When we were kids we had to finish everything on our plate or we could not leave the table. This wasn't just at home either, it was at the sitter and many other places.
I guess it was just a generation thing. If I think about it, when my parents were kids they had parents that went through the great depression. They saved everything. So every bite counted when there wasn't a lot of food in the house.
I try not to make my kids finish their plates. If they are full, I let them stop eating. But they also are not going to get a snack 10 minutes later. If they are too full to finish, then they are too full to eat for a little while.
On the other hand though, I do make them try everything. They have to take a little of everything that is being served and they have to take one bite. If they don't like it then they don't have to eat it, but they at least have to try it.
I remember when I was a kid, my mum would make stuffed green peppers. Oh boy did they smell good cooking. When it came time for dinner though, that was another story. See I did not and still don't care for green peppers. My dad did not want to hear that I didn't like peppers. We would eat our stuffed peppers with a little sour cream. Let's just say that I hated green peppers so much that I would use a gallon of sour cream just so I could choke down the pepper.
My favorite time to have stuffed green peppers was when my gram was visiting. She would wait until my dad was distracted and take the pepper off of my plate and eat it for me.
If I was really lucky, my mum would have leftover meat and make just meatballs with out peppers and I would get to eat that for dinner. In fact the last time I went to my mum's she had made stuffed peppers for dinner the night before. There were leftovers in the fridge and as luck would have it, there were a few meatballs in there. Yummy!
So to this day I am "haunted" by not cleaning my plate. I find it really hard not to finish what is put before me. Kind of like Pavlov's dog I guess. It is now ingrained in me that I have to clean my plate. The only time I don't feel guilty about it is if I am eating out and I can take it home in a doggie box for later.
Do any of you have this problem? Do you make your kids finish their plates?
Stacy
2 comments:
I still struggle with this issue- I try to separate the dish into it's designated portions and only eat that portion. Though I make sure I have plenty of veggies so I can eat as much of those as I want :)
Unfortunately I'm a life-long member of the "Clean Plate Club." And I learned from my father that you get extra points for cleaning other plates, too. I am trying to be better - take only what I SHOULD (not what I CAN) eat and teach the kids the same. But I cannot let them throw away meat. For some reason, it's like throwing away money. So, I just try to give them less and eat the leftovers tomorrow.
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