You're not wrong! You're not.

But I remember having dinner with a friend of my mother's many years ago. I ate like Boomers eat, leaving a scrap of this and a wilted leaf of that on the plate with puddles of sauce and a heel of crust, talking my tongue off and paying attention to no one else. At the end of the meal, I happened to notice that her plate was spotless.

She hadn't pointed it out or anything, and wasn't trying to prove things to people. And she didn't come from a poor family or anything. But she was born at the top of the Great Depression, and that's how she'd learned to eat. I was chastened.

Taking food that seriously has got to be good for you. (She thrives, close to 90, after terrible illness when I was toddler.)

Yes, the "don't waste food" mentality is there and often forces people to "clean their plates."

I've often countered that while it is true one shouldn't "waste" food; that is far better than "waisting" food.

Perhaps I am that way because I was brought up that we had to try every food (just try, not eat the whole thing!); but, also, we were brought up to not take food unless we planned to eat it all. And there was nothing wrong with taking a little bit at a time - come back for seconds, thirds, etc. But don't put it on your plate if you don't plan to eat it all.

There is a local diner near me that is known for overly generous portions. I am amazed at how many people manage to eat all of their entrees. (and, of course, most of those people need to consume far fewer calories)

As for me, when at that diner, I am not just ordering my dinner(or lunch) for then; I'm also considering what I want as left overs because I know that I will not finish it all in one sitting. And the leftovers are a great, tasty, easy meal the next day!

Use a small plate. Cook from scratch. Put on it a conservative estimate of what you are going to eat, then eat it.

I don't recall my father, a depression era teenager, leaving much on his plate, but he generally took small helpings.

I don't let people serve me their idea of a helping unless I can get a doggie bag.

Never made my children clean their plates, but I didn't let them abandon good food, and then fill up on snacks an hour after they should have eaten, either.

I wasn't raised with the "clean your plate" mantra, but it is hard to see 1-2 bites of something just sit there.

I try to remind myself that it's more wasteful to eat it now getting no nutritional benefit than to save it for later and have leftovers.

This doesn't work with everything - saving apple slices for later is less than appealing, for instance.

For those circumstances, I'm trying out a little tiny compost bin in my itty-bitty yard. I'm growing a few (and I mean FEW) vegies and that leftover apple or the strawberry my kid didn't finish can be not-wasted by being composted.

It is REALLY tempting to finish kids' meals even if I'm full, and I've yet to meet a mom who doesn't have that problem. It only works with fruits and vegies, but it's better than nothing.

Cleaning your plate should rely on how much you put on your plate.

When you do the latter properly, the first is never a challenge.

I wasn't raised with the "clean your plate" mantra, but it is hard to see 1-2 bites of something just sit there.

Only if you see yourself as a cleaning service for plates.

I realized that if I'm satiated, I'm going to feel like crap from eating beyond that. And it doesn't matter what the food is. And the "waisted" or "wasted" point is right on.

Gregg made me a big steak last night. I will eat it for two more meals.

And Crid, nice that your friend is thriving, but her eating habits may have not that much to do with it. An understandably-written book on a related subject -- the interplay of genes and environment: Epigenetics: How Environment Shapes Our Genes

I think my challenge is, I see a morsel of food on the plate as "justified." It can't be bad for me, it's right there on the plate, it's *for me.* I love eating too much, and I love eating too much.

I was raised in the "clean plate club" mentality. My parents grew up in the Depression and they learned not to let food go to waste. I've long known that I have a tendency to eat as much as is put on my plate. So I have to watch that.

One thing I trip over sometimes is the quantity prepared vs. how much of it I eat. I've learned that whenever I fix something, I want to either only make enough for one serving, or make enough that there will be plenty of leftovers. If I only make one serving and I eat it all, no problem. If I make lots and there's plenty left over, no problem -- I eat one serving and the rest goes in the fridge. It's the in-between that's the danger zone for me. If I eat a serving and there's some left but not enough for another meal, then my tendency will be to eat it so it doesn't go to waste.

That's obviously a problem with packaged foods (e.g., those frozen soup mixes) where the quantity is fixed and once you open it, you have to prepare the whole thing. My wife bought some divided dishes so we can assemble lunches from small quantities of things left over, which helps some.

We don't always eat everything on our plates, so we don't expect our kid to. I will, however, keep her food so that when she decides she's hungry at bedtime she can have more of her dinner (versus the snack food that she's fishing for.)

Lately, my husband has been getting one large portion of really good meat (like a porterhouse or a cut of Wagyu), which we'll split with a bunch of veggies on the side. Even then, we sometimes have some leftovers.

My boyfriend's family was very poor when he was a kid. So, when there was a lot of food, he learned to take as much as he could and stuff himself. That behavior carries through to this day.

My parents taught me to take small portions and then take another tiny bit if I was still hungry. I've tried explaining this to my boyfriend, but he's operating under the assumption that there might not BE anymore if he's still hungry -- he's gotta take what's there when it's there and eat it all.

Amy, I disagree. I do not see myself as a plate cleaning service, and I do see the folly of eating past satiety.

Honestly, I half expected you to have some research showing that we are hardwired that way (say, because ancient people had neither a steady food supply nor refrigerators and leftovers=attracting bugs and predators).

Personally, when it's a good sized amount of food, I have no problem, but if it won't save or if it's not enough to make a snack, I have a hard time not eating it.

One thing I will mention is that I never had this problem until I had kids. Maybe there's some child-related hard-wiring (eat after the kids= finish off the meal?), but even if there isn't I have had to work to not overeat in those scenarios since then.

I see Cousin Dave has a similar issue with odd-sized leftovers. I try to take a similar approach when cooking.

"In 'N' Out burgers, I left one tiny morsel on my plate, which I had to cover and put in the refrigerator."

I am just not sure how many people understand that as good as In 'N' Out burgers are hot, they are even better cold the next day, fresh out of the fridge, you in your underwear searching for the remote and the bottle opener.

> nice that your friend is thriving, but
> her eating habits may have not that
> much to do with it

Amy, as you age, you become obnoxious.

Cleaning your plate should rely on how much you put on your plate.

When you do the latter properly, the first is never a challenge.

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at April 23, 2014 6:22 AM
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Exactly. What is "idiotic" about firmly letting a child know that the tiny amount on the plate must be eaten? If it's OK for poor families to order that their kids not waste food, why is it not OK for richer families?

I can imagine that some formerly-poor families might go overboard in how much food they put on the kids' plates - they want to "make up" for the lean years - but if they can stop themselves from doing that, the kids should be fine. (I remember a MAD cartoon that said a parent's definition of "skinny" was "any Jewish or Italian kid who weighs under 200 pounds.")

However, there's also the problem of getting small kids who aren't hungry at breakfast to eat more than one or two bites so they won't be ravenous before lunch. Maybe it's OK to let them go hungry so they MIGHT learn a lesson and not do it again - but what if they don't learn?

BTW, John Rosemond had a good solution regarding foods considered unacceptable by kids (vegetables).

Quite simply, he would put one square inch of meat, one tablespoon of potato, and one green bean on the plate. If his daughter wouldn't clean her plate, she wouldn't get seconds - and she'd have to eat the same bean at the next meal. Even if it meant going to bed hungry. It wasn't long before she changed her attitude. The point is, Daddy wasn't focusing on any individual food and so avoided making the bean seem even more horrible than it was. (Dr. Spock used to say that the trouble with saying "no ice cream until you've finished your spinach" is that that only whets the kid's appetite for ice cream and vice versa. However, he didn't think of Rosemond's solution, oddly.)

Cleaning your plate should rely on how much you put on your plate.

When you do the latter properly, the first is never a challenge.

Growing up, we were raised to take only what we knew we would eat, but to eat everything we took. Coming back for seconds and even thirds was always an option. Leaving a big stack of food on our plate to go to waste was not.

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"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." ~ Calvin Trillin

I was raised this way too, but try to avoid it now, especially when I go out; a restaurant's portions are determined by what makes the best business sense for the restaurant, and that has nothing to do with how much I can eat.

This mindset of taking food as a "task" seems common. Maybe that's one reason that it feels somehow virtuous to rush meals and do other work while eating, and why some folks use the phrase "working on it" to describe how much eating they still have left to do!

Yes, Leila, when you're not putting the food on your own plate, then you are not bound by the "eat what's on your plate" rule.

At restaurants, the waitress is always asking me if the food was okay or if there was something wrong with it because I rarely finish meals in restaurants. Restaurant portions are way too large today ... and they want you to eat an appetizer on top of that 1/3 pound burger.

And it's not just restaurants. I went to a cookout a few years ago in which the host grilled chicken, beef, pork, and sausages - and put a helping of each on each guest's plate. Most of the guests happily want to their table to begin murdering their arteries. I ate the chicken and sent the rest back.

I mean, I am a carnivore, but I'm not trying to depopulate the forest in one sitting.

When you are not consuming sugary drinks to drive your appetite , you tend to eat what you need.

When I eat out, the first rule, is no soda. The second is eat half of everything and take the rest home for lunch or dinner the next day.

At my house there are no crackers, no cereal and no bread. I am almost gluten free but still consume an occasional fried item with panko on it, and also ramen or pasta maybe once a week.

Not an issue for me. At home, I make what I know I can eat and when eating out I don't order too much and can't recall the last time the amount of food that was delivered was much more than I expected.

Love In 'N' Out burgers. Animal style. Wish they had one in Seattle. I always look forward to going to the one in San Francisco on my annual visit there. I'd think that the company would have more stores in S.F. than just the one location at Fisherman's Wharf but my nephew, who works for them, said that, with real estate so pricey in S.F., the company apparently feels it's not worth it.