The strategy of eating leftover food

image credit: muffet

I often end up with leftover food in the fridge. It may be because I buy groceries generously, or because I cook in bulk, or because I often bring food home from restaurants.

A while back I had a refrigerator full of leftovers including things like Parmesan cheese, a homemade vegetable soup, Chicago style pizza, and leftover gourmet sandwiches from a catered event I attended.

The situation made me deliberate, and several issues came to mind, like:

–Waste versus cost: is it better to prioritize eating all the food or the most expensive items?

–My money or not: should it matter whether I bought the food or it was given to me for free?

–Diet versus waste: is it okay to throw away gifted food because it’s unhealthy? should I throw it away and just lie to the friend that I liked it?

I’m not sure these questions can be answered generally, for all people, but there were a few thoughts that came to mind.

Waste versus cost
I run across this issue many times. There are many times when frugality and quality conflict.

The pattern is as follows. I’ll buy a ripe avocado, forgetting I already have one. I attempt not to waste anything so I eat the old and slightly overripe one first. In a few days when I get to the new one, it has turned overripe.

I feel foolish that I ended up eating two overripe products. In the pursuit of not wasting food, I have wasted quality.

I could have just as well thrown the overripe avocado and simply enjoyed the fresh one, and then bought another fresh one when the time came.

I face this pattern with leftovers too. I try to balance quality with frugality, though it is a constant struggle since I don’t wish to waste food. But I think quality is the way to go.

My money or not
I know it shouldn’t matter if I bought the food or not. This is evident from the idea of sunk costs.

The food is already purchased. It should not matter whether I paid for the pizza or whether the sandwiches I got were free from an event.

But deep down it is hard to forget. I still remember the time I threw away $10 of guacamole dip, or the time I wasted fine artisan cheese.

So I remind myself about sunk costs, and slowly I am getting better at this. I think the answer here is to prioritize the foods you enjoy.

Diet versus waste
This is perhaps the trickiest area. Occasionally a relative or family friend will be thoughtful enough to send over some food. But what to do if I don’t want it?

I would feel awful throwing it away. It seems like a real slap in the face to the chef.

But I am not always thrilled about eating the food given to me–for instance I don’t usually enjoy sweets besides chocolates, but I still end up getting Indian sweets and cakes.

I have come to a sort of halfway solution here. I usually eat a small amount so I can honestly thank the person for the food. But I usually freeze the rest so I can manage food inventory better.

What do you do?

I’ve shared a few of my experiences with leftovers and would like to hear about yours.

Do you take leftovers from restaurants?

What do you feel bad about wasting?

How can you manage unwanted food given to you?