exactly the way you've said it here, only next time, be standing in front of him when you say it! clear and direct honest communication, can't beat it. if he's worth keeping around and cooking for, i'd imagine he'll start picking up some good grass-fed beef and bringing with him! good luck!

He probably has no idea about the expense or that this is bothering you. So I second clear and direct communication.

Do you two live together? If so, it might be worth coming up with some kind of agreement about financial contribution toward the grocery bill. IME, taking arguments about money out of the equation entirely makes for much healthier relationships.

In my household we both shop and cook for each other. It's very random and uncoordinated. What I do is buy my own grass-fed steak and for him I get cheap chicken thighs. If he wants a steak, he can buy his own. Fortunately, he doesn't want steak.

The other thing I do is I cook organ meats for myself or weird off-cuts that I save for later. He's not going to touch pig tails, pork belly or liver.

Before you go shopping, tell him you can't afford to feed him all the time, nor is it fair, and ask him to contribute $$$. Work towards him doing some shopping too, and come up with a plan for splitting food costs.

After dinner pack up your lunch for the next day, put it in a lunch bag in the fridge and say "this is my lunch for tomorrow, please don't eat it." If he's helping out, make enough that he can pack up his own lunch too.

"please get your own grass-fed beef, or buy some of the costco crap and I will cook it for you. My pocket-book can't feed two carnivores."

What's wrong with that?

My husband takes dinner leftovers for his lunch so he pulls out what he wants before I serve dinner and puts it straight into his lunch bag in the fridge. Maybe having a marked bowl or bag so your boyfriend knows it is just for you and not generic leftovers for anyone to nibble on will help.

It doesn't make much sense to me, if you're living together you share food and share costs.

I live with my boyfriend and am much more health conscious then he is. Either way, he loves the paleo food I cook and I cook him plenty of healthy, paleo food for his lunches during the week. We just have an arrangement where I do all of the shopping and cooking and then pay less in rent than he does. It works out that I still pay more than him in total... but I think that is kind of fair since I am the one who cares about all of the healthy food. If he had it his way then he would eat cheap, frozen, or fast food every day. You guys should find an arrangement that works for you both. Maybe, offer to make enough left overs for the both of you for lunches and then add up the total you spend each week and ask for half. Something like that might work.

I think that there's a simple and obvious answer to this: sit down and have a grown-up conversation about it. It's likely as simple as him not knowing that grassfed is more expensive, and honestly if you're willing to share food with him at one meal why should he think that the leftovers should be off-limits? It's a misunderstanding based on lack of communication- there's no need to be defensive about it. In fact, diplomacy will get you much further if you value your relationship.

Instead of ultimatums, why not give him choices? Explain that you choose to eat quality meat and that it is more expensive to buy. Follow with: "Honey, it's just as easy to cook for two, however being the only one buying the grassfed meat is hard on my pocketbook. I'd like to continue to share meals with you... so would you prefer to pitch in money for grassfed meat or would you prefer to buy and eat conventionally raised meat? Either way I'd be happy to cook it while I'm cooking my dinner." Or something along those lines.

Give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, this will be good practice for future financial discussions, especially if you plan to get married/consolidate bank accounts with someone at any point... Best of luck! :)

I just had this same scenario with the almond flour chocolate chip cookies I recently made... I've tried to convert my family of husband and daughter to Paleo but they aren't for it so I gave up. So, I have to buy them their food and my own which can get expensive. I always share the Paleo treats I make (usually half for me and half for them). I get really upset when they hound me for say the remaining 3 cookies...I tell them that they can have whatever is in their treat drawer (which has every SAD thing you can imagine) and to leave my 3 cookies alone. They don't stop hounding me though...I've recently taken to hiding them. Another situation keeps happening. Once a week I buy 3 ribeyes that are pretty big. They've been getting tired of steak but of course I am not. At first they were cutting off the fat and tossing it to the dogs. But I starting noticing that the fat had more and more meat on it and they were actually feeding the dogs about 2/3rds of the steak! I chewed them a new one for that. Now I cut their ribeyes in half, I eat a whole one and their leftover halves go in my lunches. I have no problem be generous but if they don't think about their actions I don't have a problem calling them out on it.