A while back, I posted an article about what to do when little kids ruin their food. My children are older now, and that means a whole new set of food challenges. They don't destroy their food anymore. Gone are the days of chucking food on the floor or dumping a cup of milk on their plates. Thank goodness. However, they've also gotten smarter, and sneakier. Now they can talk me out of eating their food. I'm still the one who dishes up their plates, so I won't make them eat everything I give them because I don't know how much they want. That wouldn't be fair.
For the most part, though, I've figured out when they are actually "full" and when they just want to leave the table. If they've eaten half their plates and tell me out of the blue that they're done, I always believe them. They don't get a snack between dinner and bedtime, so they have no incentive to lie. If they've eaten all of their pasta without touching their vegetables and tell me they're full, sorry. That's not going to fly. If they're eating just fine and then something more interesting comes up, it means they aren't full. We've had to stop telling them, "Finish eating and then we can (insert fun thing here," because they will inevitably be "done."
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In my house, we rarely have snacks. I do this so my children will be nice and hungry by the time they sit down and therefore less likely to reject their food.
Another reader question! I love these.
Do you intend to make your children eat everything on their plates? No. My philosophy is if you eat food you don't want and your body doesn't need, that counts as wasting it. Also, it's more important for children to learn how to listen to their body's hunger cues so they can become responsible eaters.
And really, if I’m the one dishing up the food, making them eat all of it isn’t fair.
"My husband won’t eat food that’s over a day old. He’ll eat the leftovers the day after I make something, but not later than that. What should I do?"
Goodness, if I knew how to change men’s minds I’d have a very different blog and I’d be making a lot more money.
"What do I do with the food my baby doesn’t eat? I don’t want to put the jar back in the fridge after her spoon has been in it."
Kids are the ultimate food wasters. Right now both you and the baby are figuring out what your child likes and doesn’t like, and there will be a lot of trial and error. She’s building a new relationship with food, and hopefully it’s a healthy one, so I don’t recommend forcing her to finish the jar if she doesn’t want it. Like I mentioned in the last post, my husband decided to make white cupcakes the same day I announced to him that I was never going to waste food ever again. As he mixed the batter, I asked him to add some almond extract. Almond is an underappreciated flavor, which is a shame, because I love it in baked goods.
I went into the bedroom to fold laundry as he finished the cupcakes, and when I came out, he was sitting on the couch with a sheepish grin on his face. “Um,” he said.
My quest to end food waste began with a Facebook photo.
Shortly after Thanksgiving, a friend of mine posted that she was making Turkey Carcass Soup. The name sounds overly morbid to me – I dislike the idea of eating “carcass”, even though I do it every day – but I loved the concept of using something I was going to throw away. That’s almost like free food. After she and her family picked off and ate as much turkey meat as they could, she put all the bones in a pot of water and boiled it until all the meat fell off (about four hours). Then she added vegetables and a carbohydrate, and voila! |
I will never waste food againI've been tired of throwing out food for years - not to mention tired of our huge grocery bill! I decided to make a change and vowed never to waste food again. In this blog, I'll show you how I do it. RECIPESArchives
January 2020
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