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.

Tight = mean. Meanness is a manifestation of selfishness. Going to the loo to avoid buying a round is mean. Choosing a present for someone solely because it's cheap is mean. Asking for a doggy bag is not a sign of meanness. Thrift is a good quality to have. Profligacy isn't.

What's the actual point here though of this thread

You could say that about 99% of MN. And actually this thread has made a couple of people rethink their approach. And maybe plenty of others who only lurk. If ‘name calling’ about food waste is offending you, maybe you should consider why - guilty conscience maybe?

But Bats some people have responded to this thread by trying something different rather than throwing food away eg a PP had never considered reheating lasagne but found that reheated it is just as tasty. Other people weren't sure what to do with leftover roast chicken and have been provided with a variety of recipes. Also a link has been provided for organisations that will take unwanted, but still edible food.

All of the above will help reduce some food waste, and hopefully the message can then be spread. This thread highlights how wasteful some people are and that something needs to be done, as it is quite frightening. Also as some PP have mentioned post Brexit food prices may rise in the future, so some people who are pretty wasteful now may need to find ways to be more economical with their food.

Guilty conscience maybe? No, I stopped contributing earlier as I thought it stopped being a discussion and just a name calling exercise. Reading on I was right.

Lots of people do things that are bad for the environment, having children being a massive one so I am not sure why food throwing away is seen as top of the list for some people and therefore allows them to call people 'stupid', 'dick heads', 'childish' etc when I suspect for 99% of people on here they will be doing something equally 'bad' or worse.

Loads of people have posted saying this thread has given them good ideas; it's better than most on Mumsnet in that respect.

And I've got a lot of entertainment out of it. Genuinely had no idea that people had such an objection to left overs or batch cooking, let alone people buying whole chickens with the actual intent of throwing half away. Always good to hear about the weirdos. Been a real jaw-dropper for me!

Tight = mean. Meanness is a manifestation of selfishness. Going to the loo to avoid buying a round is mean. Choosing a present for someone solely because it's cheap is mean. Asking for a doggy bag is not a sign of meanness. Thrift is a good quality to have. Profligacy isn't.

Thrift is good. Rather than all the emphasis on reuse and recycling, there should be far more said about simply buying less in the first place. Not only to help save the planet, but also to save your money for things that are more important. Far too many people sitting around feeling all virtuous because they've taken all the Christmas crap to the recycling centre - they'd have done far more good not buying so much crap in the first place. Same with food - if you buy only the amount you need, there'll be little, if any leftovers. Stop falling for the supermarket gimmicks of BOGOF and multipacks - they're just a con. Just buy what you need - proper butchers and some supermarket meat counters will split the pre-packs for you, you can buy loose fruit and veg instead of bags, etc. It's not being mean to buy less - it's being thrifty and sensible and environmentally friendly.

Always good to hear about the weirdos. Been a real jaw-dropper for me!

And I suspect many people haven't bothered saying why they don't because of that. So if the OP wanted to know the reasons then I suspect many people won't contribute but then if it's a just a 'how to reuse food' thread then great but that isn't what the title suggested to me.

@BatsAreCool I think you've missed one of the main outcomes of this thread. Lots of people have, and will, benefit from this post as someone else pointed out it's given people ideas for using leftovers, chicken legs etc and how to store food properly. You mention people doing bad things such as having children but one could assume you either have children or have considered having children to be on this thread. I don't think having children in itself is necessarily a bad thing if these children are the new generation that are going to try to save the planet that we and are older generations are destroying. If you're bringing up children to waste food and not educating them about climate change then that's a concern but if you're educating your children about climate change and they're actively doing things to try to save the planet then we should be proud of them and encourage them. I've not seen many posts calling people names and I agree it's not the way to encourage people to make changes but I understand how frustrating it is when people come on here and say I don't care about climate change/waste/pollution/the homeless etc and only care about themselves and they're actively destroying our children/grandchildren's lives.

@Kazzyhoward I agree with your first couple of points however I regularly buy offers etc as I'm on a different diet to some of my family so it makes sense for me to cook more e.g. batch cook then freeze meals. I'm a bit of a foodie so I love cooking but I would rather make myself 4 meals with 1 recipe than reduce it by 4 and make one meal out of it- it takes the same amount of time to cook etc and gives me more meals for when I'm on call and don't know when/if I'll get called out.
What has been an important lesson for me is not buying stuff just because it's on offer- I will ask myself if I really want it, will I use it, is it worth it etc. So yes a lot of people get caught out buying too much on BOGOF offers etc but it's ok to buy more if you're going to use it to meal prep I think.

We don’t buy bogofs. We buy what we need for what we fancy eating for the week and just make sure to use as much of it as possible without any unnecessary waste.

I’m going to reiterate, I don’t waste my time judging others or wringing my hands over their life choices. I live in a way that I deem principled and responsible and that feels right for me. If along the way I can get a few people interested in making better use of the resources they spend their hard earned money on, and to learn new and tast ways of using up leftover food, that’s a bonus to me, and a win-win for everyone involved, surely.

*tasty, obviously.

When I used 'stupid' I'm not calling any individual person stupid ie 'name calling'. I'm saying our behaviour (ie our society, we as citizens) is stupid when it comes to food waste as we are contributing to a problem which will adversly affect us all - not a clever thing to do.

@Notsobendy exactly.
There's an expression - No intelligent species would destroy their own environment. Yet here we are 😥

Thebigbang, if asking for a doggy bag seems "cheap and penny pinching" then fine I will happily take that label.

I am pretty sure restaurants are used to people taking a doggy bag home with them and quite a few restaurants ask if you want to take any food you have left away.

I don't like food waste or any waste really. I try to do my bit for the planet but so many people don't care. I don't even have children and yet seem more concerned about the future for children today then many who do actually have children

I find it very disrespectful to the poor animals that have died for our meal to throw away leftovers. My in laws cook a bird and only eat the breast, I can’t get my head round it. There’s nothing nicer than cold meat, chips and beans. My grandma and mum would get 2 or 3 dinners for everyone out of a roast.

Does it really Laurie? That's interesting, I thought food here was super expensive and I don't even buy meat.

Leftovers make up half my weekly meals! Agree some dishes taste better the next day, much richer flavours 😋

You fussy fuckers are missing out!

I am just eating turkey and ham pie for lunch. Its left overs from several nights ago, it was originally made from Christmas leftovers.. Does that make it double dip leftovers????
The pastry was made out of left over pastry from cheese straws made for Christmas eve..
Do I win some kind of award? ☺

Tonight I'm going to make some chilli con carne and freeze half of it (the enormous pack of mince needs using) after the lasagna success to see if i like it.

As an aside I'm absolutely not buying the "it's disrespectful to animals" gubbins about not eating leftovers. Do you think a cow, right before it's about to be axed through the neck, thinks "I really don't mind being murdered, but what would really piss me off is if they didn't eat every last bit of fresh". Eating meat is disrespectful to animals full stop, im a meat eater (although maybe only eat it once or twice a week) but at least own that it's disrespectful and don't think you're a better animal lover because you eat every last morsel

@GunpowderGelatine I'm vegan so obviously hate animals being eaten but I would prefer people to eat all of the poor animal then waste some if they really feel they have to eat animals.

I think I’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, Gunpowder - it matters to me that I show respect for all parties directly involved, and even theoretical parties (such as people in other countries who I’m never going to know who have hardly any food, or people in this country who can’t afford to pick and choose what lovely, expensive food they might want this week or next, or those who routinely forego food for themselves and eat their children’s scraps, or those who have to choose between food and fuel or those children whose parents prioritise other things over feeding them). One could argue that my attitude whilst consuming matters fuck all to anything, but I believe it does. If only because being respectful in this sense means I’m likely to be respectful in other ways, and that might have farther reaching consequences than one might initially think.

As I said in my earlier post, I enjoy eating leftovers and some meals taste even better the next day. However, I'm not suggesting eating the scrapings off of plates which would be pretty disgusting.

Another thing I don't understand are those who insist on rigidly adhering to use by dates. I don't pay the dates much attention and go on how the food looks/feels/smells as to whether I will eat it or not.

I was visiting a friend yesterday and she was prepping vegetables for later that evening. She took out a bag of potatoes and said 'oh I can't use these, the use by date was yesterday.' I looked at them and a couple had just starting to sprout, but they were not soft and I told her they were fine. Nope, she refused to use them and I stopped her putting them in the bin and brought them home with me. It's so wasteful.

I blame the nanny state culture.

People don’t trust their common sense and do as told by the powers that be.

You can still eat sprouty potatoes - you just gouge the sprouty bits off! As long as potatoes have not gone green on their skins (or are obviously bad - which stinks so is obvious) , they are safe to eat. The date on the bag is meaningless, you won;t get ood poisoning from a potato past its date!

DATE LABELS - research has shown that a large % of UK consumers misunderstand labels and throw food away unneccesarily as a result. TWO MILLION TONNES of food are wasted each year in UK homes purely from it not being used in time. A third of this food waste is triggered because of how shoppers interpret existing date labels.

This is the official guidance from Food Standards Agency....

BEST BEFORE - these dates refer to quality rather than food safety. Foods with a 'best before' date should be safe to eat after the 'best before' date, but they may no longer be at their best.

DISPLAY UNTIL & SELL BY - you can ignore these dates as they are for shop staff not for shoppers.

USE BY - these dates refer to safety. Food can be eaten up to the end of this date but not after even if it looks and smells fine. Always follow the storage instructions on packs.

Other useful things to note that I didn't realise until I started working in the waste sector ....
It's is safe to freeze foods UP TO AND ON their use by date as long as you use them within a day when you later defrost them.

It is safe to REFREEZE meat/poultry that was previously frozen if was raw first time and then you cook it. Eg if you have some frozen raw mince which you make a chilli con carne with but then have spare left over you don't want to use, its fine to freeze as now the mince has been cooked.

www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/article/date-labels

www.wrap.org.uk/content/wrap-calls-time-confusing-date-labels-and-introduces-little-blue-fridge

www.wrap.org.uk/food-date-labelling

@HolgerLowCarbingLoser- you’re the sort of person I’d like as a friend.

You can still eat sprouty potatoes - you just gouge the sprouty bits off!

That's surely what the pointy bit at the end of the potato peeler is for Notsobendy. I'm also with you on the unmistakable signs that a spud is beyond redemption.

I used to keep them in a bowl in the cupboard under the sink. I was rummaging about one day and my fingers went through something warm and mushy. It was a potato that had fallen out and rolled to the back - God knows how long before.

I'm mentally reliving retching while I scrubbed my nails. I keep potatoes in an old paper cat litter bag in the corner of the kitchen now to avoid that horror.

I also try to get the reduced ones from the supermarket. They really do last if you keep them dry and dark and don't squash them. But you know that.