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?

Surely that food will keep for a few days? Tonight I'm having BBQ leftovers from yesterday but making something fresh for the kids, as they won't be keen on the same stuff two days in a row. They'll be plenty left tomorrow for them to hoover up. I think I'd feel quite irked if DH told me what to eat.

Why on earth not if it’s been in the fridge? Cooking it on the bbq doesn’t mean anything is wrong with it?

I can see it from both sides. On one side I can see where you are coming from re food waste. From his side I can see him not liking being told what to eat and quite honestly I would not fancy eating leftover bbq meat or honesly any meat in this heat.

Why on earth did you leave cooked meat that wasn’t being eaten out on the BBQ?

If you’d taken it off, cooked it and put it in the fridge it’d be perfectly fine.

Normally I do, this time he brought a few extra things back from the shop. He fancied them at the time but didn’t factor in the other stuff we had bought and was adamant it would all get eaten.

It was just a couple of chicken breasts, and a few rolls and salad. The dog would have had the chicken and the other stuff would go in the bin in my house.

I seem to spend my life eating leftovers and I really dont mind. I wouldnt care if my bf or my DS wanted something different.

I miss DBoycat terribly generally. But particularly because we used to share the leftovers.

I'd be annoyed someone telling what to eat, left overs will last tomorrow too for you to eat

Same. I eat what I want to eat.

If you don't like food waste, don't cook so much

The person who does the meal plan, the shopping and the food prep is the one responsible for the extra food and lack of freezer space to store it. That's an issue that needs to be worked on, or this issue will keep happening.

I would not be told that I had to eat something I didn't fancy, espescially cold day old BBQ food. If food waste bothers you, then you eat it up, or learn to plan better.

Let your husband eat his mackerel on toast if that's what he fancies. It's hardly going to break the bank, especially if you've got the kind of budget that allows you to buy extra chicken breasts for a bbq.

YANBU. He sounds a bit selfish.

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

We roasted a whole chicken in the BBQ yesterday. It won’t be going to waste.

two chicken breasts? you get excited over two chicken breasts?

I guess you need to decide what will make you the most annoyed. Being a martyr and eating food you don’t fancy or accepting there might be food waste.

It sound like you need to work out a fairer split over cooking/meal planning in general and then maybe a one off event like this won’t be such a big deal.

You are not his mother controlling what he can or cannot eat. You begrudge him a couple of slices of bread and a tin of fish.

This isn't about food waste, the food wouldn't have gone to waste as you'd eat it. It's about control and doing what you say should be done.

I agree with you op, hate food waste, and it's always women, the mothers, wives, partners who end up eating the banana that's going black, the dregs of the cereal packet, the broken biscuits, because the other feckers in the family open the new packet before the older stuff is finished.

It's not so much about not allowing a grown man to choose what he wants to eat, but being annoyed about perfectly good food going to waste, because, let's face it, he's not going to eat it tomorrow, is he?

Faced with similar I try and turn the leftovers into something that doesn't resemble the original so it seems like a whole new meal.

Normally I do, this time he brought a few extra things back from the shop. He fancied them at the time but didn’t factor in the other stuff we had bought and was adamant it would all get eaten.

So he fancied a tin of mackerel and bought one? YADBU, just curry the chicken breasts or have chicken salad/rolls for lunch tomorrow.

Why do they have to be eaten today? They’ll last a few days surely to god

I think there is a big difference between refusing a planned meal in favour of something you fancy and refusing leftovers. Presumably you would have been happy for him to have his mackerel on toast if all the bbq food had been eaten? I might have said why not have the mackerel on the rolls instead of the bread, but nothing else. Then again I might have used the rolls to make bread pudding

I think there is a big difference between refusing a planned meal in favour of something you fancy and refusing leftovers.

Even if it was “refusing” a planned meal, plans aren’t supposed to be absolutely set in stone are they? We fairly regularly go rogue if one or the other of us doesn’t fancy what’s on the plan. You can’t always anticipate being too tired to cook, or it being too hot to put the oven on, or feeling extra full from lunch etc….

The op needs to share the mental load. That’s going to make the biggest difference here.

i agree with you op, hate food waste, and it's always women, the mothers, wives, partners who end up eating the banana that's going black, the dregs of the cereal packet, the broken biscuits, because the other feckers in the family open the new packet before the older stuff is finished.

sometimes women are our own worst enemy FGS. No need to be such absolute martyrs and eat the black bananas and dregs of old crap. Put the bananas in the freezer for smoothies, put the old cereal in the new cereal box etc etc. So many ways around food waste than just eating the almost-mouldy stuff ourselves.

@ShirleyPhallus

I agree! I wouldn’t be eating black banana/old cereal etc then moaning about it. If I realised they were frequently going off I’d buy less. Bananas are for smoothies and banana bread when they’ve gone bad. I don’t eat old bits of food I don’t want!

I agree with you op, hate food waste, and it's always women, the mothers, wives, partners who end up eating the banana that's going black, the dregs of the cereal packet, the broken biscuits, because the other feckers in the family open the new packet before the older stuff is finished.

We need to stop being martyrs and call out that sort of thing.

What’s wrong with a broken biscuit?

Although that could explain the resentment - I would feel resentful if I was eating all the old rubbish leftover and felt nobody else was. But to me the solution is not to eat the old broken biscuits etc. Realistically I don’t think we frequently have a broken biscuit problem in this house though because dd6 thinks a broken biscuit equals her getting extra biscuit.