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.

we serve small(ish) portions and whoever is still hungry can have a piece of fruit

I don’t understand how you get 4 meals from a chicken.

We do eat/repurpose leftovers.

For those that say it's immoral and 'a lovely sentiment' to not care that I am throwing my food away. I don't actually care if people on here think badly of me. I am sure I wouldn't agree with everyone's life choices either but I answered the OP on why because that's the truth.

Yesterday I decided to throw some mushrooms and bacon away because I fancied a take away rather than my original planned menu. I could come out with a load of crap about it is because of x or y but it's because I don't care enough for me to decide to make something with them rather than a chinese which I fancied.

I never eat leftovers because I don’t want to. Anything left after a meal is thrown away.

I think I take a certain pride in a) not wasting food and b) being creative with leftovers.
We have a bag in the freezer for leftover cooked veg and once it gets full I'll whizz it up into chicken and veg soup.
Always freeze mash in little snack bags and stews/chilli/bolognese etc in old takeaway boxes then if someone needs a single meal there's always something available.
I like to think I've instilled good habits into my kids. Eldest is now at uni and in self-catered. He is appalled at how incapable some of his flat mates are - "living off 79p Co-op pizzas" (his words) 😂
He buoys reduced chickens and meat joints then manages to get several days meals and sandwiches.

www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Great website with lots of ideas about how to cut down on food waste, store your leftovers and loads of recipes.

We are not using leftovers because we can't afford to throw them away. Far from it. I don't like waste in any shape or form and it just feels so wrong to bin perfectly good food in the same way it feels wrong to throw books or clothes in the bin rather than taking htem to the charity shop.

We don’t have leftovers. I wonder how big some of your portion sizes are that you regularly have too much food to eat on your plates

8.4 million people in the UK struggle to afford to eat and yet there are people on this thread throwing perfectly good food away because they didn't fancy it.
May I suggest you look at the Olio food sharing app or see if there are any Community Fridges in your area. Just because you don't fancy it doesn't mean someone else won't.

I wonder how big some of your portion sizes are that you regularly have too much food to eat on your plates

It's not about portion sizes, but how much you cook.

If I make a chilli or bolonese I'll deliberately make twice as much so I have another meal for the freezer.

We always have left over chicken if I do a roast, so that goes into pie/risotto.

If we have left over veg I'll find a way to use that.

The thread is about using leftovers for the next days meal rather than throwing out a whole meals worth of food. Nothing to do with crumbs fgs.

Jesus. Are you always so odd?

The discussion moved on to sending food to landfill and environmental impacts of food waste. Hence my comment. Do you understand?

Most leftovers aren't being scraped off people's plates though!

It's occasions when you cook a whole chicken to feed the family then one teenager says that actually they're off to Sophie's for tea and then DH phones to say that he's working late and will just grab soup in the office. So you have lots left over.

Or when you buy a large leg of pork for Sunday lunch, and you can't cut it in half to cook as much as you'll eat in one sitting. So you serve what people will eat, and freeze the rest. Same with those hams - always have leftovers of those.

Or, as has been experienced in this house, you have a rushed conversation in the week before Christmas with your DH about "needing to get some cheese" and he misinterprets what you mean - end result is that both of you go shopping for cheese and you have loads spare.

How do the "ewww, leftovers, grim" brigade feel about things like blackberries picked from hedgerows or bags of plums/apples from people's gardens? (My plum jam is absolutely delicious, btw).

@Mummyoflittledragon find out if your local authority offer subsidies on them, they're great and if you're green fingered they're especially good you get a very good quality compost from them.

We don’t have leftovers. I wonder how big some of your portion sizes are that you regularly have too much food to eat on your plates

Xmas day I cooked a turkey thing feeding 6-8 and a ham which made 15-18 slices. (I’m veggie so have no concept but that’s what the boxes said.)

There were 3 meat eating adults and one child. Of course there were leftovers. They provided a protein based meal for 1 adult and one child for 6 days in addition to the original meal.

Leftovers mean that I can have one of the great luxuries of adult life- eating non-breakfast foods for breakfast.
I hate cereal but I love some reheated leftovers in the morning. Curry is best, but also anything with mashed potatoes and gravy.
Obviously, I also throw away less food as a result, but that's a side issue for me.

Do the people who say they don't like leftovers ever eat ham or sliced beef in sandwiches? Or pre-made soup from a shop (whether fresh or tinned)?

What exactly do they think the difference is?

Imo, the ' not liking' is psychological, nothing to do with the taste. Which would be fine if it weren't so bloody immoral to waste food for no reason. Whether or not you can afford to do so is irrelevant.

@Inigoan TBF posters have stated they make too much with a view to freeze some for another day. Which makes sense, there's not much variety in packet sizes of mince for example at the supermarket!

Yesterday I decided to throw some mushrooms and bacon away because I fancied a take away rather than my original planned menu

This is bizarre. Why throw it away? Was it going to go off overnight? Why not cook it and eat it the next day? I freeze bacon if I'm not going to eat it before the use by date.

And yes, leftovers in my house are never scraped off plates!

We take as much as we need, and anything still in the pan after we've finished is refrigerated or frozen. It's not stuff that someone has nibbled at!

Throwing away an entire chicken purely because you only like breast meat is crazy I used to buy chicken fillets and use them on a roast dinner but now I have cats I just do a whole chicken and give them the leftover carcass. Does she have neighbours with dogs/cats?

There is nothing wrong with leftovers as long as they're stored/heated correctly and used up in time.

I won't reheat food, I worry too much about being ill. I'll eat meat cold in a sandwich the next day but wouldn't ever reheat it. I don't batch cook either.

formerbabe because I had something else planned for the next day and fancy that more than the bacon and mushrooms. The bacon was to be used by the original day so no I wouldn't freeze it. The mushrooms were actually past their bb date and as I knew I definitely didn't want them in the next couple of days they would have just got slimy in the fridge.

Yes if I was like minded I would have spent time to rustle up some kind of food and frozen it. But I didn't want to and whilst I realise that offends many people on this thread it's why they were thrown away.

Yesterday I decided to throw some mushrooms and bacon away because I fancied a take away rather than my original planned menu

I agree this is bizarre and generally an appalling thing to do. An animal died to provide this and you just chuck it in the bin?

@Mummylife2018 I'm not sure how you've extrapolated that from my post!

It seems the best answer that non-leftover-users can give is 'because I don't want to'.

But WHY don't you want to? If it's a case of not eating the same ingredient 2 days running, why don't you freeze it to use later?

If I meal planned, I'd plan the menu based on what I'd have left, so it could be something like this:

Su: Roast chicken dinner. (There wouldn't be any roasties left).
Mo: Chicken curry
Tu: Chicken & sweet corn soup
We: pork chops
Th: pork stir fry
Fr: lasagna and leftovers would go in the freezer
Sa: Takeaway

A lot of things taste nicer the next day ! I had no idea that people had an aversion to the idea of eating leftovers ( a specific food or something that stores badly I understand)

My DH is driving me a bit nuts at the moment - he has taken up experimenting with cooking but seems unable to scale down amounts from recipes. With it just being us two, there is often more as left overs than we had at the meal. They aren’t the kind of things I would want two days on the trot , some things don’t keep well ( cooked fish for instance) and the freezer isn’t big enough for all these stray packs. 😕