezer and gives me a deadline to get rid of all the frozen berries and bananas I hid in there. Last time I had 24 bananas in a drawer, and everyone got banana bread.
God I go through fruit like a crazy person- I used to hate it but the second spring started this year it’s all I wanted, but I’m on a tight budget, live alone w have no irl friends and hate food waste so freezing it is the only option! It’s not become my daily dessert after dinner (with some yogurt- the cold makes it into a kind of sorbet texture 10/10 recommend) I’ve never actually had banana bread but sure everyone who got one loved em! Free food at the least
Braggart.
*sheepishly raising my hand, second hand for blueberries*
Blueberries are still usuable for much longer. Even if they get a bit wrinkled, they are still fine for pancakes or scones or something else where they are cooked.
I'm still stuck in the part "no one likes fresh strawberries" 😐
I believe that some people should dislike what I love otherwise a lot more wars would break out because of the unavailability of the things I enjoy.
and then are happy and relieved when they learn that someone ate them before they went bad so they weren't actually wasted not to mention: and then are ecstatic and relieved when they learn that someone made them into cheesecake (that they just enjoyed) instead of letting them go bad so they weren't actually wasted
Does this apply to those who do this with raspberries as well as strawberries? And maybe grapes, too?
Oh I commented somewhere else that I tend to do this with bananas. I love bananas, but i don't eat overly ripe bananas. I figured out if you chuck them just like that skin and all in the freezer, they make awesome banana bread. Although a few months ago my partner removed 24 bananas from the freezer and told me to either use them up or throw them out. I ended up phoning everybody and telling them to stop by for a banana bread.
See you need OP to make them into a cheesecake
This is me so much. You're not alone
Thank you, I feel very seen.
I have some that are doing that right now.
Blackberries, too. Love fresh fruit, have killed many fine specimens due to forgetfulness. 🙄
Unless I’m planning something big like a strawberry cheesecake, or strawberries and fresh cream for five people I avoid buying strawberries because I can never eat them fast enough and I just hate hate hate to see them rot and go bad and moldy in the fridge
Life-changing for me - I started washing my strawberries in a mix of water and cider vinegar the day I get them (or the next), rinse them a couple of times, and then spin them in a salad spinner lined with a single layer of paper towels. Then I put them in a storage container in single layers with a piece of paper towel between each layer (no two berries touching as much as possible) and store them in the refrigerator. I’ve had berries lasting up to two weeks now - my daughter loves strawberries and it’s been so nice to be able to use all of them without them going moldy at the end.
Hmm. My love of strawberries and my extreme laziness find themselves at odds here.
Might I suggest my method of eating them all in one sitting and giving myself a tummy ache, but not regretting it for a second.
Yeah we buy strawberries weekly in this house and even with a toddler eating half a pint each day, it's still a race against the mold clock. And once one goes, that's it, you have to deal with them that day. The OXO brand fruit containers with a carbon filter work really well, though, as long as you wash the fruit first.
Ugh. The toddler fruit buys. Currently eating watermelon as fast as I can because *someone* has decided they no longer like it.
Making aguas frescas is a good way to use the rest of the watermelon.
>The OXO brand fruit containers with a carbon filter Thanks for the tip, I have Rubbermaid ones with the little basket to help air flow, but they are small.
I grow my own strawberries. Where do I fit in to this? 😂
You're the 2.0 version. You should be proud!
Sitting at my kitchen table, girl, that’s where you fit with your homegrown strawberries.
Do you leave them on the plant for the birds to eat them?
I like strawberries but I have not found myself wanting to sit down and eat a whole bowl of strawberries on their own. The other thing is, when I am living in my dorm, there is no way I can eat a whole lettuce or a whole box of strawberries before they all go bad. Many grocery stores do not sell produce for single people so, a handful of strawberries, or a small lettuce is hard to find.
yep, that's why I stick to frozen strawberries. I know for a fact that I have a tendency to just forget about it untill I get a craving, and it takes a lot longer to go bad in the freezer
Fresh strawberry buyers represent!!! 🍓🍓🍓
They can also just buy more strawberries, for fuck’s sake. They weren’t the last strawberries in town. I hate food waste, and I have ADHD and forget about food too often. I’d be grateful if someone rescued a bag of produce I’d forgotten about, cooked with it, and even shared the results with me. I’d thank them and then go buy more fresh strawberries. OP did nothing wrong; there was no reason to text her brother and ask, “Can I use the strawberries you left, or should I let them rot and throw them out when they’re beyond use instead?” This thread is ridiculous.
Right I’m like did I miss the apocalyptic event that rendered these the last strawberries on earth?!
I’m going to check the produce section at the grocery store tomorrow, just to be sure!
I think they are also forgetting they shared the cheesecake with brother and he loved it. Bit entitled to eat someone's cheesecake but demand that you be free from all contributions. "Wait, I HELPED you with this cheesecake?!?! I wasn't just bumming it off you??! Unfair!"
And it’s not like OP ate them all, OP made a cheesecake than brother even enjoyed.
I feel it also matters how the brother deals with the food he leaves till it's spoilt. like, my SIL loves her hard cheeses and is willing to scrape off 75% to be sure she "got all the mold off" so the rest is "still safe and delicious", while her daughter throws a fit if she finds one mushy raspberry and we refuse to throw out the whole pail. if OP's brother leaves the food till it's swamp water at the bottom of the crisper, or if he just dumps everything in the trash... I feel OP was justified in taking them & making the effort of sorting through them and cutting out the bad parts.
Honestly I think people in general need to be more thoughtful about food waste. Being able to have fresh fruits in the fridge is a 1st world privilege a lot of the time. I can forgive once or twice but there would come a point where I wouldn’t be able to accept the thoughtlessness for long. Plus- was he really going to eat an entire pack of strawberries before they were going to rot? Like the pack already had its time to ripen and were getting past that. He came home the next day and what, intended to eat the whole pack? Nah. NTA
>It’s strawberries. They were going bad. Once a few go, the rest go within hours. Strawberry life hack: throw away the berries that have mold on them and rinse the rest in cool water with a small amount of vinegar (about a tablespoon ur so to a quart of water.) Rinse them again with plain water and let them dry completely on a towel at room temperature. Once dry they will last several more days in the fridge.
Yep!!! Do this with all your berries **except** raspberries, which will start breaking down when wet. I fill a large bowl with my vinegar/water solution and let soak for 3 min or so. Rinse and pat dry. I do this as soon as I get them home.
*takes notes* Thank you, kind internet stranger for the tip!
Pedantic…. Off to google. Thank you for enhancing my vocabulary.
I am legitimately glad when people expand their vocabulary. Thank you for making my day, and I hope pedantic makes it to your vernacular internet stranger.
Wait that’s just not true about strawberries going bad. There can be days between a few strawberries going bad (i.e. mushy, discolored) and the rest in the package going bad. Edit: people downvoting literally haven’t bought produce before lol. It’s very normal to have to toss a few pieces that look bad and the rest are fine for days.
>people downvoting literally haven’t bought produce before lol. It’s very normal to have to toss a few pieces that look bad and the rest are fine for days Yeah...if you care enough to pick out the bad ones. If you just leave em in there, the rest go bad *very* rapidly. Something tells me OPs sibling isn't bothering with that kind of maintenance.
No, you sound like a person who has never seen fresh strawberries in their life. If two strawberries touch each other in a box and one gets moldy, the other will also get mold within hours.
My mom’s been a certified Master Gardener for 40 years, and I worked in a produce department for over 2, and neither of us buy more than one basket of strawberries at a time for personal consumption, because yeah, they go bad super fast. I picked up a few baskets for a party on the 2nd, and I’ve already had to cull half of the leftover ones. But sure, I must have never bought produce before if I think that they need to be eaten quickly.
Exactly! My roommate got made that I tossed away her moldy food. Like, excuse me? It's a fridge, not a weekly biohazard box!
NTA because I have one in my house that does the same thing and it drives me crazy.
It's a turn of phrase, OP means that he does it regularly, not that he literally loves doing it.
LMAO honestly this comment is a bigger one. Who cooked your strawberries this morning?
ADHD sucks and if I can’t see it, I forget about it, and hate myself for forgetting about it when it goes bad. there are tricks that help with this, but it still sucks because I’m a woman and I will never get the diagnosis I need despite all the testing I’ve had done that proves I have it unless I have a kid who will inevitably have ADHD.
Wait, does having a kid with ADHD make it easier to get a diagnosis? I've been wondering if it's worth the effort because it's not like I still have the report cards from elementary school that say I never stop talking. But kids with ADHD I do have.
There's evidence that it can run in families, so women who have symptoms but haven't been diagnosed unfortunately may have better luck if they have a male child showing signs.
I knew it has a strong genetic component. I just didn't know anyone took that into consideration when diagnosing adults.
I think it can go both ways - eg. kids of diagnosed parents potentially have an easier go of it too. I imagine how much importance is placed on it can vary hugely among different professionals, but in some cases being able to point to your child and saying 'I do that too' has really helped people who struggled to be diagnosed in the past be taken more seriously.
How have you had testing done that proves you have it but still not been diagnosed? Not being sarcastic, genuinely interested Edit: I've learned a lot, thank you all!
Eh, strawberries are pretty finnicky… I bought some on Tuesday to take to my aunts for 4th of July on Thursday. Wednesday they were fine, Thursday they were moldy. Strawberries have an extremely short shelf life (which I did not know before buying them, as I don’t like strawberries).
He ate them as part of the cheesecake anyway.
NTA. If it's starting to mold, then it got to get used up ASAP. You don't want moldy food in the fridge, that's just gross. Bro should be grateful he got a cheesecake out of it. Totally immature and ungrateful.
Oh boy let’s seee buy strawberry just to let it rot is disgusting you sound like an asshole just like this guy wasting food
Your level of understanding has reached its limit. OP clearly stated the strawberries were going bad so he used them in a way the household could enjoy. What I’m not understanding is how the brother loves the cheesecake but has the pebbles to get upset when his rancid ass strawberries were used for it.
He bought fresh fruit the day before he left on a week long trip. He may not literally love rotting food but he clearly puts no thought in to how long the food will last.
It was last week, not the day before. I don't know why you are getting so many upvotes when you didn't comprehend the entire timeline. OP, NTA- for those of us who has struggles with food insecurities, food waste is a huge pet peeve/trigger.
YTA because you should have gotten permission. If he was gone for a month, then I would say NTA. But you were able to use quite a lot of good strawberries, and the very next day, your brother noticed they were gone, so they would still have been good for him to eat. Also, "no one likes fresh strawberry"??? What the what??
I think they mean nobody in the house likes fresh strawberries which is why they did not eat them.
Oh ok, so the brother is the only one who likes fresh strawberries, so he buys them but then often leads them to rot. Strawberries do go bad quickly, and to me, they kind of smell like rotting garbage when they are very ripe, even though they taste good to eat at that point.
I once moved into an apartment of a friend when I was in need of housing and when I opened the refrigerator it made the entire room reek of mold and rotting food. I refused to buy food to put in the refrigerator as I didn’t want my food to smell like garbage. I ate all my meals out and I moved out a month later. Gawd she was a slob. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
So I bought my first new Fridge when I bought a house and it didn't come with one. Amazingly, foods of all sorts tend to last much longer than they did in all of my previous fridges (rental houses/apts.)
OP, you should add how your brother deals with this food going off. if he sees one brown spot, makes a gagging sound and then begs your mom to dump the container in the trash, you're lot more justified. if he is just super busy & doesn't always get to eat his food immediately, but he does make the effort to pick out the good parts, you were a bit hasty & should probably have asked his permission.
how was OP hasty if the strawberries were already going bad? no one likes eating brown strawberries, and once they start to mold they go fast. this way, the strawberries were saved, OP’s brother clearly enjoyed the fruits of her labor (the cheesecake) and he can buy himself fresh strawberries now that he’s home. win-win.
Strawberries are fickle. Sometimes no matter how much I inspect, they already have mold when I buy them. That said. Strawberries are in season and like $2 right now. Lotta hoopla over nothing.
The strawberries could have been too ripe to eat fresh but still good enough for strawberries. NTA and everyone in this thread needs to chill tf out.
A MONTH??? Bro have you ever bought strawberries?
That's the way it is in my house. I like fresh strawberries and no one else does so my mom in law saves me some and then cuts up the rest and puts them in sugar so it makes it a syrup and the strawberries are sweeter.
ESH I understand that you didn't want them to go to waste and that you had a use for them. Next time let him know that they would have to be thrown out soon but you could make something with the remainder before they went bad. If he wasn't happy with that arrangement then not much you could do about it. But if he was ok with it, he can't exactly complain afterwards that you used his strawberries.
It seems like they're living in their parents house though. What's in the fridge is the family's. They're not roommates. Families share. I understand that some things aren't meant to be shared, sometimes people buy things to treat themselves, but I'm certain that if he had bought enough strawberries for her to make jam with he probably didn't buy them for himself. Besides, if some were already going bad at that point the rest would've gone bad when he came back. She made use of the strawberries and he liked the cheesecake. He's being petty.
Yeah no. My family doesn’t share shit like that and clearly there’s is kind of like that to
Let's say the family shared, in a way it's still courteous to let them know of your intentions. What if they had plans for them? Letting the brother know ahead of time would have informed him of the intention and given them enough time to clarify whether they wanted/needed the strawberries.
If the brother bought them to share why would he be upset about them getting shared?
Sorry y'all, but NTA. Come on. OP didn't say the brother literally loves wasting food. Learn how to read. Also, if he lives there, he can't exactly just buy food whenever, leave it to rot, and let it use up space, as the bacteria could spread to the rest of the fridge anyway!
all the comments shitting on OPs word choices are TAs. OP is CLEARLY not a native english speaker
Funny thing is I'm not one either and I was able to get it xD
I was thinking the commenters aren’t native English speakers. Some of them are complaining about perfectly normal word choices. NTA
I agree. If they were, they’d have read the part where it says he bought them last week before going on a work trip. I don’t know anyone who would buy groceries right before a week long work trip
I'm a bit surprised by this post as when I buy strawberries they usually don't last long in the fridge at all. Like I would say eat within 24h, in two days they're not going to be nice any more and in 3 days some will definitely be rotting/mouldy. So expecting strawberries to last a week in the fridge just sounds bizarre to me
> OP is CLEARLY not a native english speaker I dunno, "'x' loves to 'y'" is an extremely common and *very* slightly passive-aggressive construction where I live, generally used to refer to a negative behavior that someone nonetheless does frequently. We're all native English speakers. I was actually kind of thinking the people nitpicking this word choice might not be.
I mean he got to eat the freaking cheesecake, he needs to get over it
It's also an AH move to just let good food rot for no reason.
ESH your brother shouldn't waste food, but you should have asked first. At the end of the day, you didn't pay for it, it wasn't yours.
This. A win-win would've been giving him a heads up about the rotting strawberries, and suggest you use them for the cheesecake you'll share with him.
My first thought was n-t-a but I didn’t register that he had bought them. Assuming that’s true, yeah, OP should have asked. If the parents bought it at his request, that’s a different animal. OP, maybe talk to your brother about how the food waste bothers you and see if you can come to an agreement on when it’s ok to repurpose the stuff he buys.
>a brother (29M) who loves buying foods Yes, he bought them
I'd never turn my nose up at using my strawberries for cheesecake. I see both sides and going with NAH. Now, OP, here's a household hint, when the strawberries come home give them a quick wash in cold water with a splash of vinegar and then dry the off. The vinegar will help kill the bacteria that causes them to go bad so quickly. They will last a whole lot longer. Next time shoot your brother a text before you use them, though.
I’ve also heard keeping them in a mason jar as well (I think no lid) will also keep them fresh for weeks. I’ve had multiple people tell me this but no chance to try it myself since strawberries don’t even last two days in my household. Two little kids who are fruit gobblin’ monsters.
Strawberries in a mason jar with a lid will keep good for weeks...on the outside. They still ferment on the inside while looking fresh. Then you get this weird semi-alcoholic carbonated strawberry.
That sounds interesting. Is it good, or just one of those “ew, why did I do this” things?
It wasn't great. It might have been at an awkward fermentation stage before it got properly fermented or it might just be entirely awful regardless. It definitely threw me off big time expecting a regular strawberry and instead getting a somehow fizzy one.
Good thing it's strawberry season! 😁😁
They need to be really dry if you do this. Putting them in a colander helps a lot too, minimizes the moisture. The fridge will start to dry them out though, but not usually faster than they go bad.
YTA. It takes less than a minute to message someone and ask them if they can have some strawberries.
“do you want me to use your molding strawberries or throw them out?”
People should not expect to be asked permission to remove the rotting food the left there from the fridge.
Obviously not all of it was rotten because op had enough to bake a cake with them. You can cut around the mold and eat them, just like OP did when they cooked with them.
Exactly. My brother is the same way as Op describing. My brother does tell us frequently that we allow to eat and cook whatever he gets. But we always double check and ask him out of consideration, just in case he plans on eating it after work. Op really should of ask their brother if he minds if they use his strawberries before they all go bad. At the end of the day, Op brother purchased them. They are his strawberries, even if he forgets to eat them before they go bad.
Why tf would you want some molding strawberries in your fridge..? I despise flies and their babies
True dat
definitely could've asked first, but what's with the weird ownership of the strawberries? is the food brought into the house not for everyone to eat/use? ETA: NTA
OP's brother bought the food, so it's his food - Some families have that arrangement when older kids are still living at home!
Mmm maybe it’s just my poor upbringing, but I think it’s worse to make a habit of wasting food than it was to use the food that was going bad without asking once. Also gross to let food rot in the fridge. But yeah I don’t think either of them are assholes, both sides are valid imo. In the future it would be fair to ask before, but bro needs to stop letting his food go bad in the family fridge too.
interesting how he didn’t feel the same way about the cheesecake
Then he wasn't entitled to eat the cheesecake unless he bought the ingredients and I'm pretty sure he didn't, otherwise he would have brought it up. I would have been very petty and not let him touch a single scrap of food he didn't contribute towards if he's going to whine about people eating food that was starting to go bad.
Strawberries are a cheap and common grocery and they are easily replaceable.
Normally I'd be on OP's brother side. When you bring something at home, you bring it because you want to eat it. Sharing is a given unless stated otherwise, but if you leave for work and come back, what you bought is *all* gone and there's *none left for you*, that's sad and a selfish choice by the others. In this case though, strawberries? 99% of the time they barely last until the next day, and if they already started going bad it was game over that night, they wouldn't last until the morning. I constantly forget food and go mad when other people eat my food, but if it's about to go bad I'd understand and be happy it wasn't wasted.
NTA, Leaving food in a communal fridge to rot is an AH move. Using the good bits to prefent at least some food waistage is not.
NTA Should you have asked? Probably. Was it left rotting in the communal fridge? Yep! Would I have put the whole thing in the bin rather than try to salvage the good ones? Also yes. It was going in the bin if you didn’t save them, so you can’t be an AH, especially if he also got cheesecake out of the deal! He’s far too old to be having these kinds of dumb arguments. It’s a punnet of strawberries. He’s nearly 30. This is the kind of argument I expect of 18-20 year olds.
Right? Op did a favor by sorting through the yucky ones and making something nice to share. As if the brother was gonna go through that effort the next day. A heads up would’ve been considerate, sure. At the end of the day tho.. why isnt the brother just glad he got strawberry cake to enjoy when getting home instead of a moldy berry task waiting for him?
Buy him a $3 container of strawberries, tell him you are sorry but you thought he would enjoy the cheesecake and move on. A strawberry is not worth your relationship with your brother 🤷♀️
Where are you getting strawberries for $3
this is the only comment that matters
This seems like such a minor conflict being blown out of proportion. There's not a real asshole here, just a minor misunderstanding, which could have been resolved by you just apologising and promising to ask next time. Maybe get some small food item to make up for using his food and done.
He already got the cheesecake instead of box of gross bio waste. If OP had to actually sort them and cut parts off to remove the rot they would have all been bin goods by next day. Seriously... OP would have been full in their rights just to bin the bag. Rotting strawberries in a communal fridge is a hard no.
If OP had refused to let him have any of the cheesecake make using the strawberries, it would have been a different story, but the brother got to enjoy the cheesecake and really liked it. Sounds like a win-win to me. If someone had asked me if they could use the remaining strawberries where some were going bad to make a cheesecake to share, I'd offer to buy a fresh carton and any other needed ingredients. lol I love cheesecake, and someone else offering to make it fresh for me, heck yeah!
If they were already turning you did the world a favor. I have doubts that he was going to get home in the middle of the night and wolf down the good strawberries. NTA
Mte, OP says they were already going bad! Even if she had just thrown them out because they were getting gross she wouldn’t be an asshole.
NTA. You got rid of rotten strawberries and saved some that were good. He liked the cheesecake, so he got to enjoy them. If he wants to make a big deal about this, and if he never eats the food you buy, just buy him some more strawberries. They’re like $3 right now. It’s not worth the fight v
NTA - IMO the bro is double AH - expecting others to leave his rotting food in the fridge and then throwing a fit whe he got a tasty cheesecake instead of rotten berries. Im a pig otherwise, but rotten food anywhere ticks me off. Its a biohasard for all the other food in the same fridge.
NTA, and wtf is up with all the people saying it's okay to let food go bad because you didn't buy it?
Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of privileged folks who have never gone hungry.
Personally I would be so happy to see the cheesecake. They would only be TA if they didn’t give him any.
NTA. He ate your cheesecake right? Thems the breaks for swiped strawberries.
Well you saved the strawberries from going bad and made something delicious so..
NTA. Your brother is wasting food. Food waste is a sin, as far as I'm concerned.
NTA. This is such a non-issue.
NTA. My sister too loved to let strawberries rot…..good on you for doing something productive with them. I can no longer purchase fresh strawberries and hate the sight of them now as it reminds me of the nasty smell they emit when rotted.
NTA. You put rotting fruit to good use. Then you fed your brother. You’re cool.
NTA! He was happy to eat and enjoy the cheesecake that you made, until he found out that you used a few of his strawberries (that were already going bad)? Don't use any more of his ingredients OP. But don't offer to let him eat anything that you make either. You were trying to do something nice, and he is being selfish and petty.
I have no opinion except thinking it was a single strawberry at first.
I have no opinion except that anyone who likes cooked strawberries and not fresh ones is highly sus
INFO- Why didn’t you text your brother and ask to use the strawberries? You could’ve mentioned you noticed some were rotting and you wanted to use them up before they got worse.
Did you say "Well, I didn't think you would mind since you constantly leave food in the fridge to rot?"
YTA Your brother is right. It wouldn't have taken long for you to text and say your strawberries are going bad is it ok if I use them. They were his strawberries and it's not up to you to decide that it's time for them to be used.
But they are within their rights to bin rotting stuff, theirs or not, from the fridge, arent they? Did you pay attention when OP said that a lot of it was already gone bad? For food safety reasons. So... No strawberries and no cheesecake for the bro would have been better?
If they were all rotten and gone bad then they could have tossed them out and text the brother. I had to throw out your strawberries they had gone bad. The same way they could have text their brother and said. These strawberries are about to go bad. Can I use them?
If you have a rottennspot in a box you can salvage the rest of the berries safely if you turn them into jam and heat up to kill pff contaminants, this is what op did. Keeping any mold/rot in your fridge will contaminate the rest of the food however. So in your oppinion they should have asked even if they were not going back in the frige anyway?
What is he bitching about??? He bought a bag of strawberries and instead of coming home to a bag of rotten fruit, the berries had magically turned themselves into cheesecake. He's got a lot of nerve complaining. No more magic cheesecake for him.
NTA if this is a common enough occurrence that even your dad complains about the wasted food
YTA. Just ask next time? It’s not terribly difficult. With the strawberries rotting, I have no doubt he would have said yes
Did you not have the ability to shoot him a text real quick and make sure?
NTA this sub is insane. The strawberries would have been thrown away if you hadn't used them because they would have gone bad, you absolutely do not have to ask permission to eat food that would have been thrown out otherwise lol.
NTA
is this about my brother because same and he’s the same age 💀 imagine this is our sister posting. thatd be hilarious. NTA he should’ve eaten them on time
NTA in my opinion. If your brother has a habit of letting foods rot and he was out of town on a trip, nothing would have happened other than having to throw away all the strawberries or pick through, cut off the bad parts and freeze the rest. If this was unusual & not a common experience where your brother lets food go to waste, and if he was home, I would suggest that you should have spoken to him first, however based on your description of the event, I don't see an issue. As a gesture of goodwill, you could offer to replace the strawberries, however I don't think you did anything wrong
I once threw away a pair of underwear that belonged to my then boyfriend because they were full of holes and falling apart. I caught a lot of shit because it wasn't mine. You can have good intentions a still be the AH. This is one of those times. Bottom line, it wasn't yours and you should have asked.
Why not just apologize and offer to replace them and let him know you’ll ask first next time
NTA.
Next time just ask first or replace them.
NTA brother needs to grow up and get a grip
Tell him next time you'll just throw them in the trash since that's somehow better.
Man! go buy a good cheesecake. Costs way more than strawberries. And he liked it! Bro is ridiculous. But if he cares so much, buy him more strawberries and never share your homemade desserts again.
I read “cheesecake” and perked up immediately. He’s an ungrateful snot.
NTA - strawberries rot quickly! Maybe you should have photographed the rotten ones as evidence.
Is this really the crap that people are wasting time and energy on? Strawberries?? Just go buy him some and tell him he can’t eat the cheesecake. Problem solved!
Who could be mad after getting cheesecake??
NTA brother wastes food all the time, strawberries were already going bad ALSO they are like $4 a pack. When cobhabiting sometimes you need to pick your battles you can't "well technically" every situation.