Have you ever faced a situation where you are told to finish your food even if you are full?
What? Think about the starving people in Africa? Think about the money you are wasting not stuffing that oh so nourishing pile of vomit inducing substance into your mouth?
These pseudo justifications have always irked me.
What are the objectives of eating?
I don’t know about you, but for me it is usually primarily to satisfy my hunger and secondarily to enjoy. Hunger is usually a cue of an empty stomach ready to take in food, but some people have very big stomaches, bigger than the amount of space needed to store the nourishment that they need, but thats not the problem today.
Since if I was to spend some money on a snack for the above two objectives, at any point in time where the snack can no longer achieve these 2 objectives, I would not and should not continue consuming the snack. At this point of time you should only have two rational options to not waste the food: save the food for later or give the food to someone else. The “mistake” is already made when you bought it. Learn from it. Next time, remind yourself not to over purchase and never ever waste your money on beef ice cream again.
Not that I have no empathy, but thinking of starving people does not justify me suffering. Even if I force more things down my throat, the starving people will still starve. It’s not like my stomach is some portal to Africa.
Oh, don’t even think of making the money come out of the other side like you are some food to cash converting machine.
Another reason from sciencedaily:
“Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is — French or American — the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full”
External cues such as the amount of food left on the plate or when the show is over, you get it.
Ok, don’t blame your parents. Just learn, hopefully.
Be rational, as much as possible.
Good point.
I have always been taught that we should not waste food, and I always feel bad when I leave some food on the plate. But rationally thinking, finishing the food won’t help anyone :/
Throwing food away should be a crime. It just shows how ungrateful people can be. There are starving children all over the world who don’t even have access to 1/100th the amount of food that one can get here in the USA in a single day. It doesn’t mean you have to eat it all when you’re already full; whatever you don’t want to eat now, save it for later.
That’s what people mean when they talk about starving kids in impoverished places in the world while you callously throw very edible food away, not even feeling guilty about it. How ungrateful!
JoJo,
Please know that what I meant is that the mistake is already made when you purchase/took more than you can eat. No matter if I save it or not, it will not affect the children.
From what I experience, when someone tell me to finish the food, it is because they paid for it and don’t want it to go to waste. When it is a buffet, they don’t even make a sound, in fact they would encourage people to overeat.
Don’t you think overeating is as bad as throwing away food?