Throwing away food...

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Replies

  • salembambi
    salembambi Posts: 5,585 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    On a similar note, last week I really disliked a sauce I used with spaghetti. So I spent 10 minutes washing the pasta and separating it from the chunks of sauce so I could re-use it with another sauce. :neutral:

    you are adorable

    honestly i would probably do the same thing lol
  • VASMA63
    VASMA63 Posts: 19 Member
    Difficult for me too - the old pearl "All food goes to waste, it doesn't have to pass through you first." is etched in my mind. For me personally, I work part time in a relay center and I bring it to our break room where it is gone faster than if a cloud of locusts passed through!
  • sisu89
    sisu89 Posts: 38 Member
    OMG do I ever!!! Particularly with leftovers! Right now I have about 3 meals worth of spaghetti (bf always cooks way more than we need!), a pork chop, and an enchilada! How am I ever going to eat all that before they start getting gross? It's particularly frustrating that my boyfriend refuses to eat leftovers, and yet he makes a ton of food!
  • stranger2310
    stranger2310 Posts: 28 Member
    I read this on a reddit article: ""Whether it's in my stomach or in the trash, it's gone to waste--already spent the money on it." Worth considering?

    Where I live we recycle food which is collected once a week (helps for veg peelings, spoiled food, etc. - it can all be composted). If you're that conscientious or you find you're doing it a lot then find a recycling centre to take it. Otherwise make it into something else. Or just throw it away and be done with it. It's clearly bothering you enough to make a post, so perhaps the 'forget about it' mantra is not going to work. Be proactive!
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,230 Member
    I always found the whole "Finish your food, there are people starving in Africa" to be particularly cruel. Like "hahaha starving people! You don't have any food, and I have so much that I don't even want this, and I'm STILL shovelling it in my pie-hole!"
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    last time i got involved in a conversation like this i was crucified since i have no problem throwing away food, and apparently that means i dont care about starving kids in third world countries. :/

    that said, i still don't have a problem throwing it away. toss it. years and years ago i made a meatloaf so bad even the dog wouldnt eat it LOL
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
    kristen6350 wrote: »
    You do know those starving Africans (btw, who was the crazy person who even thought of that?) don't benefit by you eating more, right?

    [Snip]

    When my great grandpa was ruining our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with guilt, the starving kids were in China. Is that wierd?

  • kjarvo
    kjarvo Posts: 236 Member
    if it is nice enough to eat if again but not the next day you could just freeze it
  • DrifterBear
    DrifterBear Posts: 265 Member
    I hate wasting the money more than anything. Get over it and get better at cooking!
  • KateTii
    KateTii Posts: 886 Member
    The fallacy with the "Starving kids in Africa" argument is that the kids will still be starving whether you eat everything on your plate or not.

    In my town, we have a special bin for food scraps that gets collected and it's turned into compost - maybe get yourself a compost bin or worm farm, so if you don't eat it, you still won't be "wasting" it.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    KateTii wrote: »
    The fallacy with the "Starving kids in Africa" argument is that the kids will still be starving whether you eat everything on your plate or not.

    In my town, we have a special bin for food scraps that gets collected and it's turned into compost - maybe get yourself a compost bin or worm farm, so if you don't eat it, you still won't be "wasting" it.

    need a like button ;)
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,741 Member
    KateTii wrote: »
    The fallacy with the "Starving kids in Africa" argument is that the kids will still be starving whether you eat everything on your plate or not.

    In my town, we have a special bin for food scraps that gets collected and it's turned into compost - maybe get yourself a compost bin or worm farm, so if you don't eat it, you still won't be "wasting" it.

    Not that I wouldn't toss anything I didn't want to eat after tasting it, maybe the starving kids thing is more of a guilt trip and you should be grateful you're being fed at all thing.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,615 Member
    Clawsal wrote: »
    Hello everyone!

    I was taught as a youngster that you should never throw away food (usually followed by a reminder that there are starving kids in Africa).

    So, I always finish my plate. However, now that I am counting calories, I notice I have become a lot pickier about food. I am also trying new recipes which sometimes result in unappetizing food.

    Tonight I had a particularly nasty meal, and have two more portions of the same to eat tomorrow. Just the thought of eating THAT tomorrow... and "wasting" allotted calories on THAT...

    I will probably just throw it away... but the guilt! (it's two entire meals!)

    Do you have a similar problem? How do you deal with it?

    I made a decision when I started here that I would not eat foods I don't like. I am not wasting my calories on something I find unpleasant.

    Therefore, if I made something and really did not like it, I would:

    a) try to fix it.

    b) toss it and eat something I do like.

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,615 Member
    sisu89 wrote: »
    OMG do I ever!!! Particularly with leftovers! Right now I have about 3 meals worth of spaghetti (bf always cooks way more than we need!), a pork chop, and an enchilada! How am I ever going to eat all that before they start getting gross? It's particularly frustrating that my boyfriend refuses to eat leftovers, and yet he makes a ton of food!

    Freeze them.

  • kazminchu
    kazminchu Posts: 250 Member
    I am only just starting to come to terms with this. As somebody who doesn't earn very much, I run a very tight budget, and if I've made/bought food, then it'll get eaten because otherwise it's wasting money. However recently I did manage to force myself to throw away a jar of hot chocolate that I just found disgusting. I'll be honest, I was proud of myself. Undoing 24 years of being told to never waste food doesn't just happen overnight. I'm taking it one step at a time.
    For some reason, I find it easier to throw away bought food than food I've personally made. For example, my meal prep for this week's lunches is bland and meh. But I'm forcing myself to eat it because I made it.
  • dhimaan
    dhimaan Posts: 774 Member
    I couldn't do it. The guilt would eat me alive.
  • Protranser
    Protranser Posts: 517 Member
    TaraTall wrote: »
    See if it's salvageable? A salad or soup or with alow cal sauce?
    Otherwise, don't beat yourself up - just don't make the same 'mistake' again.

    This is exactly what I do, too. I try to salvage it somehow, especially if I went through the effort of cooking/cutting/combining ingredients but didn't like the end result due to poor decisions with spices/herbs.
  • crb426
    crb426 Posts: 661 Member
    My mom actually encouraged us to leave food on the plate. She has always been naturally thin. She never ever told us to take one more bite if we said we were done. I keep her habits in my head on this journey, but it can be hard. Especially when I've calculated the calories of everything already, why wouldn't I eat it all?

    I throw away food all the time.
  • LexiLuLexi
    LexiLuLexi Posts: 12 Member
    My African colleague tells me 'kids are no longer starving, if you don't want your food, don't eat it'.

    Alternatively, I box mine up and have it the next day. The 1/3rd of my dinner I left last night will be dinner tonight with a portion of noodles. No waste, money saved.
  • oneoddsock
    oneoddsock Posts: 321 Member
    The whole Africa argument feels very retro. There is a point about the resources that it takes to produce food (both environmental and human effort) but that doesn't mean that you have to eat absolutely everything. Take it as a lesson in portion control.
  • scyian
    scyian Posts: 243 Member
    I hate food waste as it's a waste of time and money not only for me but for those who produced/grew it.

    If I made a recipe that I didn't particularly like purely on the taste of it I would still eat the leftovers. Though I would probably try and play around with it to make it more palatable.
  • boombalatty123
    boombalatty123 Posts: 116 Member
    Try to learn what you can from the experience (don't buy that product/don't use that combination of flavors in your cooking/don't trust that author's recipes/etc.), and just toss it. If it was horribly burnt would you force yourself to eat it? In my mind it's the same kind of issue. You are worth more than that.

    A couple years ago I spent a lot of time and money making a fancy roasted pumpkin stuffed with bread, cheese and sausage. It smelled wonderful while it was cooking, but it was a disaster. Somehow all the flavorful ingredients wound up tasting like nothing. Plus, to add insult to injury, as soon as I pulled it out of the oven the pumpkin deflated like a tire and spewed about a gallon of liquid all over my kitchen! I was mad for a couple of minutes, then it got funny. We threw that thing into the woods without a single regret and made something else for dinner.

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