Is it bad manners to clean food off your plate?
I googled this to see if it is still a thing and apparently it is in some countries and cultures. The reason I asked was that in the ‘new normal’ of more home cooked meals, I’m developing a serious habit of making sure every morsel of food that can be eaten, is eaten.
We are not starving, or wishing for more food - it’s just that I feel there is no need to leave food uneaten. As a plant-based eater, I don’t have to deal with bones, fat, gristle or shells on my plate and I usually remove inedible seeds, stems or pips from the dish I serve food on (watch out for the odd clove or bay leaf though!). This allows me to devour everything I worked hard to put on the plate, crumbs and sauce and all. I do it for a few reasons:
Helps with washing up. The cleaner the plate, the less work to wash
Less waste. I’ve already cleaned, peeled and prepped my food and that involves waste. Why add to it by scrapping edible food into the bin?
Portion control. By cleaning my plate I make sure I dish out what I can eat. I’ll only go back for more if I know I can finish it and sometimes cleaning the plate creates a gap between portions that prevents the second one.
Feels good. It feels good to clean the food off your plate - it shows you liked everything.
It’s my food so why not? No explanation needed here.
I’m the one that eats every chia seed I pour over my bowl of cereal (I hope I’m not alone on this). If I planned for it to go into my body, then that’s where it should go! To be clear, even now that all my meals are consumed at home, I still use utensils and I’m not one for licking the plate! Although I have drunk from a soup bowl if the broth is clear enough (don’t judge!) I have to maintain some standards for when we are allowed to eat in public again!
Seriously, there are plenty of areas in which we can all do better in preventing waste and the mindset goes beyond food on the plate. Excess packaging, poor storage leading to spoiled food, overstocking leading to waste. We need to be smarter in all these areas. It’s like the old saying at the Las Vegas casino buffets “Take what you like, but eat what you take”
