Monday, September 22, 2008

What a Waste

One of the annoying things about parenthood that never occurred to me before I became a parent is the sheer amount of waste that comes with a baby. I'm not talking about diapers- that had occurred to me. I am talking about food. Every day, I throw out perfectly good strawberries that have been squashed rather than eaten, apples that have been nibbled on and then tossed to the floor so many times that they are too bruised to eat, milk that was requested but not drunk... as you probably know too well, the list goes on and on.

I am not particularly squeamish about eating after Pumpkin (unless she is showing signs of being ill), but I cannot keep up with what she discards. I have to keep offering a wide variety of foods, because that is the only way to increase her still quite limited palette. But one aspect of the "you may have to introduce a new food as many as 15 times" doctrine that none of the advice books address is how bad you'll feel about all that food you will throw away on the 14 unsuccessful tries!

At least we have a compost heap, so some of that wasted food gets recycled.

I will be writing my review of the Baby Signing Time volumes that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago soon. Pumpkin's sleep has been pretty bad lately, and she has been insisting that I get her down for the night. Hubby is trying to break that pattern right now, and I think I will go to bed early. I may waste a lot of food, but I try not to waste an opportunity to get some extra sleep!

4 comments:

  1. Sean and I were just talking about all the food we waste. Mason is a very picky eater too. I throw away much more food then he eats, it is horrible. You are smart to use it for compost.

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  2. Anonymous9:18 AM

    I think that is even harder when you have been breast feeding--no real waste. Those using bottles and formula are used to throwing out expensive remainders.

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  3. I so know what you mean. What makes me want to cry is when I give her something that I really like, that we only have a limited amount of, and then she picks it apart, dunks it in the water, rubs it in her hair, and smushes it into the table.

    We've temporarily suspended yogurt because it is too expensive to be used as a hair care product...and because we don't have time to fit a bath in after breakfast.

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  4. Anonymous6:29 PM

    Yes! The terrible waste of the smooshed foods and the the unwanted leftover milk. Even though my daughter is not a very picky eater, there is always food that goes in the thrash. I am also going to stop buying those darn expensive Yo Baby yogurt cups. She always ends up wasting at least half of the cup. She can start having regular yogurt without all the sugar and she doesn't like it, tough.

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