To hate this smashcake craze?

[skerrywind]

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?

Babies can make enough mess with a single slice or cupcake
Totally! If I fancy seeing DGD get in a state that requires loads of soap and a flannel and a complete change of clothes, the only thing she needs is a fromage frais and a couple of strawberries.

Tacky and vulgar. It reminds me of Hunger Games, the bit where the rich folk are having a party with elaborate food, wine, fireworks etc and drinking a concoction to induce vomiting so that they can eat even more. All whilst the ordinary people starve.

I don't think a cake smash is comparable to leftover children's meals which were made with the intention of being eaten, or Halloween pumpkins where presumably most people would use the flesh for pie/soup, or blw which is teaching children vital skills (and actually needn't be too wasteful if you're careful). A cake smash is a deliberate and unnecessary waste of food, just "for fun". And worse than that, it's the whole production of it. Getting the baby dressed up, tying balloons onto their chair, paying a photographer, all just to make a real show of this disgusting and disrespectful waste.

I have to admit I would seriously think less of parents who did a cake smash. It demonstrates either a total lack of knowledge of what life is like for most of the world's population and what is going on globally at the moment, or a complete lack of emotional intelligence and empathy. My friends are better than that.

I hate it too OP and find it incredibly wasteful, not to mention pointless.

YANBU.

Cake smash is fake fun. Contrived for a photo opportunity. It's not my cup of tea, I'm not one for professional photographs or posed pictures in general.

Smash cake is different is a cake with a shell usually chocolate that can be broken open to reveal sweets etc. Like a piñata cake.

I suspect that people claim to love this because they've been convinced by commercial interests that it's fun, without really analysing for themselves whether it is. If you don't find it fun cleaning your child up when he's smeared his breakfast over himself in the course of a normal meal, why does it suddenly become fun because it's officially smash cake?

Smash cake is different is a cake with a shell usually chocolate that can be broken open to reveal sweets etc. Like a piñata cake.

Oh I agree. The frenzied attempts of small children to smash things in order to gorge themselves on sweets sound so much better in a foreign language, don't they?

Pathetic and disgusting.

My favourite from Milk Tray was the lime barrel MilkTrayLimeBarrel

They don't do it any more I am disappointed by that, but don't find it pathetic or disgusting. It was a decision made by people I have no control over. I've learned to live with it and focus on other pleasures.

It demonstrates either a total lack of knowledge of what life is like for most of the world's population and what is going on globally at the moment, or a complete lack of emotional intelligence and empathy. My friends are better than that.

So I'd deduce from that your friends never overindulge in calories they don't physically need and never throw food away. Because it comes down to exactly the same thing.

I don't think it's 'rich' people doing it tbh, it's people who prioritise oddly, swayed by trends and commercialism.
I imagine they have Groucho Marx eyebrows too.

Laurie if you read the rest of my comment then you will see why I don't think it's comparable. Buying an elaborate cake, setting up a whole photo shoot and making an occasion of it is different in my opinion, yes.

Tiredcluelessmummy, the professional photo shoot doesn't have to be part of it, neither does the cake have to be elaborate.

How is the 'occasion' element any different to spending hundreds on a fancy wedding cake that will be empty calories for all who eat it, as they can't possibly need the energy or nutrition?

Most of our party/celebration food is 'waste' in a purely physical sense.

We get different benefits from this kind of food - fun, celebration, social bonds, memories.

Cake smash strikes me as no different.

So I'd deduce from that your friends never overindulge in calories they don't physically need and never throw food away. Because it comes down to exactly the same thing.

Not quite. You forget the photos and the celebration and the 'memories making'.
Overindulging in calories and waste of food is not usually glorified the way a cake smash is.

Party and celebration food is about sharing, not being wasted by one person .

I have made pinata cakes for my kids, they're not the same. You hide a few sweets inside, the litle ones find it funny, but the whole cake is to be eaten, not wasted for vary bizarre reasons.

We'll have to agree to disagree Laurie. It's fundamentally different to me to actively celebrate wasting food.

I don't understand why it bothers people so much. I'm drinking wine at the moment. It's empty calories, zero nutrition, has been grown on land that could be used for something else and imported into the UK from Spain using fuel and space on the plane, ship, lorry or combination of all three that could be used for something else. It's also expensive.

But I like it.

I don't see the difference.

Wedding cake:

Some, but certainly not all is eaten.

What is eaten is extraneous calories therefore in a purely physical sense it is waste
Large amounts are spent on it which could feed those in need
It's higher purpose is about celebrating an occasion and making memories.

Smash cake:

As above.

Some of you can't see the difference between providing food to be eaten and providing food to be smashed?

I have no words.

A) I believe lots of the smash cake is eaten

B) food that is eaten, when people are full to bursting and don't need it, purely to be turned into fat by the body, thus impacting health, doesn't strike me as morally better than a baby getting enjoyment out of sensory play.

Slightly off topic but the phrase 'making memories' really does make me feel slightly fucking stabby.

Everything is a memory. We 'make memories' all day every day. Some good, some bad, some indifferent.

So the baby smashes it up and then what?

You take pictures, clear up the mess and throw it in the bin. Google "cakesmash" and look at some of the images. You're looking for the twee, staged and tacky look. With a slightly bemused child in the middle of it all.

threelegged- that 's how I feel.

It's the wanton destruction of food that I find galling.

A bit like killing animals for fun rather than food.

The celebration of destroying food when there are so many hungry people in the world is callous.