Eating the leftovers

[Spudlover]

I’m fully prepared to be told I’m a controlling weirdo.

We had people over yesterday, did a BBQ and have lots of salad and rolls left, a couple chicken breasts etc.

DH decided for lunch that he was going to open a new loaf of bread and a tin of mackerel and have mackerel on toast.

I asked him if he could wait until tomorrow for that and help me eat the leftovers so I wasn’t eating it alone for days and it gets used, I can’t bear food waste.

He didn’t want to, sulked a bit before saying fine, I’ll just eat what you want me to eat. I’m ultra mean now apparently because I pointed out I think of food from an entire household perspective and he only thinks about what he wants to shovel in his gob at any given point.

AIBU?

People will tell you you're controlling but I'm exactly the same as you, I really cannot bear food waste to the point I've eaten some really weird food combinations of things that need using up

you freeze the cooked chicken breast you don't eat and the rolls etc next time so that he can't sulk at you?

I will eat most leftovers but wouldn’t touch day old bbq food with a barge pole.

You can* freeze

YABU for 'shovel in his gob'.

What a horrible thing to say about the way anyone eats.

YABU . I wouldn’t want to be told what to eat .
also your language around his eating I.e “shovel in his gob “ is pretty unpleasant .

Why on earth not?

Leftovers will keep for a few days, I’d “let” my adult, grown up husband choose what he wants to eat and do something else with the leftovers if they don’t get used up (I made creamy Cajun chicken pasta last night with the leftover bbq chicken thighs)

I wouldn’t eat leftover BBQ meat. We had leftover salad yesterday but it had wilted in the heat so it got tossed as did the meat that had sat there slowly cooling, with bacteria multiplying as the BBQ died. If DH had asked me to eat leftover food from a BBQ he’d have been told to fuck off. I hate food waste but draw the line at sad wilted salad and meat that’s probably minging.

I would happily freeze them if I had space, unfortunately I don’t. Freezer is pretty full.

I’d be pissed off with someone trying to police what I was eating.

Yabu he can pick what he wants but yanbu that you should have to be the one to come up with a plan of how you (as a family) will manage leftovers. How does he think they will be used.

I would be really irritated if he was opening new food and throwing away perfectly edible and nice leftovers.

It wouldn’t happen in our house as we are all on the same page that way.

I can't bear to waste food. Its just wrong.

Tinned food will still be there tomorrow and the day after and the day after that...

I also eat to enjoy food, I would never be asked to eat something that I didn’t fancy eating. I’d hand his arse to him on a plate if he tried to. If DH wanted to eat it fine but that’s his decision not mine.

To clarify, salads were sealed and stored in the fridge at all times except for when serving. Meat was moved quickly to the fridge so very little food poisoning risk. The food was fine.

For all the BBQ food refuseniks, can we trust that the OP does NOT mean fermenting salad and meat that languished warm in the sun all day with flies landing on it?

If you can’t stand food waste then the issue is you’ve overbought and have no freezer space. I wouldn’t be happy if my husband was telling me I couldn’t ‘shovel food in my gob’ that I wanted because he wanted me to eat leftovers we could have avoided having.

I actually think this is the issue. He doesn’t think about it, he just gets food presented to him and I am the one who does all the thinking, planning etc and not getting to eat what I want.

Most of the time it’s planned pretty well but it does take up a lot of head space.

It's a bit controlling but I understand where you are coming from so YANBU

I wouldn't want to be told what to eat, but it would annoy me that they didn't think to use that food first. My husband is the same and it winds me up that he will start a new loaf of bread before finishing the old one.
I hate food waste too, probably because I do the food shop and see how expensive everything is.
A nurse asked me recently about my diet and I told her it was "whatever was about to go out of date!"

”A couple of” chicken breasts and some salad? Is this really the hill you want to die on in your relationship? Make some kind of chicken bake dish with the leftover chicken and freeze it into portions. Salad kept chilled will last for several days, and unless you bought enough to feed an army you’ve just got a few lunches there for the rest of the week. Don’t make a bigger deal of if it than it needs to be.

I'd be a bit irritated he's getting out more fresh stuff when we already have some - namely the bread - please use the fresh rolls first, before opening a loaf.

The filling with not leftovers...not really an issue.

But if you've got so much you'd be 'eating it alone for days' - I can't see that uneaten sandwich worth is going to make a dent, and perhaps you need to freeze some, or realise no-one is going to exactly be enthusiastic about eating drier and drier bbq chicken rolls and ever wilting salad until its gone.

Make a curry with the leftover chicken, freeze the rolls in pairs and have a salad for dinner.

Did he cook/buy all this extra food? I tend to be the over-prepper so take ownership of avoiding the wastage with little 'you must only eat this until its gone'

If he was the cause of all this extra - I'd be a lot more annoyed he's left everyone else to use it up and avoid his wastage.

I think I'd have suggested using the leftovers up first too.

But if he didn't want them, that's fair enough really.

I'd hate dp to tell me to eat something I didn't want and I'd hate him to talk about me 'shovelling food in my gob.'

I don't like to be told what to eat but I completely understand where you're coming from here. DH used to be like this (we're separated) and he would also come up with elaborate ideas for food that would mean shopping for tonnes of different ingredients rather than just creating meals that centre around the same things. The waste drove me mad!

@I actually think this is the issue. He doesn’t think about it, he just gets food presented to him and I am the one who does all the thinking, planning etc and not getting to eat what I want.

If you’re the one doing all the planning etc, why aren’t you doing what you want? If he won’t be involved, he doesn’t choose what’s cooked.