No Trash Zone

by Linda Eaves on November 4, 2009

Weird food AHA moment recently.  My girlfriend organized a huge party to celebrate her daughter’s 4th birthday.  Think BPP – Big, Pink and Princess dress up party.  It was over the top and included one of those giant inflatable play structures, a piñata, and cake for days. NUTS and very fun.

I got there early to help out. One of the things I did was to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then I cut out the middle of each sandwich using a crown shaped cutter. The finished effect was a crust less PB&J sandwich. After each cut there was a lot of excess bread and all of these crusts left and – it was weird to me. It felt really wasteful. I just was aware of this creepy feeling and took the excess crusts and put them in a garbage bag. Without eating them….before I might have eaten some. I guess.

And all day at the party there was so much food. Abundance all around. I’ve been seeing a lot of social functions this way. Food looks bigger to me. I think it would be weird to go to a buffet. I used to go to things like that..or potlucks all the time. Now at these same events I eat a little, and spend more time talking to people,  holding babies, or running around with the kids. It’s just an interesting shift that I’m noticing.

I told a friend about this, and she responded:

“On my own journey I’ve really had to learn to be accepting of ‘wasting’ food and to remind myself that my body is not the trash disposal where all leftovers go.”

Yep.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Tagged as: energy, gastric bypass, rny, support, weight loss, wls

  • Sabrina

    Hi Linda – This whole thing is so much fun. Who knew?? I think you and your friend are very wise ;) Sabrina xx

  • http://talkingshrimp.com/blog Laura Belgray

    My mom and dad, who were depression-era babies, can’t stand to throw away food. But while they’ll both wrap up little, useless odds and ends – like a bite of sweet potato – my mom will also eat stuff to save it from the trash.
    When she says “well, it’s wasteful to put it in the garbage”, I ask her to think how much she’d pay to NOT have eaten those bread crusts, or leftover cake bits, or whatever it is. In my mind, eating something you don’t really want is way more wasteful than tossing it.

  • Linda Eaves

    Sabrina – Yes my friend is one smart cookie. Oh right, it was YOU. I like it when you say things. Keep doing that OK? Thanks for the comment and the wisdom.

    Laura – Ding, ding, ding! Yes you hit it right on the nose. We have/had parents with similar experiences. My dad had numerous collections of all kinds of things. Like 300 washcloths in the linen closet or 50 little dessert dishes from Royal Fork Buffet where he worked as a janitor. When he died cleaning out his house was a trip – he had gathered so many things over the years. It surprised me that the “don’t waste” emphasis was in my mind a little more than I realized. The peanut butter sandwiches really made me aware of it.

Previous post:

Next post: