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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate this smashcake craze?

588 replies

skerrywind · 09/04/2017 10:35

A close member of our family has just spent £100 on a smashcake for her 1st baby's birthday.
I find it quite disgusting to waste food like this. It surprises me that I have quite a gutteral reaction to this. I also find it disgusting to see people in baths of beans etc.

Anyone else feel like this or am I just a killjoy?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
MooPointCowsOpinion · 10/04/2017 18:01

Who the fuck is Bruce. Hmm

Tansia · 10/04/2017 18:01

I wonder if anyone complaining about food waste is overweight? Is consuming more food than needed not wasteful? Cake smash seems pretty harmless in comparison really.

oneleggedfatbird · 10/04/2017 18:02

This is a thing? Bypassed me completely ! Strikes me as a bit daft!

Thehappygardener · 10/04/2017 18:07

Uuummmmm, had never heard of smashcake till this thread, looked it up on Pinterest and some of the photos looked, rather awful, almost dressing babies for titilation. As many people have said, rather crude and also wasteful. A sad trend.

Beeziekn33ze · 10/04/2017 18:08

We saw a celeb on our plane, she smiled in a friendly way. Decided we'd ask her to have a photo taken with our 18 month old.

Food was served, after his enjoying a small slice of chocolate fudge cake in a smearing manner we thought it kinder not to put him anywhere near her.

£100 for a cake to be smashed by a 1 year old?! Not the Bullingdon Club, is it?! Pathetic. Any 1 year old can do 'cute and food covered' with any meal on any day.

And yes, it IS disgusting in light of the starving children in South Sudan, Yemen, and other parts of the world. We're one population of one planet, wake up and realise that humanity is common to us all.

FontSnob · 10/04/2017 18:11

Dressing babies for titilation. Hmm

Beeziekn33ze · 10/04/2017 18:12

OP - UA SO NBU!!!

iloveeverykindofcat · 10/04/2017 18:12

Yeah it does make me cringe. I know it isn't taking food directly from the mouth of children in Syria and East Africa, but producing food specifically for wastage is crass to say the least. I used to work with a woman who was born in a refugee camp and food wastage never failed to upset her on a really visceral level - I thought about it a lot harder after getting to know her.

Tigermehhhhm · 10/04/2017 18:14

Yup. Disgusting, wasteful and tacky

Pansiesandredrosesandmarigolds · 10/04/2017 18:17

Mildly tacky, I suppose, but you'll hurt the world far more by flying long haul.

PoorYorick · 10/04/2017 18:20

A photographer friend loves them, because you never get the same shot twice.

Not my thing, but to each their own. I can't get too worked up about the food waste, starvation isn't caused by cake smashes.

iloveeverykindofcat · 10/04/2017 18:22

I know the amount of wastage is insignificant, but I think its the symbolism of the thing that makes people uncomfortable - producing cake just for smashing. If you want to see a 1 year old covered in cake, all you have to do is 1) give said 1 year old a piece of cake 2) wait 30 seconds

PoorYorick · 10/04/2017 18:24

I have a friend who is an artistic chef and often creates innovative new recipes that don't get fully eaten because they are experiments. Also a cake decorator friend who often makes cakes to practise new skills (e.g. using molten sugar or different ways of blending colours). Sometimes the cakes are eaten, often they are on display in a shop until they are inedible.

Are these actions unacceptable?

angelfacecuti75 · 10/04/2017 18:25

I only don't like it because it makes one neck of a mess :/

Iadmititimnotsuperwoman · 10/04/2017 18:35

Tacky, ostentatious, nonce crap.

twattymctwatterson · 10/04/2017 18:43

I don't particularly like them but this thread is Mnet class bullshit at it's worst

SquatBetty · 10/04/2017 18:44

Tacky, naff and unoriginal - done by those with little imagination

LaurieMarlow · 10/04/2017 18:47

The UK threw out 4.4 million tonnes of avoidable food waste in 2015 (can't find figures for last year). That's all food that was edible at some point that got binned.

I'd respectfully suggest that those handwringing over cake smashes and concerned about waste/starvation redirect their ire to the much bigger contributing factors.

sniffle12 · 10/04/2017 18:48

What do you actually do with them? The Asda one another poster shared just seemed to be a cake with a hidden stash of treats in - is it like cake piñata or something?

What you might call a waste of £100 is presumably £100 invested in someone's small business - so if she wants to spend the money and the cake maker benefits, then why not.

TheKitchenWitch · 10/04/2017 18:49

Absolutely awful. I always hope that anyone who lets their 1yo do it then has the problem that they smash every birthday cake from then on. Oh is that not what you're supposed to do with cake?

Fadingmemory · 10/04/2017 18:49

Suspect I am about to show my age... It is about eatcake surely, not smashcake....

Saj1988 · 10/04/2017 18:52

Revolting!

IFinishedTheBiscuits · 10/04/2017 18:56

I hate smash cakes... in the same way I hate children playing with Nerf assault rifles when they're the same weapon that killed all those six year olds in Sandy Hook.

It's not the waste, I think it's just insensitive when that cake could mean life or death for a child in another country and shows we don't realise just how lucky we are in the UK.

I have no problem with waste as a by-product of craft etc, it's creating something purely to destroy which I don't like. (Although I know some Asian families do not like using rice for messy play at local Children's Centres because it is food to them, so appreciate that point of view too.)

Ghanagirl · 10/04/2017 18:57

Frazzledmum123
Do you really not see the issue with this!

  1. Wasting food whilst kids in this country and abroad don't have breakfast.
  2. Such a bad example to set your own kids! I'm sure you'll have fun for 30 mins wasting food but as a mum and also a Health Visitor who trys to promote Healthy eating this trend is so disgusting on so many levels☹️