"Eat your crusts" is a pointless argument

[MaMaD1990]

Making my daughters lunch and she has started peeling the crusts off her sandwiches. I remember being told to eat my crusts when I was little and "it'll make your hair curly" encouragement yada yada. AIBU to think this is a battle not worth having if your kids don't eat crusts? Does it matter?

@toffeebutterpopcorn

I’ve just realised - loved crusts as a small child: had incredibly curly hair. Coincidence...🤔

In Dutch they say they give you big breasts. Did that work?

Personally love my crusts and I have VERY curly hair! But if she really doesn't like them not worth the fight. Cut them off and crumb them for lots of useful things (I.e sit in the freezer for ages then get thrown out)

I have very very curly hair, and remember with loathing every single dinner lady, teacher, and various other random telling me as a joke to eat my crusts to make my hair curly. Hated it!

I have a new perspective on this as our fortunes have very much waxed and waned over the last year. There have been some really worrying times. I do remember starting to tell ds2 to eat his crusts in the morning because I knew I had put less snacks in his lunch because money was so tight DP and I were eating every other day to make our food last and so the dc had three meals a day.

OK crusts were not the deal breaker for the dc starving but I suddenly became conscious I needed them to fill up on the meal I gave because food was not plentiful.

I admit completely it wasn't a huge hardship for DP and I to minimise our food in take (it was only for 2 weeks we ate every other day and as little as possible) but it did make it a lot harder to see food being wasted (of course I would eat the crusts if I lost the battle but I wanted to see the food go into dc because I was sort of in a panic mode that we would start spiraling and I overcompensated by trying to ensure they didn't lose out on anything and never felt hungry....possibly not my finest hour )

We got back on a sort of even keel but actually I value food now much more. So I will pick my battles certainly but that one has moved up the list (still don't insist they finish their plates i think that ones unhealthy ).

My two don’t eat them, and it is a waste, so my husband eats them for them!

My ds 5 used to leave his crusts.
Until a couple of years ago when I had braces and I had to leave my brown too hard ones..
And he are them!!
He ate his from then on!!

I don't always eat my crusts and I don't care about the waste either. I think the finish your plate thing and obsession about waste is quite unhealthy in a country with an obesity problem.
I felt annoyed about how much of a cauliflower I put in the bin yesterday, but I'm not going to freeze the bits in case I can make a stock or something one day. It would be better if they were sold just as florets.

Not a war baby, but dislike food waste just in principle, and even more aware of that these days.

I totally agree with a PP that there’s a world of difference between the crust on a good quality uncut loaf and a loaf of cheapest supermarket bread!

It’s not something I would fight, because I don’t like meals being a battleground, and also because I think a child has a right to speak up about their own texture preferences.

So we cut crusts off carefully to avoid much waste, and she knows they go to the birds, for breadcrumbs, or become croutons - all of which she is involved in. You can talk about “oooh, let’s not waste these!” in a way that isn’t pejorative.

@toffeebutterpopcorn

Why don’t people like crusts? They are the best bit - especially on a plain loaf.

Agreed. I’d be more than happy to eat just crusts.

Give em to the birds. Literally do not care to waste my breath over fucking crusts. Who cares!

If you can afford it, wasting food doesn’t matter. In economic terms, buying food then binning it is beneficial because this creates work for the people who produce, distribute and sell it, and they still get paid whether it gets eaten or not.

If you can’t afford to waste food, then it obviously does matter.

If you’ve never had the outer crust of a plain loaf, you’ve not lived.

I once managed to dislodge the band of my train track braces gnawing on one, and had to be driven across town to the dentist to have it cemented back in. It was worth it.

I've come across kids who'd just eat the middle. I give them a half sandwich instead!

Friends dc came over. He took about 8 slices of takeaway pizza as he didnt eat crusts and took like 3 bites from centre. Filled my with such rage as complete waste and pizza isnt cheap.

I'm 42. I think it's wasteful. Fine on occasion and not always worth an argument, but it does waste food and therefore money.

A sandwich is less filling if you leave 10-15% of it behind. You'll be hungrier later than you would be if you ate the whole thing, and you'll have to use more food to satisfy that increased hunger. It's not a big amount of food or money wasted, but it adds up, and it can be part of an overall lifestyle or attitude that encourages wastefulness.

On the other hand, I think it's important for children to learn that they should stop eating when they're full. The problem comes when they consistently don't want to eat their boring, healthy meal, then plead hunger between meals and want less healthy snacks.

I don't eat the crusts either and I'm in my 50s 😁

I would consider it wasteful from a climate change perspective (ie the energy wasted in growing, harvesting, packaging, transporting etc) rather than from a "we won't have enough food to eat" perspective. I'm 46 btw.

Life's too short.....just buy Kingsmill crustless and have a happy child 😂😂

Being told eating my crusts would give me curly hair didn't work. I have never wanted curly hair 😂😂

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

If it were true about curly hair there would be loads of curly ducks... but there aren't.

Ducks have feathers, not hair!

I'm 22, and think not eating crusts is wasteful if you enjoy them or don't mind eating them. But if a child decides they're not going to eat them, that's ok.
You can cut the crusts off and put them in a box/bag in the freezer, then defrost them when you need breadcrumbs. You could also use them in a bread and butter pudding if you like that sort of thing.

I have very straight hair and always forced my crusts down for curly hair, and because I was told to. It was very liberating when I realised (in my late thirties!) that actually, I didn't have to eat them.

@AgeLikeWine

If you can afford it, wasting food doesn’t matter. In economic terms, buying food then binning it is beneficial because this creates work for the people who produce, distribute and sell it, and they still get paid whether it gets eaten or not.

If you can’t afford to waste food, then it obviously does matter.

It does matter.

Doesn’t matter how wealthy you are, we all live on the same planet.

All that food that has been produced unnecessarily has an environmental impact, for example can include:

• destruction of land to grow it
• use of pesticides
• fuel for farm equipment
• fuel for processing it (e.g. factory baking ovens)
• very very often plastics for wrapping
• even more materials for the pallets (including the energy going into making more pallets because we’ve got food in transit that we don’t need)
• bigger warehouses and shops to hold it (more land destruction - water courses affected, hedgerows etc)
• food miles and all the energy used in transportation
• refrigeration fuel use for many foods
• energy used to process the unused food - e.g. driving it to landfill. Nowhere near all waste food is used as biomass, and per tonne for CH4 generated it’s not a great biomass anyway

So yeah - on one small point on some people making money, the waste isn’t a problem @AgeLikeWine Otherwise... that’s a very naïve view.

@GreenBalaclava

I would consider it wasteful from a climate change perspective (ie the energy wasted in growing, harvesting, packaging, transporting etc) rather than from a "we won't have enough food to eat" perspective. I'm 46 btw.

Same here. Whether it's food, excess packaging, fast fashion or cheap disposable products. It all takes energy and resources to produce and transport, and binning it is a waste. The climate crisis will never be addressed while we think it's ok to throw away things that we have used the earth's resources to produce.

Food may be cheap in terms of monetary value these days, but it's costly in environmental terms.

i hate crusts.if wastes an issue-remove pre fling piece together,chop n toast for croutons.
i hate them too(cos...knew was stale toasted crusts i spect)
or
im not sure how...and i workt in a bablery..you can buy crustless bread..
i hate that too.i like pulling my crusts off