episode 195: how to deal with the guilt of throwing away food
Hey friends. Welcome back to episode 195 of The Diet Diaries.
Today I'm diving into a topic that always makes people uncomfortable: throwing away food.
If you've ever felt guilty about throwing food away or felt obligated to clean your plate, this one’s for you.
Here's a little peek into what we cover:
Why eating food to avoid waste isn't actually helping anyone (hint: especially not you)
The sneaky ways guilt around food waste shows up in our lives, from leftovers to meal prep
How food waste might be affecting your body and your mindset in ways you didn't expect
There's a lot to unpack here, and I hope it offers you a fresh way of thinking about something so many of us struggle with.
If you’re feeling crappy in your body and contemplating starting another diet this fall because you feel out of control and like there are no other options….there are.
There is coaching.
1:1 support to learn the skills to feel at ease around food and in your body, totally customized to your lifestyle, history, preferences and goals. Add your name to the interest list to get more info the week of 9/23 and get started in October.
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195
[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening today. Um, it's episode, is this 194? Oh my god, we're so close to 200. 194. Um, I'm going to talk about something today that I've talked about a little bit recently on social media and whatnot, around wasting food and throwing food away. And as I know, it's a real sensitive topic for a lot of folks.
And so that's why I wanted to kind of have the space here to expand on it a bit more than just what social media offers, which is so brief and so short and so incomplete and also just something that we're not paying a ton of attention to. Before I do that, yes, this is another reminder for the coaching interest list, because this is actually the last week to get your name on.
So next week, Monday the 23rd, is an email is going to go out to all the folks on that list with the link to schedule a consult, the info about kind of costs and investment and [00:01:00] timing and that kind of stuff. Um, and so if you're not on the list by that point, then you won't be able to do that. Um, there's five spots opening, open for coaching.
There's more people on the interest list than there are spots available. I don't say that, again, to create urgency. I just say that to put your name on the list if you're interested. Um, so that there may or may not be spots after I reach out to the people on the list. They may all get taken. They may not all get taken.
Um, because being on the list doesn't obligate you to anything. It just gives you the chance to book a consult and get a really nice discount if you want it. Um, so this is the last week to do that. The link is in the show notes. There's a link, um, in my social media. You can always shoot me, um, like a DM or an email if you want to be added and I can add you.
Um, yeah. So that's the deal with that. Um, so let's dive in. Um, throwing food away for a lot of people brings up a lot of guilt. And I've had [00:02:00] so many conversations with women about this over the years, um, who, like we grew up either being told you have to clean your plate or Um, there's starving children in Africa, so you can't throw your food away.
Or there's, um, you know, homeless people who can't afford to eat, like all of these different things, which are true. Yes. Like, are there starving people in the world? Yes. Are there people who don't have homes, who don't have regular meals and can't afford to buy food? Yes, there are. And it's terrible. And you not eating your food doesn't change any of that.
You eating food you don't want to eat in the moment, instead of throwing it away. It doesn't impact anyone else except you, and typically will make you feel not good. Right? So I think it's important to understand where if you struggle with this. where it comes from for you, right? Is there childhood stuff that comes up around, right, cleaning your plate or, um, things that were told to you by your parents, kind of about like other people, what's happening in the world?
Is it a [00:03:00] guilt about wasting money, right? There's a lot of that that comes up. Um, is it just about wasting food, right? Good quality food, like going in the garbage just feels, it doesn't feel good. And I totally get that, right? There's like a big values piece that is linked into this. Um, wasting things feels crappy, whether it's money, whether it's time, whether it's food.
It doesn't feel good. It's also part of being human, um, because if we didn't waste things, we'd be figuring things out perfectly, managing our time and our money and our meals perfectly all the time. And that's just also not possible. So there's kind of like a framework that I've kind of developed over time after talking to so many people about this and thinking about it myself.
And here's the thing. Wasting food in the garbage can, throwing away food that doesn't get eaten, whether it was on your plate and you didn't finish it, or you bought a whole bunch of vegetables and planned on cooking them or making a [00:04:00] salad and they rotted in your fridge, or you put Packed up leftovers and then they sat in the fridge and they never got to eat whatever the situation is or you're at a Restaurant right and you don't finish and you either don't take it home or you do take it home It doesn't get eaten, right?
It feels crappy for a lot of the reasons that I just shared feels crappy mentally But here's the thing when you Eat food because you don't want to waste it. It feels bad mentally and physically Because you are overstuffing yourself with food a larger quantity of food than you want to be eating, right?
If you wanted to eat it, you probably would have eaten it. And if it's like leftovers or you got sick of it or whatnot, then you don't want to be eating it. So forcing yourself to eat it doesn't feel good. And that feels crappy mentally and physically because you're like, oh, I don't want to eat this food.
I don't like it. Or I have to eat it because I feel guilty if I don't, right? That's the mental piece. And the physical piece is now I've just put more food into my [00:05:00] body than I physically want to have. And I started to feel physically uncomfortable. Like, I've overeaten, really full, stuffed. So it's like then like a double whammy.
And I think going back to some of the stuff that a lot of us were taught as kids and maybe like you might still believe, and this is not a judgment on that, but I think it's about kind of bringing in some critical thinking here and, and whether or not. Whether or not you eat the leftovers in the fridge or finish your plate is actually impacting some other person in the world who sadly doesn't have access to food, right?
Ask yourself this, who benefits from me eating this food? The answer is nobody. If you are full, if you don't like it, if you don't want it, if you ordered too much, if it's cold and now doesn't taste good, um, if it's been sitting in the fridge for a few days and you're just like not interested in it anymore, um, whatever the reason is, nobody benefits from you eating that.
You [00:06:00] don't benefit. You think that you do because you think it will take away the guilt of throwing it away, but it doesn't really because then you feel so crappy physically. that it brings up a lot of mental stuff as well. Like feeling uncomfortable in your body, I've just eaten more food than I wanted to eat.
Like, why did I do this? Why can't I figure this out better? All these things. So we have deep mental and emotional connections and beliefs around food. Everyone does. And they impact us in ways, a lot of subconscious ways we don't even realize. The idea of wasting food and throwing food away is one of them.
And this comes up for a lot of people. And it comes up a lot because we're talking, we're talking about our relationship to food and hunger cues and fullness cues and fat loss and the amount that I'm eating and whatnot. It starts to bring up a lot. Like, what do I do when I'm full? What do I do? Like, If, like, there's, like, sweets or chips in the house and I feel out [00:07:00] of control around them, like, sometimes people are like, a lot?
This is very common. Like, we'll throw it away. Get rid of it. Because I can't mentally have it around. Right? Is that a long term solution? No. Is that a short term solution? For some people, sometimes, yes. Right? I've talked about this before. The famous scene from Sex and the City. Miranda throws the cake in the garbage, takes it out, keeps eating it, and then is like, oh my god, what am I doing?
Puts it back in the garbage and dumps dish soap all over it so that she will not be able to eat it. Right? So it's like we have guilt about throwing these things away, and it's like, you know, what do we do with it? Why is this happening? And ultimately you get to decide if you don't want to be eating that food for whatever reason, and you end up eating it, it's getting wasted either way.
So you can either choose to waste it in the garbage can, or you can waste it inside of your body. Because of that food. Again, if that, if you don't want to eat that food for any reason, and you don't really need to justify that reason, [00:08:00] throwing it away in the garbage waste, yes, I'm not going to say it doesn't get wasted.
Yep. It's getting wasted. Yes. And there is a lot of discomfort. But if you don't want to eat it and you do eat it, it's also getting wasted in your body because you're not getting You're getting no benefit from it. You're not enjoying it. It's making you feel physically crappy. You're probably eating more food than your body needs or wants in that moment, or maybe even in general.
So it's going to waste. It has no job in that moment. So you can either waste it inside of your body where it has a multiple, a multitude of negative impacts, or you can waste it in the garbage where it doesn't really impact anybody, doesn't hurt anyone or do anything. And I think when you break it down like that, kind of objectively, it really helps get some clarity around the situation and maybe strip out a little bit of the emotion that we have around this.
I'm not saying it's simple. I'm not saying it's easy. What I'm trying to do here is offer you a framework and a, a reframe and a shift in how you think about wasting [00:09:00] food to get some clarity around what's actually happening. And when I eat food that I don't want to throw away because I feel guilty, It's still getting wasted just in my body instead of the garbage can and who was that benefiting?
Who is that helping? So see what this brings up for you, do you get defensive? You might and that's okay? Are you like, oh my god, holy shit. I never thought of it that way that makes a lot of sense Okay, maybe you need some time with it But I think it's important because this comes up a lot. I didn't even bring up like eating kids leftovers.
I shared this on Instagram a couple weeks ago and someone commented and was like, I struggle with this a lot with my kids. Like there's leftover food on their plate and I feel the need to eat it for lots of different reasons, right? There's, that's definitely multifaceted. Um, but there are so many scenarios in which this comes up and over a long period of time and even over short periods of time, it [00:10:00] can really impact What, why, and how we're eating, depending on how kind of prevalent of a thing this is for you.
Um, and if this is something that you are struggling with, it's something that needs attention, right? If you are, have a lot of guilt about wasting food and find yourself eating food that you don't want to be eating, um, because you don't want to waste it in the garbage, this is just something to think about, right?
And then, Can you, right? So if the goal is to waste less food, right, what can you learn? What are you noticing if there is a lot of food waste happening and you are feeling really guilty about it? Why is that happening, right? Can you start to notice some patterns? Can you do kind of like an inventory and get a baseline of like what am I buying and what am I eating and where are the gaps here?
Like why is this not overlapping? Um, you know, am I forcing myself to meal prep things for four meals a week and then I just get sick of it and I throw it away? Okay, that's [00:11:00] important. Maybe we need a different way to approach meal prep, right? Am I buying ingredients because I find cool recipes and they sound great in the moment and never cooking them?
Okay, that's helpful. Maybe stop researching, like, recipes that sound cool in the moment because you're just not going to do them, and stick to throwing, like, some peppers and onions in the oven, right? And just roasting them. Right? Part of this is also about getting really honest with yourself about how often are you wasting food?
Is it a lot? Is it a little? And that can be factual, but also sometimes our interpretation of that is subjective. And then, what can I do about it? Right? So that I'm not constantly stuck in this position of feeling like, Oh my God, I have to eat that. I feel really guilty. Either feeling like I have to eat it and eating it and feeling like shit or throwing it away and feeling really guilty.
And again, you can respond when you throw it away to that guilt part by reminding yourself like it doesn't benefit anyone for me to eat this food right now. It's getting wasted in the garbage and that sucks, but it'd be getting wasted inside of my body and that would suck [00:12:00] more. And then what can I, again, what can I do about it?
How can I start to look at my shopping patterns and my intake, my eating patterns, and figure out where these things are not overlapping so that over time I can start to reduce some of that waste. So that's it for me. I'm keeping episodes short lately. I hope you're enjoying that. reach out if you've got questions, if you have a request for a podcast episode, I love getting that.
Um, I did one about a month ago now on intermittent fasting, someone had asked. So if you've got something you want to hear more about or learn more about, or feel like you're connected to someone, send me a message. I'm happy to do it. And, um, I will be back as always next week. Thanks for being here.