Wasting food

[Jean in Newcastle]

I hate that I end up tossing food off of my kid's plates - well not so much from ds13's plate:tongue_smilie: But dd8 will pull all the crusts off of her bread and leave them. She'll "clean her plate" (according to her - and no, we don't have a clean plate rule as such at our house) but if you used a spoon to scoop everything together then she'd get at least a couple of spoons of food still. A lot of it is that she eats until she's full and then stops. Great, right? But then food gets wasted. . . Any insight?

[Barb_]

Jean, I know....it makes me nuts in theory too. But there is so much to be gained for allowing them to pay attention to their hunger signals. The bread crusts, however, I have no tolerance for. Eat your crust or give up on bread. Ugh. If there is a lot left or an entire food group has been left untouched, I have no problem raking it back into the general leftover tupperware.

 

Barb

[LibraryLover]

Bread crusts make fine croutons & bread crumbs.

 

It's a very short-lived issue, I've found and it's never a battle I've picked. (Although only one of mine had a bread crust issue). The crusts went in a little container in the freezer. No harm, no foul, no waste , and the child today not only eats bread crusts, but makes whole and elaborate meals, and the layerd palate cost$ me. lol

Edited August 25, 2010 by LibraryLover

[Barb_]

Bread crusts make fine croutons & bread crumbs.

 

It's a very short-lived issue, I've found and it's never a battle I've picked. (Although only one of mine had a bread crust issue). The crusts went in a little container in the freezer. No harm, no foul, no waste , and the child today not only eats bread crusts, but makes whole and elaborate meals, and the layerd palate cost$ me. lol

 

LOL...I don't know why the bread crusts drive me up a tree, but there you go. My darkest secrets out there for anyone on google to see :lol:

[Rosie_0801]

Dd8 needs a worm farm?

 

Rosie

[Jean in Newcastle]

Dd8 needs a worm farm?

 

Rosie

 

Well, I do have a compost pile but I haven't even looked at it in a year. Maybe I should, huh?:)

[Rosie_0801]

Well, I do have a compost pile but I haven't even looked at it in a year. Maybe I should, huh?:)

 

It probably looks really good by now!

 

A worm farm could turn her scraps into a science project. The castings can be mixed up to grow sunflower lettuce for dinner :) At least that's what I'll be doing when I get more worms. Dad cleaned out my worm farm when he helped us move. (Argh, that was going to feed my summer corn crop. Argh, argh and double argh, but thanks for helping us move. We really appreciated that!)

 

Rosie

[Peela]

I tihnk its good that kids are not taught to eat everything on their plate in our culture where there is a tendency to overeat. But I understand about the waste.

That's why we have a compost heap and chickens (and sometimes a worm farm when I don't kill them). That way nothing biodegradable is thrown into the garbage- it's all recycled.

[Sahamamama]

My husband grew up in one of those homes where it was "eat a little more" or "oh, just another bite." (Clue: He's Middle Eastern ;)). Love = Food

 

BUT, at the same time, his parents were (1) a gymnast (father) and (2) a nutritionist (mother), and they were ALWAYS getting on him about being overweight! :banghead:

 

He's built so he's going to look like dishwasher box, no matter how "in shape" he is.... he's just built like a large crate, LOL. Five feet, eight inches in every direction! No, it isn't that bad, but he is overweight. His parents still get on his case and he's 40. I blame them, though, for giving him very STRANGE ideas about finishing everything and VERY unrealistic portion sizes.

 

Whenever he dishes up for the girls, I say, "Oh, here we go again.... About four times what they can eat." And then I tell the girls, "Just eat until you are full and then you may be done. Daddy gave you too much."

 

I like Rosie's recycling/worm project. Good idea. :D

[Carrie12345]

No advice on the crust issue. :glare:

 

As far as everything else, we give the younger kids smaller portions than we think they'll actually eat. We have a semi-"clean plate" rule, in that they can't have seconds of their favorites until they finish everything on their plate (which shouldn't be an issue with such small portions), but they're free to have seconds, thirds, or tenths in small amounts, which would probably be the equivalent of 1-2 normal servings.

 

It's important to do this in our house, since my 7yo will eat like a bird one night, then eat a giant salad, a heap of green beans, 2 huge bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, and 3 slices of garlic bread the next. And the others aren't much more predictable! We never know how dinner is going to go!

[ktgrok]

do you have a dog? Ours gets the leftovers.

[nevergiveup]

Eat it yourself?

 

When my kids were younger that is what I did--I would wait to eat until they were finished and polish off their scraps. Worked well especially with home made cake. Who throws away home made cake? Hey, I'm not proud...

[unsinkable]

Eat it yourself?

 

When my kids were younger that is what I did--I would wait to eat until they were finished and polish off their scraps. Worked well especially with home made cake. Who throws away home made cake? Hey, I'm not proud...

 

:lol:

 

I knew a woman who'd say she only eats the crusts of bread...that her kids leave on their plates! I'll never forget the time she told me she ate a loaf of bakery bread...but only the crust!

[DarlaS]

do you have a dog? Ours gets the leftovers.

 

I was going to say the same thing.

 

Ours is even a very good catch with the unwanted pizza crusts. She always gets a few. Excellent eye-snout coordination. (Too bad you couldn't get her to catch a frisbee--unless you tricked her into thinking it was food. She'd totally rock at it! :D)

 

Just don't feed dogs certain foods.

[NanceXToo]

Well being as my husband and I are both overweight and have struggled on and off with that for years and years, I really make an effort to NOT push more food on the kids and to let them just stop when they are done.

 

Like someone else said, it's really important to be able to listen to your body's signals, to be able to stop eating when you are no longer hungry, etc.

 

I'm often reminding my husband of this because he DOES tend to say "eat more!" or "you're wasting that!"

 

Then when I make my point to him, he agrees, but says he hates when they don't finish their dinner and then 20 minutes later they want a snack or something lol. I don't know. All I know is the last thing I want to do is create food issues with my kids.

 

Maybe give your daughter smaller portions, or just let the matter go.

[Baseball mom]

One of mine use to leave food on his plate. Sometimes alot sometimes a little. Then about the time I dumped it and got all the dishes washed he would be back wanting the rest of his supper. He just couldn't eat much at 1 sitting.

 

I started putting his plate in the microwave after supper. Then when he came back there it was. Now even though he eats really good if he has anything left he will put his plate in the microwave.

 

If doesn't eat it then I have to toss it but I don't usually make them clean their plates. And like some other posters I make them take smaller helpings.

[Parrothead]

Smaller portions. She can always have more after the first serving is gone.

[elfgivas]

"it goes to waste/waist either way"... and its easier to take out the garbage than lose the weight!

 

we have chickens and feed them all non-meat food that's left over.

 

our kids must eat all their veggies (and we're intentional about portion size). anything else they leave is their call, but they cannot then announce immenent starvation shortly after a meal ; ).

 

the crust issue came and went; it was a battle i had with the older two that i chose not to have with the younger two. it was finished earlier with the younger two.... i simply cut off crusts at their request before serving them, and turned them into bread crumbs. it lasted under a year.

 

it might help raise their awareness if they became responsible for scraping plates, making breadcrumbs, etc. (at least one of our daughters would rather eat something she didn't like than have to manage it afterwards)

 

good luck,

ann

[Jean in Newcastle]

do you have a dog? Ours gets the leftovers.

 

The dogs do get certain scraps. But of course I can't give them all because of the types of food on the plate.

 

Eat it yourself?

 

When my kids were younger that is what I did--I would wait to eat until they were finished and polish off their scraps. Worked well especially with home made cake. Who throws away home made cake? Hey, I'm not proud...

 

No! I am trying to lose weight. Sometimes I do put less on my plate though because I know that I'll be eating some of hers. . .:)

[Belacqua]

Smaller portions. She can always have more after the first serving is gone.

 

I never noticed how hard I banged this idea until the last time we had dinner at a Chinese buffet place. My poor kid was so anxious about taking too much he would put two tiny pieces of food on his plate, eat them, then go back for two more. The owners must have thought he was eating them out of all their profits, as he went back to the buffet about fifteen times, but he was just so afraid of wasting.

 

I don't like throwing away food, but I try not to stress it too much. I'm reminded of the George Carlin routine about leftovers. He said leftovers make you feel good twice. When you save them, you think, "I'm saving food!" Then when you throw them out three days later, you think, "I'm saving my life!"

[fairfarmhand]

chickens...

 

When we go to other people's houses and watch them scrape plates into the trash my kids are APPALLED!

 

(they ask me later....Why do they waste so much food???:001_huh:)\

 

WE're just used to some other farm animal eating our scraps.

[KidsHappen]

I always leave a few bites and my children have automatically picked up the same habit. I don't even think they know why. Better to waste the food than to learn habits that can make you overweight. If I know I am going to eat dessert, I will even go so far as to eat it first and then eat enough dinner to be full. I will allow my children to do the same. No sense in consuming extra calories just to get to the food you want to eat int he first place. If you are craving chocolate, a carrot is not going to be satisfying. You will just end up eating the carrot and then the chocolate. I go more for balance over the day or week than each individual meal.

[Sherry in OH]

I hate that I end up tossing food off of my kid's plates - well not so much from ds13's plate:tongue_smilie: But dd8 will pull all the crusts off of her bread and leave them. She'll "clean her plate" (according to her - and no, we don't have a clean plate rule as such at our house) but if you used a spoon to scoop everything together then she'd get at least a couple of spoons of food still. A lot of it is that she eats until she's full and then stops. Great, right? But then food gets wasted. . . Any insight?

 

My older son will eat to the crust, then ask for another sandwich. The answer is alway, "eat what you have first." If he is truly hungry, he will eat the crusts.

 

You could try varying the plate size. For children who routinely ask for more food than they can eat, use smaller plates. It gives the appearance of larger servings. For those who think you are giving them too much food, put child- sized portions on larger plates. I try to err on the side of giving too small first servings. The child may have seconds, thirds, etc. if he eats what is on his plate.