# Don't Waste That Food! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 30, 2005, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656 "2005-12-30T00:24:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/21 "2006-02-26T03:32:12Z")
My father is like this. Even if something’s gone bad, he gets pissed if we throw it away, so we wait until he’s not around. My mother always said if you presented him with dog turds on a plate covered in gravy, he’d eat it just so it wouldn’t go to waste. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lovely_Margo_Lane)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/22 "2006-02-26T09:53:09Z")
My young gentleman’s mother has gotten a lot better lately, but there was a tub of orange sherbet in her freezer for 5 **years** (maybe longer-it was there when I met him) until I snapped and tossed it out when we were house-sitting. I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I felt better. My mother had 8 siblings, and the plates in that house were always cleaned one way or another, but she has told me many times that she resolved never to put any pressure of that kind on me or my sisters. I still end up with weird stuff in the fridge, but that’s because I get distracted and lazy, not because I’m purposefully keeping it. The aforementioned young gentleman hassles me sometimes about throwing stuff away, but I believe that the waste happened when I bought/made too much food, and that eating too much would be just as wasteful as throwing it out. ---
**Author:** ![Greywolf73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d9b06d/32.png) [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/23 "2006-02-26T12:23:46Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > Mrs. Mercotan will always insist that leftovers be put into the fridge. There, they are allowed to age for a few more days (or weeks), _then_ they are thrown out. I do this. Hey, it’s the thought that counts. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![UntouchedTakeaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d78d45/32.png) [@UntouchedTakeaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UntouchedTakeaway)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/24 "2006-02-26T12:37:44Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Anyone live with a spouse/SO who came from a family who NEVER threw away food? I was fortunate, I grew up middle class and while we never wasted food, when something wasn’t going to get eaten, it got tossed. > > However, I’ve run across people who came from poorer families who would make sure every crumb of food was eaten. These attitudes, I’ve found, are very hard to change. > > I try to plan the cooking for the week based on what’s in the fridge and plan the shopping based on what’s on sale during the week. Still, I feel there is always going to be some waste. A loaf of bread that has gotten stale because fewer sandwiches were made. Condiments which were left over from the 4th of July cookout. Eggs which have sat around too long. Sometimes, the leftovers get tossed if no one has had a chance to eat them in a few days. > > Still it is a small amount, and yes, I know food costs money. > > Still, the proportion of thrown away food is a small part of the food budget. Also, food costs aren’t a huge percentage of all our weekly expenses. > > But, I have to do it all in secret. I can’t imagine eating stale bread when the damn loaf only costs a dollar or so. And, no, I’m not going to risk food poisioning eating something that has been in the fridge too long. > > So, am I rational or “throwing money down the sink?” I grew up with parents who were born in 1928, so I remember this well. I remember sitting at the table at 3 AM because I wouldn’t finish a portion of rutabaga turnips (obviously, this was a power trip on the part of my dad, but I won’t get into that). My SO was like this to a degree. Once we bought a HUGE set of Tupperware - something like 30 pieces. At one point, the entire set was in the fridge - filled with dabs of this and small portions of that…most of which was unrecognizable. Made me _nuts_. Nothing wrong with saving the half of the meatloaf or several cups of mashed potatoes, but two tablespoons of gravy? My SO grew up very poor in the Bronx, so yeah, I have wondered about the connection between the two. VCNJ~ (and as a comment on the person who thought the above behavior contributed to obesity - yeah, thought about that too, as I grew up to be very obese) ---
**Author:** ![Farmwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8dc957/32.png) [@Farmwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmwoman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/25 "2006-02-26T13:14:50Z")
I don’t like to throw food away, and it has nothing to do with finances past or present, or with children starving in (fill in country). We all, on occasion, find ourselves buying/ordering/preparing more than we are willing to eat in even 2 or 3 sittings. But if this is the rule rather than the exception, I call it ugly and wasteful. ---
**Author:** ![zelie\_zelerton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/59ef9b/32.png) [@zelie\_zelerton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zelie_zelerton)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/26 "2006-02-26T13:18:42Z")
i was just going to post that but you’ve said it for me. I was punished regularly as a child for not eating every single thing on my plate and i now feel anxiety as an adult if i don’t eat everything. And yes, i’m overweight. ---
**Author:** ![Farmwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8dc957/32.png) [@Farmwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmwoman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/27 "2006-02-26T13:40:14Z")
I was never punished for not cleaning my plate. Since I was old enough to remember, I was allowed to fill my own plate, but it was expected that I not take more than I wanted to eat. I was never made to finish, but if I left a significant portion uneaten, I would find it on the breakfast table the next morning. I only had to experience this once or twice before I learned to self-regulate and take smaller portions. This approach seems pretty logical to me, and I use it with my own children. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/28 "2006-02-26T15:28:58Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > You’ve hit a nerve. My current guy friend drives me absolutely, completely, INSANE by refusing to throw away any food. > > If there is even one morsel of food left it goes into the fridge to be eaten later. This would include: 1 broccoli fleurette, 1 bite-size piece of steak, a little bit white rice that wasn’t eaten with the Chinese takeout. He will even save those little packets of soy sauce if they’ve been opened and only half of the packet was used. > > I savor the times when he’s away for a few days. That’s when I throw away everything that’s been collecting in the fridge. Oh my gawd, my husband does the same thing! But the worst part of it is that he’s horrible about actually EATING the leftovers. He’ll save one broccoli florette, but then it just sits there glowering at me. A week later when I go to throw it out, my husband freaks out, assures me that it’s still good to eat (I assume the blue mold is seasoning), and refuses to let me throw it out! Then he proceeds to not eat it again for another week until I clean out the fridge while he’s at work. Drives me batshit insane, I tell ya. I think I need to steal **Savannah** ’s leftover soup idea. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/29 "2006-02-26T15:29:53Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > You’ve hit a nerve. My current guy friend drives me absolutely, completely, INSANE by refusing to throw away any food. > > If there is even one morsel of food left it goes into the fridge to be eaten later. This would include: 1 broccoli fleurette, 1 bite-size piece of steak, a little bit white rice that wasn’t eaten with the Chinese takeout. He will even save those little packets of soy sauce if they’ve been opened and only half of the packet was used. > > I savor the times when he’s away for a few days. That’s when I throw away everything that’s been collecting in the fridge. May I suggest you take this into account if you ever decide to formalize your relationship? 🙂 My mother was a child in England during WWII, so there was the whole waiting-in-line-for-six-hours-to-get-one’s-rations thing. I’d be forced to eat my broccoli and cauliflower even though I detested them. (I refuse to eat them today, unless they’re raw and come with a dip.) Ivylad, when he was healthier, used to be able to pack away quite a bit of food. He seems to have a horror of not having enough food, and got quite irate with me one night when I only made one pan of nachos for dinner, not two. Surprise, surprise, even with a teenaged son, we had plenty. If I loved the food enough to eat it the first time, I’ll eat it for leftovers. But if it was kind of “meh,” it will sit in the fridge until it becomes a science experiment, then we dump it for the critters. We’ve also found that when we go to a restaurant there’s no need to order an appetizer with our meal. The meal portions are huge enough, and the days that he could eat an appetizer AND his entree are gone. I heard somewhere that portions at restaurants have gotten bigger, so much so that a kid’s meal-sized burger at McDonald’s now used to be the size of the regular burger about 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/30 "2006-02-26T15:35:58Z")
I love food. I love to buy it, cook it, serve it and eat it. But I have no qualms about disposing it. Most meal leftovers are worth putting in leftover containers. More often than not an attempt is made to eat it in the next day or two. If not, in the bin it goes. The next best thing to filling my fridge with feshly bought groceries is tossing the old stuff out. Very satisfying experience. I grew up with my parents being much more frugal with food. Very little was actually thrown out but I think my mom was better at guaging how much to buy and prepare. My dad experineced a childhood of days of hunger as a child growing up in war torn Europe. He tends to overeat and hates to see food thrown out. I don’t suffer his guilt about food disposal but do enjoy great personal satisfaction of having a well stocked kitchen/fridge. 🙂 (Not overweight.) ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/31 "2006-02-26T15:47:19Z")
If I can make a dinner last into a lunch for myself or my husband, I do. I have no issue throwing away mouldy bread or any leftovers that has been in the fridge for more than a few days, but throwing away good food…nope. I come from a family where leftovers were either fed to the dog, put on the compost or re-cyled into dinner or lunch next day I literally never saw edible food thrown out. I don’t buy more than I can cook, and I don’t cook more than we can eat. Once you’ve got that sorted out, the amount of wasted food is usually minimal. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/32 "2006-02-26T16:01:46Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > . . . I don’t cook more than we can eat. . . That’s my problem. I’ve never figured out how to cook for X number of people. (I just made my first batch of Leftover Soup. Took all of 5 minutes - dumped some leftover chicken, leftover blackeyed peas, leftover Chinese takeout vegetables and 2 florettes of leftover broccoli. Added 2 quarts of chicken stock. We’ll see what happens in half an hour when it’s all warm!) ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/33 "2006-02-26T17:05:28Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > My solution these days is a big jar in the freezer. Dibs and dabs get dumped in there, and when it’s full, I make “leftover soup”. Soup, with leftovers tossed in. Quite tasty, and it makes me feel thrifty. _Ugh._ That reminds me of an episode of Malcom and the Middle, that I some how remember after all this time. His family is sitting down for dinner, and he does an aside to the camera. Paraphrased, “At the end of the week, my mom makes a casserole of all the leftovers from the week. See, the top was yesterdays meatloaf, the second layer was macaroni, then Mondays, Sundays… Oh no, it has finally happened! This weeks leftover casserole was made from last weeks leftover casserole!” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/34 "2006-02-26T17:13:01Z")
I’m reminded of _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ and the mother, Katie’s, philosophy on wasting food. She gives both of her children a cup of coffee with cream for lunch, but Francie, the protagonist, never drinks it. She simply wraps her free hand around the cup to keep warm, smelling the coffee, and pours it down the sink after she’s done eating. When her aunts mention this to Katie, Katie tells them that it makes her feel less poor allowing Francie to waste at least SOMETHING. ---
**Author:** ![MaddyStrut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dbc845/32.png) [@MaddyStrut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaddyStrut)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/35 "2006-02-26T17:30:28Z")
My parents cannot throw away food. They can’t even throw away _coffee_. Seriously, if there’s coffee left over they put it in the fridge and microwave it later. That’s some nasty tasting coffee! We were never encouraged to clear our plates, but we were encouraged to only take as much as we thought we’d eat. It didn’t get as bad as **Farmwoman** who had to eat the same stuff the next day (although we did get that if we refused to eat our vegtables or something), but we were reprimanded for taking more than we could eat. Saturday was grocery shopping day, so on weekends we’d have good meals with all fresh ingredients. As it got later in the week, we got into leftovers. By the time Thursday rolled around, my parents got very creative about combining various leftovers that by themselves weren’t enough to make a meal. Sheesh, I used to dread the nasty potoato pancakes made out of leftover mashed pototos with all kinds of other leftover vegtables stuck inside. That was awful stuff! I won’t horrify you with a description of some of the soup from leftovers I was subjected to! Neither of my parents were ever poor. My father’s family was quite well off. My mother’s family wasn’t quite so wealthy, but they weren’t poor by any stretch. They just hate waste. My entire extended family is the same way. They can’t throw out clothing, appliances, or furniture either. My mother has an attic and basement full of stuff she’s sure someone in the family will use sometime. It was great when we were starting out because we had a bunch of stuff to choose from. But now we’re all pretty much established and I don’t know how she’s going to get rid of all that stuff. I still get calls from my mother asking if I’m sure I don’t need her old VCR or computer from 1993. And my sister in law gets boxes of our old clothes as her kids grow up. Some of it they can use, but I doubt my niece will be sporting my old parachute pants anytime soon! ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/36 "2006-02-27T16:13:34Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > My solution these days is a big jar in the freezer. Dibs and dabs get dumped in there, and when it’s full, I make “leftover soup”. Soup, with leftovers tossed in. Quite tasty, and it makes me feel thrifty. OK, that actually made bile rise in my throat. :o ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/37 "2006-02-27T16:23:50Z")
I have some “food issues” I guess you’d call them. My husband eats leftovers, I do not. I will not. If they don’t get eaten within a few days by him or my son, they go in the trash. When I cook, I try very hard to cook only as much as we will likely finish that day but if it’s a roast or something along those lines, we end up with leftovers. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/38 "2006-02-27T17:17:46Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > (I just made my first batch of Leftover Soup. Took all of 5 minutes - dumped some leftover chicken, leftover blackeyed peas, leftover Chinese takeout vegetables and 2 florettes of leftover broccoli. Added 2 quarts of chicken stock. We’ll see what happens in half an hour when it’s all warm!) The soup turned out well, by the way. A little sweet, because the chicken was cooked in lemon and honey. I think I’ll add a little vinegar and some cayenne today to make it more “hot and sour” soupy. It definitely has “Chinese” overtones due to the sauce from the veggies. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/39 "2006-02-27T17:21:29Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > My solution these days is a big jar in the freezer. Dibs and dabs get dumped in there, and when it’s full, I make “leftover soup”. Soup, with leftovers tossed in. Quite tasty, and it makes me feel thrifty. Sounds good to me. If I’m willing to eat it the first time, I see no reason why I wouldn’t eat it again. If it’s been frozen, should be fine. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2006, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656/40 "2006-02-27T17:36:46Z")
> [@Farmwoman](#): > > if I left a significant portion uneaten, I would find it on the breakfast table the next morning. There are foods for which I’d have deliberately done that, so long as I could heat them up in the microwave the next morning. I love leftover pizza or Chinese food for breakfast. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-waste-that-food/337656.md?page=3)