Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3 year old loves cake, but she only eats the frosting and cream part no matter if it is muffin, birthday cake at party, cupcake or cake roll. She does not eat the cake part itself. She does that at home and at other parties/other home.

I often have to use a fork to try to feed her at least 1-3 bites of cake, otherwise, it is a waste of food and impolite. Would you do anything or would you let her be if you have a child like that?

I’m 36 and have three children and I just eat the frosting. People are allowed to eat what they want and it’s not rude to prefer the frosting over the cake - and eat the frosting over the cake. Would it bother you if she left the frosting and only ate the cake? This is called a nonissue. Stop trying to find solutions to a problem that exists only for you in your head. I’ve had a ton of birthday parties for my kids and I don’t remember who ate what and if I did pay attention I wouldn’t care. I also don’t care about what adults eat.

Forgot to add that I work in sustainability and if you care about food waste don’t buy too much food and don’t overserve your children. I give my kids small portions and if they want more they can ask for seconds. But how is a three year old eating food she doesn’t want- more precisely the cake portion of a cupcake - cutting down on food waste? It would be a problem if she wanted more cupcakes after. I think you have some ingrained stuff around cleaning your plate and leaving food being food and that’s also morphed into food waste.

Anonymous wrote:My 3 year old loves cake, but she only eats the frosting and cream part no matter if it is muffin, birthday cake at party, cupcake or cake roll. She does not eat the cake part itself. She does that at home and at other parties/other home.

I often have to use a fork to try to feed her at least 1-3 bites of cake, otherwise, it is a waste of food and impolite. Would you do anything or would you let her be if you have a child like that?

I’m 36 and have three children and I just eat the frosting. People are allowed to eat what they want and it’s not rude to prefer the frosting over the cake - and eat the frosting over the cake. Would it bother you if she left the frosting and only ate the cake? This is called a nonissue. Stop trying to find solutions to a problem that exists only for you in your head. I’ve had a ton of birthday parties for my kids and I don’t remember who ate what and if I did pay attention I wouldn’t care. I also don’t care about what adults eat.

Who cares!The kids never eat the cupcakes that's expected. Buy the mini cupcakes if your concerned for your kid's party. Much less food waste.

Anonymous wrote:That is normal of a good 87% of the kids. You give them cupcakes, muffins, cake and they’ll eat the frosting.

This. Let them do it. It may change over time. They’re definitely not the only one. Ours only started eating the cake too after 6.

I would not care one way or another, let her eat what she wanted, and then either eat the rest myself or toss it. I do not think anyone cares. It is not possible for a 3 year old to be "impolite" in how she eats a treat offered at a party. If someone gives you flak because your toddler didn't clean her plate, I would look at them like the idiot they are and say "oh, yeah, sorry I guess." And then move on with my life.

Never encourage eating of unhealthy food when they aren’t already! Start now.

Anonymous wrote:I’m an adult and only like the frosting so I eat the top of a cupcake or the edge of a cake. Leave your kid alone. Where are you taking your child that their consumption of a cake would be analyzed and viewed poorly? If they are at a birthday party, I as a host, am not expecting clean plates from guests.

+1

My child (now 14) was the same way. She never liked muffins, donuts, cake or anything bready She would only eat the frosting. Turns out, she had a gluten intolerance. Let her eat the frosting and you eat the cake part.

My mom is SO overprotective she doesn't even LET me eat the frosting off my birthday cake!
Now, let's refrain from speaking of the "Playing 1 hour of video games a day will make you dumb*" or "2 pieces of candy per week will give you diabetes" theories she made up, since that's what overprotective parents do. But my mom is TOO overprotective.
*Guess who DOESN'T know how to multiply negative numbers but is 26 years older than me!

I only want the frosting. DH only wants the cake. Maybe she'll find her cake mate one day.

Anonymous wrote:No one cares that your child isn't eating the cake. Every other child at the party is too. She doesn't need to eat the cake. Just throw it away and move on.

+1 Really unnecessary to force feed the cake part. No one else cares or sees this as impolite.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child’s preschool class held several birthday parties at the playground last year. At every birthday party, cupcakes were served. 90% of the children only ate the frosting at every gathering. 100% of the parents laughed about it. No one thinks it is rude if your child doesn’t eat cake at the party. And yes, it’s all unhealthy. Fun treat if your kid likes it, but don’t force them to eat cake if they don’t want it!

I’m pretty obsessive about food waste, but with little kids I’ve loosened up a lot. I save uneaten food when possible (not cupcakes with frosting licked haha) but I don’t want to create food issues in my kids by forcing them to eat food they don’t want.

Fellow food waste obsessive and I just eat what my kid doesn’t unless it’s really gross/licked. But agreed I’ve had to relax a bit with little kids. There will be waste unless you force kids to eat which is a terrible idea for so many reasons.

As a child I liked the frosting best but luckily my older sister was a cake-only no frosting kid so we just split every piece of cake we had. 😆

+1 and often I will split a piece of cake with my kid or our family of 3 will just take two pieces for all of us because often none of us wants an entire piece and that way it all gets eaten.

But honestly, I would not worry about this at all. Even as someone who hates throwing away food, cake is pretty benign as these things go. It goes bad really fast. If you go to a birthday party and eat half a piece of cake and toss the rest, I doubt anyone will ever be offended even if they made the cake themselves from scratch and it was really good cake. They almost certainly have leftovers anyway even with kids eating half of their piece and tossing them, and it's going to be stale by tomorrow. Oh well.

To misquote a misquote of Marie Antoinette: Let her eat frosting!

Seriously at our last preschool birthday party I just bought those tiny mini cupcakes at the grocery store and they were the perfect size for the kids. Kids never eat the whole normal sized cupcake.

No one cares that your child isn't eating the cake. Every other child at the party is too. She doesn't need to eat the cake. Just throw it away and move on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3 year old loves cake, but she only eats the frosting and cream part no matter if it is muffin, birthday cake at party, cupcake or cake roll. She does not eat the cake part itself. She does that at home and at other parties/other home.

I often have to use a fork to try to feed her at least 1-3 bites of cake, otherwise, it is a waste of food and impolite. Would you do anything or would you let her be if you have a child like that?

it's not a waste of food. It's not impolite. The cake isn't otherwise going to a food bank for the hungry.

What is impolite is forcing the DC to eat the part of the cake she doesn't want. "DAMMIT! You WILL eat this and you WILL LIKE IT! And you WILL say THANK YOU!"

If you are super concerned about the uneaten portion, I suggest any of the following:
- Eating it yourself.
- Telling the host "Larla won't eat the cake part. Just give her frosting.

Problem solved.

This part is rude. The host is not a short order cook order cook/server. Why doesn't Larla just go without anything

Agree it’s very rude. Just take a slice like everyone else, eat the frosting, and toss the cake.

But OP is freaking out that Larla is wasting the cake part, so Larla is still wasting the cake part. This is one way to prevent "waste". (Which, throwing out uneaten cake isn't wasteful. OP is being thick on what is completely normal for kids.)