To not understand people that dont eat leftovers?

[Eliza9917]

I've seen a lot of people say this, and wondered why? What could eating leftovers possibly do to you? Is it a fear of poverty in some way?

My sister knew a girl that would roast a chicken for Sunday dinner and only eat the breasts and throw the rest away. To me, that's madness, I'd get at least 2-3 dinners and a soup out of a large chicken.

@BakerBear This is the attitude that baffles me the most. What do people think we did before packaged foods and BB dates???

He does piss me off with it tbh.

A perfectly good tomato goes in the bin because its (out of date)

Hes like this with all food and milk.

My mum takes most of the out of date food home but a proportion of it also goes in the bin (about £10 a week of it )

Also foods like curry always taste better then next day. Extra day to marinate

I tend to do slightly different things with 'leftovers'. Eg I'll cook chilli, we will eat 2/3 with rice. The small portion remaining is frozen & at a later date becomes enchilada filling, eked out with a tin of mixed beans, or is used to top nachos as a snack.

All leftover rice is frozen. It microwaves beautifully any time you just want a single portion.

Really, really don't get the chicken chuckers! That's bonkers.

Just use your fingers to strip off all usable meat. Freeze in small portions. Add later to egg fried rice/risotto/soup etc.

I then boil up the carcass for stock, which again goes in the freezer.

If we have vegetables which are on their way out, I make soup or pasta sauce with the slow cooker.

Bugger all waste in this household (& yes we do quite often grab a takeaway). You just need a freezer!

My food waste caddy was so full after Christmas I had to squash the lid down That's nothing to be proud about.

Reheated pizza is definitely yuk though as always so chewy!

Microwave for 1.5 minutes with a couple of tablespoons of water in a ramekin.

Sounds like you need some sort of visual to demonstrate it for him. Maybe every Friday you burn a £10 note in front of him?

My food waste caddy was heaving with potato peelings, carrot tops, banana and satsuma skins, eggshells, boiled up carcass, tebags and coffee grounds, etc. It can be full of organic rather than waste matter.

We might occasionally put some soggy parsley or lettuce in there but rarely.

I am still eating left over Christmas dinner, got at least two more meals to go, lovely.

Doesn't everyone just cook the right amount of food required for their family?

You’ve just reminded me of the bubble and squeak I made from the leftover Xmas day veg. I’ll be eating that later.
Makes me laugh the fuss about eating leftovers and the general fear about food. We waste so much it’s awful - there was something in the news recently about the amount of bread thrown away in the UK - 24 million slices every day. Criminal.

No, not always. Sunday joint for example often provides lunch the next day. Sometimes the family is hungrier than at other times.

Don't most families cater for the hungriest days and put what's left back in the fridge for tomorrow?

Yay, it's sanctimonious hour!

Sanctimonious is a word people often use when someone's just given them an accurate description of what a sack of shit they're being.

I ate our Christmas turkey etc until yesterday. It was delicious.

I don't understand the aversion to leftovers, I adore them.

Doesn't everyone just cook the right amount of food required for their family?

I cook more on purpose...then we have lunch sorted for the next day or an extra portion to go in the freezer.

But food is just food! What is wrong with people?! This attitude is disgusting. I never knew there was such a thing as people just chucking out food for no reason, it’s disgraceful.

Doesn't everyone just cook the right amount of food required for their family?

No, what if people are particularly hungry and want seconds? Or had a big lunch and only wants a little? It’s also very handy to have packed lunch for work the next day. Also I only have a lasagne dish of a certain size, so I make lasagne or pasta bake or whatever to fill it and if there’s leftovers then great.

Some people really do just have shit attitudes, sadly. I’ve been taking to my wider family about food waste a lot lately. I think if brexit fucks up the food market, it might actually be good for some people. A few of us could do with talking a hard look at our attitudes towards what’s sitting on our plates: what it costs to get it there, and the economical/environmental impact of chucking it in the bin.

@BakerBear What would he do if you removed what was appropriate to do so from its packaging when you unload the shopping and put it all in food storage containers?

Just catching up with this thread and I too am horrified at the food waste described by some posters. Am also horrified by the selfish 'I don't care and will waste it if I want' attitude taken by some.

My parents were brought up during the war and brought me up to waste nothing. I don't always get it right, and sometimes find stuff at the back of the fridge that I hadn't noticed, and have to throw it away, but on the whole I waste little.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I find the idea that people throw away perfectly good meat particularly abhorrent.

My fridge is always full of leftovers. We had turkey and ham pie today, which we will finish tomorrow, and I'm still eating leftover cranberry sauce (very good on a turkey and/or Brie sandwich).

I'm with Slightlycoddled. I was brought up on "roast on Sunday, cold on Monday" and usually manage pasta or risotto on Tuesday as well

I was also bought up fighting with my Dad over the left over cold custard. That one literally never happens in our house - mores the pity!

I don't like eating leftovers, I think it's a hangover from childhood when we didn't have a lot of money and every meal was stretched as far as it would go. However I don't throw stuff away, I just cook very carefully so there are no leftovers ( I always weigh rice/pasta for example). My MIL cannot cope with this at all as she lives for a fridge full of left overs to graze upon!

In my mind what most of the leftover lovers here are describing is planned over catering or batch cooking.

The word leftover to me means bits salvaged off plates, or something left in the bottom of a saucepan for x amount of time before being scraped onto a plate to sit in the fridge for x amount of time before finally going the bin. Or the scraggy fat on meat or the black potato which no one wanted the first time around.

Therefore i will say i don't eat leftovers.

As for batch cooking i've never had much room to freeze or store much and for a large family it's always been more straight forward to cook what i know will get eaten. Either in the size dish which caters for the right amount, or the right amount of chops/sausages ect.

2 exceptions:

• I will do cold meat with mash the day after a roast if there's enough meat left over, and if not it will probably end up in a sandwich.
• I do bubble and squeak once a year.

I never, ever check the use-by date of any food.

I make batches of meals with prawns, chicken etc and it's still totally fine a week later.

If a bit of broccoli is fuzzy, I pick it off and use the rest. I hate waste, I think people in the UK are over precious about bacteria.

Generally if something has gone fluffy, pick it off. If it's slimy, it's past saving.

Trust your nose and eyes - you can soon tell if something is genuinely 'off'!

I've never had food poisoning, and have had only one mild cold in over 5 years.

Well my gob has been truly smacked reading this thread! I honestly never knew that people didn't eat leftovers! Honestly...I really didn't know this! I've never met/known anyone who doesn't eat leftovers! All my colleagues bring Tupperware boxes with last nights tea (pasta/hotpot/curry/chilli...even a full on left over Sunday roast dinner on a Monday!) Our staffroom at lunchtime is a veritable leftovers smorgasbord!

I just don't understand why you wouldn't 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️