Why is it SO HARD not to eat kids' leftovers?

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  • Running_and_Coffee
    Running_and_Coffee Posts: 811 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »

    This is how my wife and I do grilled cheese...

    d758763cbc794096d05a531fc5d88545.jpg

    http://www.closetcooking.com/2011/12/mushroom-grilled-cheese-sandwich-aka.html

    My wife usually makes a really awesome tomato soup to go along with it while I make the sammiches...

    That is a very adult and amazing grilled cheese sandwich. Serious food porn!
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    At this point it would have to be pretty amazing food for me to eat dd's leftovers.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    jbirdgreen wrote: »
    I'm not a mom, but I agree with fixing smaller portions. An omelette is an individual thing, but if it's like tacos or beans or something. Fix a smaller portion at first. If he/she goes back, that's fine -- but at least you won't have a wasted plate of food to throw away. It's easier to just have a pot of leftovers than a plate somebody's picked over.

    I actually do have a one-egg pan, so I can make cute little one-egg omelettes. But then if she wants more I have to go and make another one, which is time consuming. And I don't want to offer her filler foods - if she wants to eat lots of eggs (which she often does) I want to encourage it, as she's tall and grows fast and needs the protein. But I will consider the tiny omelette solution next time!

    Thanks for all the feedback, everyone. I took evasive action this time, hopefully all your suggestions will help next time as well!
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    Have you considered making omelet muffins? They refrigerate/freeze and reheat okay and you can have several ready.
    https://www.pinterest.com/explore/omelette-muffins/
  • Kristi26
    Kristi26 Posts: 184 Member
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    1. Gross. I can't even with kid leftovers. Gag. They touched that. They got their spit in that. I've seen where their hands have been...
    2. Give them less to start with so they don't waste it.
    3. As others have said, save what they don't eat for a future meal for them to eat, or for five minutes from now when they are magically hungry again. ;)
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,566 Member
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    You're not a trash can. You don't need to eat garbage. Throw that stuff away. Think of yourself as something to be treated well - not as a human garbage disposal.
    I hardly think of feeding my kid garbage. Processed food isn't the devil. People who got fat did because they just flat out ate more than they needed to on a daily basis.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png
  • solieco1
    solieco1 Posts: 1,559 Member
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    Ok so I know this is weird but before you clean off the table have something in your hand you don't like in squeeze bottle. Pickle juice, vinegar, mustard. Squeeze it onto kid food. It works until you break the habit :)
  • marie9910
    marie9910 Posts: 34 Member
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    This might be irrelevant, I don't have kids. If your child is old enough to eat that much and feed him/herself, aren't they old enough to be taught how to dispose of the leftovers? Then you don't have to handle the food? Just a thought.
  • endlessfall16
    endlessfall16 Posts: 932 Member
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    OP

    Just don't make your portion or eat at the same time as your kid.

    My beloved aunt used to do that with me when I was very little and we didn't have much. She refused to get a portion for herself when everyone was at the table. She was our aunt/mom/nanny/everything, making up for her deadbeat brother (our father)
  • Heather4448
    Heather4448 Posts: 908 Member
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    I go about this a completely different way. I have a hard and fast rule that I instituted about 6 months ago; Mom doesn't cook until ALL the leftovers are eaten. It has saved me loads of money on groceries! Whatever isn't eaten in a reasonable amount of time gets turned into what I lovingly call "Kitchen sink soup." The first 2 weeks are the hardest (so.much.whining.), but after that you're golden.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,951 Member
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    You're not a trash can. You don't need to eat garbage. Throw that stuff away. Think of yourself as something to be treated well - not as a human garbage disposal.

    That would only be true if she was feeding her kids garbage.

    An omelette hardly qualifies. ;)

    I was raised in a clean-your-plate generational mentality, because food wasn't something we had an excess of back then. It did take me a while to break that mentality when I became a mom.

    We have green bin recycling here - food scraps go into the bin and are collected once a week and composted by the town. Every spring residents can pick up free compost. Works for me, and I no longer feel guilty about not eating leftovers. :)

    But once the kids are done and have eaten all they are going to eat it is garbage - not something she needs to be shoving in her face no matter how healthy it is. Compost bin is fine but she's not a compost bin either. She needs to realize she has more value than that and treat herself accordingly.

    I'm confused. When I eat all I'm going to eat and there are leftovers, they are leftovers, not garbage. I often save leftovers for a frittata.

    Is it because the food was touched by an apparently toxic child that leftovers become garbage?
    I hardly think of feeding my kid garbage. Processed food isn't the devil. People who got fat did because they just flat out ate more than they needed to on a daily basis.


    Oh I give up. Eat all the damn food and get fat as hell what do I care. I never said processed food was garbage or kids were toxic. I said not to treat your body as a trash can by eating food your kids are not going to eat and no one else is going to eat. If you don't want to keep them as leftovers and they only other option was to throw them away then YES they are garbage. But apparently I should encouraging the OP to shovel every morsel of food in the whole damn house into her mouth without any self control because EAT ALL THE FOOOOOD!!!! Good lord. You people are impossible.

    I fail to see how not understanding why 'leftovers = garbage' equals "encouraging the OP to shovel every morsel of food in the whole damn house into her mouth without any self control."

    Perhaps what you're trying to do is encourage the OP to think of leftovers as garbage as a mental trick? In that case it would be more clear if that's how you framed it, instead of insisting that something is garbage when it is not necessarily so.

    Take leftover grapes or baby carrots for example. Would you have a problem putting these leftovers back in the frig if they had been untouched by the little munchkin's snotty hands?
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
    edited March 2017
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    You're not a trash can. You don't need to eat garbage. Throw that stuff away. Think of yourself as something to be treated well - not as a human garbage disposal.

    That would only be true if she was feeding her kids garbage.

    An omelette hardly qualifies. ;)

    I was raised in a clean-your-plate generational mentality, because food wasn't something we had an excess of back then. It did take me a while to break that mentality when I became a mom.

    We have green bin recycling here - food scraps go into the bin and are collected once a week and composted by the town. Every spring residents can pick up free compost. Works for me, and I no longer feel guilty about not eating leftovers. :)

    But once the kids are done and have eaten all they are going to eat it is garbage - not something she needs to be shoving in her face no matter how healthy it is. Compost bin is fine but she's not a compost bin either. She needs to realize she has more value than that and treat herself accordingly.

    I'm confused. When I eat all I'm going to eat and there are leftovers, they are leftovers, not garbage. I often save leftovers for a frittata.

    Is it because the food was touched by an apparently toxic child that leftovers become garbage?
    I hardly think of feeding my kid garbage. Processed food isn't the devil. People who got fat did because they just flat out ate more than they needed to on a daily basis.


    Oh I give up. Eat all the damn food and get fat as hell what do I care. I never said processed food was garbage or kids were toxic. I said not to treat your body as a trash can by eating food your kids are not going to eat and no one else is going to eat. If you don't want to keep them as leftovers and they only other option was to throw them away then YES they are garbage. But apparently I should encouraging the OP to shovel every morsel of food in the whole damn house into her mouth without any self control because EAT ALL THE FOOOOOD!!!! Good lord. You people are impossible.

    I fail to see how not understanding why 'leftovers = garbage' equals "encouraging the OP to shovel every morsel of food in the whole damn house into her mouth without any self control."

    Perhaps what you're trying to do is encourage the OP to think of leftovers as garbage as a mental trick? In that case it would be more clear if that's how you framed it, instead of insisting that something is garbage when it is not necessarily so.

    Take leftover grapes or baby carrots for example. Would you have a problem putting these leftovers back in the frig if they had been untouched by the little munchkin's snotty hands?

    I wouldn't have had an issue with putting the omelet in the fridge but if the only option I was entertaining was the trash can or my mouth and I didn't actually want to eat it then I would chose the trash can because clearly at that point it is garbage. I'm sorry that offends you so much. I'm still not changing my opinion to make you happy.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    endlessfall16 wrote: »
    Just don't make your portion or eat at the same time as your kid.

    I don't like doing that, the social bit of eating together is important to me. Especially if it's just the two of us in the house and we're having omelettes or broccoli together (Daddy's kryptonites).
  • ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken
    ThatUserNameIsAllReadyTaken Posts: 1,530 Member
    edited March 2017
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    You're not a trash can. You don't need to eat garbage. Throw that stuff away. Think of yourself as something to be treated well - not as a human garbage disposal.

    That would only be true if she was feeding her kids garbage.

    An omelette hardly qualifies. ;)

    I was raised in a clean-your-plate generational mentality, because food wasn't something we had an excess of back then. It did take me a while to break that mentality when I became a mom.

    We have green bin recycling here - food scraps go into the bin and are collected once a week and composted by the town. Every spring residents can pick up free compost. Works for me, and I no longer feel guilty about not eating leftovers. :)

    But once the kids are done and have eaten all they are going to eat it is garbage - not something she needs to be shoving in her face no matter how healthy it is. Compost bin is fine but she's not a compost bin either. She needs to realize she has more value than that and treat herself accordingly.

    I'm confused. When I eat all I'm going to eat and there are leftovers, they are leftovers, not garbage. I often save leftovers for a frittata.

    Is it because the food was touched by an apparently toxic child that leftovers become garbage?
    I hardly think of feeding my kid garbage. Processed food isn't the devil. People who got fat did because they just flat out ate more than they needed to on a daily basis.


    Oh I give up. Eat all the damn food and get fat as hell what do I care. I never said processed food was garbage or kids were toxic. I said not to treat your body as a trash can by eating food your kids are not going to eat and no one else is going to eat. If you don't want to keep them as leftovers and they only other option was to throw them away then YES they are garbage. But apparently I should encouraging the OP to shovel every morsel of food in the whole damn house into her mouth without any self control because EAT ALL THE FOOOOOD!!!! Good lord. You people are impossible.

    Wow. Deep breaths. Calm down. It's just a discussion. No one wants you to encourage anything of the sort. We disagree around here from time to time. If your goal here is to convince all of the other people commenting then you may have forgotten the purpose of the thread. It's okay to have differing views. Imagine how boring it would be if we all agreed 100% all the time.
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
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    You can chew gum while cooking/cleaning their plates until its second nature to just toss it without tasting.
  • newheavensearth
    newheavensearth Posts: 870 Member
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    Heather4448 wrote: »
    I go about this a completely different way. I have a hard and fast rule that I instituted about 6 months ago; Mom doesn't cook until ALL the leftovers are eaten. It has saved me loads of money on groceries! Whatever isn't eaten in a reasonable amount of time gets turned into what I lovingly call "Kitchen sink soup." The first 2 weeks are the hardest (so.much.whining.), but after that you're golden.[/quote

    I love this rule! A lot of my meal prep started getting wasted by my picky family. I turn the leftovers into frozen meals for people's lunches.
  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    You're not a trash can. You don't need to eat garbage. Throw that stuff away. Think of yourself as something to be treated well - not as a human garbage disposal.

    That would only be true if she was feeding her kids garbage.

    An omelette hardly qualifies. ;)

    I was raised in a clean-your-plate generational mentality, because food wasn't something we had an excess of back then. It did take me a while to break that mentality when I became a mom.

    We have green bin recycling here - food scraps go into the bin and are collected once a week and composted by the town. Every spring residents can pick up free compost. Works for me, and I no longer feel guilty about not eating leftovers. :)

    But once the kids are done and have eaten all they are going to eat it is garbage - not something she needs to be shoving in her face no matter how healthy it is. Compost bin is fine but she's not a compost bin either. She needs to realize she has more value than that and treat herself accordingly.

    I'm confused. When I eat all I'm going to eat and there are leftovers, they are leftovers, not garbage. I often save leftovers for a frittata.

    Is it because the food was touched by an apparently toxic child that leftovers become garbage?
    I hardly think of feeding my kid garbage. Processed food isn't the devil. People who got fat did because they just flat out ate more than they needed to on a daily basis.


    Oh I give up. Eat all the damn food and get fat as hell what do I care. I never said processed food was garbage or kids were toxic. I said not to treat your body as a trash can by eating food your kids are not going to eat and no one else is going to eat. If you don't want to keep them as leftovers and they only other option was to throw them away then YES they are garbage. But apparently I should encouraging the OP to shovel every morsel of food in the whole damn house into her mouth without any self control because EAT ALL THE FOOOOOD!!!! Good lord. You people are impossible.

    Just wow.... this is just plain rude.

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