How do you make peace with throwing food away?

turquoisefish

I often eat more food than I want or need in a sitting. I will be noticeably full and satisfied, but there's still some food left and I always feel so guilty throwing food away, so I'll eat just that little bit more, but then end up very uncomfortable (and eating unnecessary calories). What I have left and end up eating isn't enough to make a portion to eat another time, if it were, fine, I have no problems with leftovers. How can I learn to be at peace with throwing food away. I'm the anti hoarder and love to throw pretty much everything else away with no problem. How can I overcome this issue? Anyone deal with this?

Orphia

It's never bothered me.

It turns to waste inside you, so you're not saving waste.

The world produces 2 to 3 times more food than it needs. There is no world food shortage, but rather distribution problems.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100893540

defauIt

The food either goes in the garbage or it sits on your tummy for the rest of your life. Easy choice for me. Literally nobody benefits from eating psst what I need for the day when I'm already full.

SLLRunner

That's what moderation is all about- getting your serving, sitting down to eat, but being able to push the plate away if you get full before you're done. Just save the rest for another day.

bukowski_shine

Not throwing food doesn't solve anything for anybody.

scolaris

With healthy clean food I try to avoid overly big portions first. Then second I try to freeze or save for another meal what I might truly want to eat. And thirdly I compost, so I know what I've had to discard enjoys a continued life participating in the healthy soil-food web. There's no reason it should destroy YOUR health! And if it's crappy 'foodlike substances' just get rid of it anyway you can & don't bring more of that into your life!

RodaRose

Learn to give up gullt. It is freeing.

tomatoey

If I'm full, that's it, anything that's left goes into the bin. (Or my dog, when she was alive. Unless it was chocolate. That's not what did it though ftr)

I don't know, do you compost? Apparently it's possible to do w cooked food. Maybe it could go back into a garden.

sunparakeet wrote: »

Just make up for the waste in other areas of your life - recycle, or better yet don't buy bottles of water and other single use disposable items, take your own Tupperware to restaurants to save Styrofoam, etc. Or find non - food related ways to make a difference like driving a fuel efficient car, walking instead of driving, there are limitless possibilities!

^ sounds good to me.

cmtigger

Compost, or get some pets that can eat the leftover food. Chickens can eat about everything.

jaqcan

You are more important than being a human garbage disposal.

Orphia

RodaRose wrote: »

Learn to give up guilt. It is freeing.

jaqcan wrote: »

You are more important than being a human garbage disposal.

These.

You need to learn to just say "*kitten* it".

PaulaWallaDingDong

Hopefully, your disdain for wasting food will fix the problem of taking too much in the first place. If it's at a restaurant, and you have a companion, you could offer it to them. Otherwise, if you don't want the leftovers, chuck 'em.

Ldmarcher07

I don't look at is as though I'm losing something good. I know that I'm refusing something that I don't need and the truth is, investing in yourself costs. It cost some people money. It costs some people time. I found out from throwing away the unhealthy food that I had that it cost me food. And I came to terms with it.

PaulaWallaDingDong

hi135 wrote: »

PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »

Hopefully, your disdain for wasting food will fix the problem of taking too much in the first place. If it's at a restaurant, and you have a companion, you could offer it to them. Otherwise, if you don't want the leftovers, chuck 'em.

Don't chuck it. Ask the waitress for a container, and put half your food in there before digging into it. If you want more you can reach into it again.

But then they'd be left with the same unappealing serving of leftovers.

jennifer_417

Just do it. Even if it doesn't feel good. Eventually, you feelings will change.

OsricTheKnight

"Trash that fat"

If I offered you a deal where you could safely and painlessly dump 1 lb of fat in the garbage each day, would you feel guilty for wasting it?

That's all the food is going to be. So just "trash that fat!"

This logic brought to you from some diet book that I can't even remember the title of, but it stuck with me.

Osric

jennifer_417

OsricTheKnight wrote: »

"Trash that fat"

If I offered you a deal where you could safely and painlessly dump 1 lb of fat in the garbage each day, would you feel guilty for wasting it?

That's all the food is going to be. So just "trash that fat!"

This logic brought to you from some diet book that I can't even remember the title of, but it stuck with me.

Osric

I like that!

Orphia

jennifer_417 wrote: »

OsricTheKnight wrote: »

"Trash that fat"

If I offered you a deal where you could safely and painlessly dump 1 lb of fat in the garbage each day, would you feel guilty for wasting it?

That's all the food is going to be. So just "trash that fat!"

This logic brought to you from some diet book that I can't even remember the title of, but it stuck with me.

Osric

I like that!

Seconded!

cafeaulait7

I feed the meat to my dogs and the bunny sort of food out for the rabbits that live in my shrubberies But I rarely have anything left over that I wouldn't eat even for a snack in the next couple of days. I wouldn't bother freezing it, so in come the dogs and bunnies!

47Jacqueline

It doesn't bother me to throw out food. Perhaps that makes me a conspicuous consumer, but I'd rather be that than fat.

CurlyCockney

It wouldn't bother me to throw out food, but I don't need to as I don't put more on my plate than I can eat. Maybe you could try portioning your food differently? I'm better with a very small meal in the daytime and a huuuuuge one at night.

yummypotroast

I've struggled with this too! At my current job everyone eats in the cafeteria where the workers always want to dump lots on my tray despite me asking for less. I didn't want to throw anything away so I always ate everything and gained 10 lbs in a matter of months. I started forcing myself to eat less and throwing away what I didn't need, and finally I shed all the weight that I gained.

It's important to remind yourself that you are eating to fuel your body, not to make the food go away. Once you have accomplished the former, you're good to go. Considering the latter is utterly pointless once you think about it lol.

Queenmunchy

I usually repurpose my leftovers. Make them into soup, burritos, or anything I can freeze easily in a single portion for another day.

kommodevaran

Figure out how much food you want, based on your caloric/nutritional needs and experience with appetite, cook that much, and eat it. Problem solved.

starling01

Definitely serve yourself smaller portions and wait a while to see if you really are still hungry. Then eat more if you decide you are.

The food you don't eat doesn't sit around somewhere in the world in a giant unusable mass like the great plastic garbage reef in the Pacific Ocean. It doesn't disappear into a black food hole, either. It changes form as it's processed and something else eats it, like bacteria, which get hungry too and most of them really aren't hostile. Other creatures don't worry about what happens to their leftovers - something else is always going to use it - so relax and try to see it that way.

Don't worry about taking care of your food.

Machka9

turquoisefish wrote: »

I often eat more food than I want or need in a sitting. I will be noticeably full and satisfied, but there's still some food left and I always feel so guilty throwing food away, so I'll eat just that little bit more, but then end up very uncomfortable (and eating unnecessary calories). What I have left and end up eating isn't enough to make a portion to eat another time, if it were, fine, I have no problems with leftovers. How can I learn to be at peace with throwing food away. I'm the anti hoarder and love to throw pretty much everything else away with no problem. How can I overcome this issue? Anyone deal with this?

I have not done this since I started with MFP.

Before I started here, I would eat all the food. I would make an amount at random, and if it happened to be too much, I'd eat it anyway.

But since I started here, I've weighed and measured everything so that I make and eat precisely what I plan to make and eat. There are no leftovers, but neither do I go over my calorie goal.

drivenbonkers

cmtigger wrote: »

Compost, or get some pets that can eat the leftover food. Chickens can eat about everything.

YES! I keep 3 laying hens, and they LOVE leftovers.

I give them everything/anything except chicken, (meat or broth) somehow feeding chickens chicken meat is just wrong!

They love warmed up leftover soup or stew in the winter.

tincanonastring

I don't like throwing food away. I think it's wasteful and, given the massive environmental impact of food production, I generally try to avoid it all costs.

Our family pre-plans our weekly menu with an eye towards eliminating waste; dishes later in the week tend to incorporate ingredients from earlier meals. We often have meals entirely comprised of leftovers. We do a big shopping trip on weekends and then buy meat and produce fresh on the day we're eating it to avoid spoilage.

At a restaurant, my wife and I will split an entree since we're virtually guaranteed a serving size big enough for two people ('Murica). If not, we'll take leftovers home and turn it into a lunch.

At home, I weigh the food going on my plate and eat all of it. It's pre-logged, so I know the whole plate fits my calorie goal and I know I have to eat it all to reach my macros/micros.

I've found that preparation is key. A good meal plan, efficient shopping, and pre-logging have really helped us cut down on the wasted food.

veganbaum

HappyCampr1 wrote: »

starling01 wrote: »

The food you don't eat doesn't sit around somewhere in the world in a giant unusable mass like the great plastic garbage reef in the Pacific Ocean. It doesn't disappear into a black food hole, either. It changes form as it's processed and something else eats it, like bacteria, which get hungry too and most of them really aren't hostile. Other creatures don't worry about what happens to their leftovers - something else is always going to use it - so relax and try to see it that way.

good point ^^^. This is one of the reasons I actually throw away my leftovers instead of using the sink disposal. I tend to think it helps the landfills break down better when there's some organic matter in them. Of course, that's just my own thoughts. I've never researched it.

As far as feeling the need to keep eating, I just remind myself that I am not a garbage can. If the food is extra, it's waste. How did I end up being the waste disposal unit? I'm not...so I don't feel bad throwing it away.

OP, I'm with the ones saying take a smaller portion to begin with. Then, if you're still hungry, go back for a bit more. If it's not a full portion, it can be a snack later, as has also been mentioned. I also completely agree with Tincan.

Unfortunately, as far as something else using the leftovers, our landfills are not designed for organic material to decompose very well, or to be used by something else in a beneficial way. Since the material is usually in a plastic bag, and those are piled on top of each other, and then often covered over, there's no air circulation. So, the organic material doesn't decompose in a way that helps anything else decompose in a landfill [also, I don't think decomposing organic matter helps anything else break down - like plastic - anyway.]. As others have mentioned, composting is a good way to get rid of a lot, though not all, of food waste.

veganbaum

double post

sashayoung72

Just tell it "it's not you, it's me... but maybe we can still be friends"
No seriously reducing portions, I am a full plate eater and I've had to cut the sizes because I'm simply not the eater I was, I know there are studies about how your stomach doesn't really grow or shrink but I am MISERABLE if I eat too much now.