I don't get it and some people have tried explaining but it seems to ultimately boil down to "I just don't like/want to" which to me is incredibly insufficient. These people would rather throw away perfect food even when they made it themselves. Leaving out certain exceptions that don't keep well, many dishes can even taste better as leftovers while others can be combined to form entirely new dishes.
Edit: to those asking, this is about several people in my life who throw out a lot of food because they don't leftovers and when I've asked them about it I've felt that they don't really give good answers. These are people who afaik don't have eating disorders since they eat normally but will not do takeaway at restaurants or save extra portions of a meal they've cooked.
Not eating leftovers is wack but what really irritates me was these bourgie friends I used to have that would order a big ass plate of food, eat like a third of it, and not bring it home. Absolutely insane, I always took all their food when I ate with them lol
This is definitely the type of person who I'm mostly talking about. Orders a $20 entrée, eats a few bites and leaves the rest. It wouldn't bother me at all if they said they didn't like it or they didn't feel well or something but it seems like that's not the case with several people I know. This however brings up another point where there is a massive aversion to sharing plates with other people.
Yeah this was a pattern of behavior. They go out a lot and invited me a bunch bc we were working closely at the time and it was virtually every time we went lol
I’ve had people who bought food for themselves or I bought food for them and they don’t finish it and just throw it away. And I’m like :walter-breakdown: why the fuck did you get it if you were full? Like okay, maybe it’s disgusting in which case you shouldn’t force yourself to eat it. But 95% of the time it’s “I’m too full.”
I once bought a meal for an ex after watching a movie and I watched her throw half of it away and I tried very hard to not frown.
This is why I’m not against restaurants charging you a fee for leftovers you’re not willing to finish or take home.
Some people absolutely need to have different food for every meal but my question is why?
Meanwhile I'm cooking a massive pot of beans, and that + a salad is my lunch every day of the week :bean:
My mom cooks and is often irritated when my dad or siblings eat junk food like frozen fast food or some shit from a chain restaurant. I tell her to just not cook lol. They’re grown adults, they can make their own decisions. And she just says “who’s gonna cook if I don’t?” And I just say “who cares? Just make yourself food. When was the last time they made anything for you?” And she just doesn’t respond after
Not gonna lie. If I’m ever married and my wife and children never do shit for me I’m probably gonna divorce her, but if I can’t for whatever reason then I just simply won’t do anything and tell them family I’d a group effort and I’m not a butler. Simple as.
My parents both worked minimum wage jobs while in in debt before I was 10. By the time I was 20, they both got better jobs and probably had $100k in assets. If my mom didn't go to prison and my dad didn't die, they would probably be multi-milionaires by the time I would have been 30.
I never knew video games until my cousin gave me their old sega genesis. My dad was more interested in it than me. Our family's first computer was used. It was too old for the previous owner to bother selling it. My first computer was a frankenstein of spare parts. I remember shoplifting and scavanging. My dad didn't like it, but otherwise I had almost no jewelry. I remember asking classmates for tampons when I wasn't even on my period.
I figured out I was in the poorer half of the school. Not even the worst off. My parents never threw food away. Never bought anything frivolously. I saw waste first hand as kids who actually paid money for their school lunches would poor out their milk as pranks and throw away the relatively healthy remains then spend obscene amounts of money on salty/sugary vending machine snacks/sodas.
It wasn't until my first job as a waitress that I saw and understood adults with this mix of glutinous and anti-frugal behavior. The scale of it disturbed me. People would ask for togo boxes and leave them on the table more often than they would remember to take them home. Don't even get me started on the sexual harassment.
Dating is horrible. 4 out of 5 guys, regardless of income level, act like they have infinite money. Not to impress me, it's shows in their personal finances.
Some people have just never been poor. Or something. I don't knew what to make of this.
in eastern europe there is no such thing as "leftovers", you cook food, and when you cook it's supposed to last you for several days, the fact that you can eat it freshly cooked the first time you cooked is a small benefit but not the point
My housemate only eats meals when fresh. She does not eat the packed up and refrigerated meals afterwards. I'd consider those leftovers of the bulk cooking I do to save money. Very picky
I usually make food with the purpose of eating later (i worked in professional kitchens b4) but i know people like my dad will absolutely not eat day old food and demand his
momwife make his own fresh food. Yes he is an anti-feminist far right fascist. And yes i do have dad issues, how did you know?There's a concept in Ayurvedic medicine called "Tamas", which translates to anything that dulls or tires you out. One of the so-called Tamasic foods is "any sort of leftovers, food that isn't freshly prepared"
I can imagine people taking and running with that, without considering those texts were written in various areas of India over 2000 years before refrigeration was invented, where a few hours in 85 degree heat would actually spoil your lunch.
I feel like anyone who says that kind of stuff also has lots of crystals and dream catchers scattered around their homes and a printed tapestry of horses or an hindu god hanging in their living room
My dad just eats like 6 tangerines or 5 bananas and then acts rude as if he's an neglected 10 year old who is facing a great injustice that his wife is not making him his dinner like it's 1950.
I don't think they value food like I do and it's disposable when they do not at that moment want it or want to deal with it (takeaway or storage container)
it's funny you say this because in Brazil this is not too uncommon, even among poorer families. but yeah, it's extremely bizarre because almost all my meals are 'leftovers' lol i always do a double take when i hear someone say they don't eat food unless it's been recently cooked
Just learn how much to prepare for each meal, don't waste food ffs . Yes, the usual 1/8 of plate of food remaining is annoying, but it's food, eat it and measure better next time.
I eat 90% of my leftovers but every now and then I simply make too much. I live alone and tend to cook full recipes. Normally I just have that for the next few days, but sometimes I get bored and make something else. I tell myself I'll just eat the leftovers the next day but sometimes they get less and less appealing and I end up waiting too long.
I think this happens to everyone from time to time. I've had to throw away vegetables because I simply forgot about them. The situation I'm asking about is more egregious in that any leftovers at all are never eaten because they are leftovers.
Yeah that's mind-blowing to me. Taking perfectly good food and just throwing it out because it wasn't eaten right away... Even if it doesn't matter to somebody financially, why waste it?
It's definitely not a general human taboo, mexican families even have a small ritual of sharing leftovers after big reunions, hell, eating leftovers on christmas day, after christmas eve parties is a small event in itself, even among wealthy families. I'll take that it's a culture-specific social more though. It could make sense in warm climates to have a habit of throwing day-old food due to it spoiling relatively fast, but this is just pure guesswork.
It's not a general cultural taboo, it's a social-clomber taboo. The upper class do it to show off, so people that shouldn't start doing it to fit in. Most peoples the world over very seldom had the opportunity to waste food unless wealthy, and would to anything to make it last longer.
i get like occasionally not eating leftovers cause you forget it in the fridge for 3 days or whatever but like never eating leftovers? seems weird. Not even thanksgiving leftovers? come on. that's a classic.
I'm happy to eat leftovers from restaurants and stuff, but I've never gotten into the habit of making more than a single meal's worth of food at a time, even though I know it saves a lot of time.
Also I occasionally do that thing where if I forget about leftovers until they're slightly unappetizing, I decide I'll eat them later, but then they're even less appetizing, so I put them off until later, which spirals into leaving something in the fridge until it's definitely bad. I always assumed this was universal.
i eat everything that doesnt smell funny and has no mold on it
I swear we did this struggle session already.
For me: I have trouble eating regularly as it is, thanks to a confluence of medical issues. Leftovers make this harder. I can usually eat something 2-3 times without forcing myself unless it's something that gets better in the fridge. I don't get enough stimulation from things I'm eating if I'm eating them 3+ times in a row - not a great way of explaining it, but the reward centers in my brain are fucky so I have an extremely hard time doing things when I get bored of them unless im on my medication, which unfortunately suppresses my appetite.
Many leftovers are substantially worse flavor wise the next day, either by degrading in the fridge or absorbing fridge smells. Almost everything has a worse texture after going through a fridge->reheat cycle.
TL;DR: brain don't work right, GI tract don't work right, so I have a hard time eating as it is. I need to do anything I can that makes it easier to eat, like staggering leftovers so I'm not eating a worse version of the same dish four meals in a row, allowing myself to compost things I know I won't eat again without feeling bad about it, not trying to salvage every last bite of wilted lettuce or other things that go bad, or whatever. I mostly work around this by not making more than I'll eat of dishes that don't reheat well, but it still happens sometimes and still happens with restaurant food that comes in too big of a quantity for me to eat in a sitting.
Being constantly shamed for not being able to eat all leftovers or the same leftover 5 times in a row actually was a big contributor to the disordered eating I've struggled with actually lol
Like I mentioned in another comment, this question isn't really aimed at those who cannot for health reasons or other serious issues, it's really about those who merely choose to not eat leftovers for seemingly no reason at all.
You should probably ask whoever keeps inspiring you to ask this question lol
It came up this weekend but I've noticed with others in the last few months
is this aimed at a specific person?
idk like half my friends have some kind of eating disorder
This is not a question for people with eating disorders or other specific reasons for not wanting leftovers. I'm speaking generally because I know several and it stands out to me that they throw out a lot of food.
