So, here’s the thing: I really hate wasting food. In particular, I hate wasting good food (a foodie has to have her standards, after all) or food that should be good because we put precious time and high-quality ingredients into it.
My feelings about food waste do not mesh particularly well with introducing solid foods to a baby. Whether you start with self-feeding (like BabyLed Weaning) from the beginning or spoon feeding, there will eventually be a time when your baby learns to feed him/herself, and this time will involve a learning curve.
The process is inherently messy and wasteful: food on the face, partially masticated food drooled onto the bib, food smashed in little fists, food dropped on the floor, food in the seat . . . .
Of course, since we try to only put high quality food in our bodies, we offer The Dude the same. We take some normal steps to minimize waste:
- Only put a small amount of food in front of him at once.
- Make sure the floor is [relatively] clean, so we can hand back dropped pieces.
- Offer food when he’s not starving (i.e., AFTER he’s had mama’s milk), tired, or otherwise fussy.
- Minimize distractions during mealtime.
But there comes a point when the food is crumbled in pieces too small for The Dude to grasp and/or he loses interest in the meal.
Enter the human garbage disposal, AKA mama. Yep, I unashamedly pick up the bits of food (including some that have been in his mouth and rejected) from the table, floor, and chair.
Upon first witnessing this, Matthew commented that baby birds typically eat food from the mama bird’s mouth, NOT the other way around.
I do have my limits — some items I rule out as too mushy, slobbery, etc. Sometimes it goes straight into my mouth, other times, I dress it up a little, adding some nut butter to the leftover piece of bread, or tossing some partially chewed veggies in with some other food I’m going to eat.
I just can’t let good food go in the trash! What extreme actions do you take to avoid food waste?
Her Green Life 