I don't understand a lot of the posts here. In our household, all food is communal unless someone didn't finish their plate and it got wrapped up and put in the fridge. Then no one else would touch it anyway b/c who wants someone's half-eaten food?

Anonymous wrote:Some of this could be solved by making more food for meals so there's plenty for everybody to get their fill at mealtime + leftovers that can be first come/first serve.

In our house, family-style takeout (pizza, Chinese) is fair game. We order plenty of food for whoever is home at mealtime and then any leftovers are first come/first serve. It's not like, there are 4 of us and 16 slices of pizza so each person gets 4 slices to eat now or later. Nope, eat however much you want now, and the rest is fair game.

If there are leftovers of individually-ordered items (like we all go out to dinner and DD brings home half her pasta dish) it belongs to the person who ordered it.

Totally different in my house. If my husband eats 3 slices of pizza and I eat 2, then I have 2 slices coming to me and he has 1. He would never eat my leftover pizza. He knows it will not end well for him.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

+1 We always save food for a family member if they're eating later. It's so rude not to.

Although my sister and our brothers used to get so annoyed with each other because she would save her dessert or part of her meal, then expect it to be there the next day. Of course they would eat it. I kind of see both points of view on this. She preferred to eat her portion at a different time, and they were hungry teens who wanted another helping at dinner that she wasn't eating. I guess it depends whether you're a "here's your share" kind of person vs. a "it's dinner time everyone eat your fill" kind of person.

I feel like this encourages strange eating habits--it's not really fair if someone isn't super hungry right at that moment to insist that they eat all their portion right then, otherwise it's open season for others to grab. Especially if it's dessert. It would just cause a scarcity mentality and overeating in some people.

I guess we were raised differently. Culturally in my family if it’s dinner time and everyone is eating, you eat. If you’re not hungry, eat less. Later if you want to scrounge around fine, but you can’t be upset that nobody saved the main dish for you. If you don’t want dessert now, cut yourself a slice now when it’s out, and wrap it up and tell the family that it’s yours.

So if you ate half your meal, wrapped up the other half, wrote your name on it, and told everyone you were going to eat it in two hours, in your family's "culture" it would be fine for anyone to go into the fridge, take it, and eat it?

Different poster. What is the meal? If it's, say, spaghetti, it would be totally weird in my family to package up a portion of spaghetti "for later" if others at the table were still hungry NOW.

Why can't those who are hungry NOW find something else to eat instead of the portion of spaghetti that the less hungry person would otherwise be eating? Frankly it's better to diversify your diet than eat a huge pile of carbs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

+1 We always save food for a family member if they're eating later. It's so rude not to.

Although my sister and our brothers used to get so annoyed with each other because she would save her dessert or part of her meal, then expect it to be there the next day. Of course they would eat it. I kind of see both points of view on this. She preferred to eat her portion at a different time, and they were hungry teens who wanted another helping at dinner that she wasn't eating. I guess it depends whether you're a "here's your share" kind of person vs. a "it's dinner time everyone eat your fill" kind of person.

I feel like this encourages strange eating habits--it's not really fair if someone isn't super hungry right at that moment to insist that they eat all their portion right then, otherwise it's open season for others to grab. Especially if it's dessert. It would just cause a scarcity mentality and overeating in some people.

I guess we were raised differently. Culturally in my family if it’s dinner time and everyone is eating, you eat. If you’re not hungry, eat less. Later if you want to scrounge around fine, but you can’t be upset that nobody saved the main dish for you. If you don’t want dessert now, cut yourself a slice now when it’s out, and wrap it up and tell the family that it’s yours.

So if you ate half your meal, wrapped up the other half, wrote your name on it, and told everyone you were going to eat it in two hours, in your family's "culture" it would be fine for anyone to go into the fridge, take it, and eat it?

Different poster. What is the meal? If it's, say, spaghetti, it would be totally weird in my family to package up a portion of spaghetti "for later" if others at the table were still hungry NOW.

Some of this could be solved by making more food for meals so there's plenty for everybody to get their fill at mealtime + leftovers that can be first come/first serve.

In our house, family-style takeout (pizza, Chinese) is fair game. We order plenty of food for whoever is home at mealtime and then any leftovers are first come/first serve. It's not like, there are 4 of us and 16 slices of pizza so each person gets 4 slices to eat now or later. Nope, eat however much you want now, and the rest is fair game.

If there are leftovers of individually-ordered items (like we all go out to dinner and DD brings home half her pasta dish) it belongs to the person who ordered it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

+1 We always save food for a family member if they're eating later. It's so rude not to.

Although my sister and our brothers used to get so annoyed with each other because she would save her dessert or part of her meal, then expect it to be there the next day. Of course they would eat it. I kind of see both points of view on this. She preferred to eat her portion at a different time, and they were hungry teens who wanted another helping at dinner that she wasn't eating. I guess it depends whether you're a "here's your share" kind of person vs. a "it's dinner time everyone eat your fill" kind of person.

I feel like this encourages strange eating habits--it's not really fair if someone isn't super hungry right at that moment to insist that they eat all their portion right then, otherwise it's open season for others to grab. Especially if it's dessert. It would just cause a scarcity mentality and overeating in some people.

I guess we were raised differently. Culturally in my family if it’s dinner time and everyone is eating, you eat. If you’re not hungry, eat less. Later if you want to scrounge around fine, but you can’t be upset that nobody saved the main dish for you. If you don’t want dessert now, cut yourself a slice now when it’s out, and wrap it up and tell the family that it’s yours.

So if you ate half your meal, wrapped up the other half, wrote your name on it, and told everyone you were going to eat it in two hours, in your family's "culture" it would be fine for anyone to go into the fridge, take it, and eat it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the same issue with my DH, OP, and I'm not an only child. My issue with DH is that he will simply eat all the food because he eats more food, and this means that often DD and I don't get as much of "special" food in the house because he was more hungry.

So yes, if we get special takeout, he'll eat all the leftovers without asking if anyone else wants any, meaning he gets twice as much as anyone else did. It is rude and annoying.

However I have gotten him to stop doing it for specific things, by just doing fewer communal things. So now DD and I both have foods and snacks that are "ours" and no one else can have any unless they ask. This has finally allowed us to have snacks or leftovers around the house that don't get vacuumed up by my voracious DH before we have a chance to eat them. I used to have to label them but I'm starting to not do that and DH seems to have internalized, for instance, that he can't eat up all of DD's favorite crackers that I buy explicitly of her lunch, or eat the leftover Thai food that I ordered extra of specifically so I could have leftovers the next day. It's taken years to get this through to him though. He used to just wander around the kitchen eating whatever he found without thinking for a second whether it was being saved specifically by a family member. So weird!

This is incredibly rude. Does he eat your leftovers, too? Like if you ordered the kung pao chicken and he ordered the Mongolian beef, he would eat his beef AND your chicken? I would rip him a new one.

Yes, he absolutely used to do this. He'd open the fridge and see a takeout container and he'd just eat it even if it was a dish someone else had ordered and then packaged up. He just viewed it as collective food and therefore fair game. It has taken years of labeling, reminding, etc., to get him to stop so that if I purposefully save a portion of my meal (which I do a lot, I love leftover Thai or Chipotle for lunch the next day, to me it's one of the primary draws of getting takeout), that means I'm going to eat it.

He still does it with communal foods like pizza though. If I want to reserve a few slices of pizza for myself or DD to eat, I have to go out of my way to either hide them or label the crap out of a separate container so that he won't eat them.

If you get mad, he'll just say "What? I was hungry!" like that's an excuse.

He grew up in a house with two sons, a doormat of a mother, and a father who I think encouraged crap like this. He also doesn't know how to clean at all and hasn't touched a vacuum in like a decade. I love him for other reasons but I do curse his parents periodically for raising him like a neanderthal in some ways.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

+1 We always save food for a family member if they're eating later. It's so rude not to.

Although my sister and our brothers used to get so annoyed with each other because she would save her dessert or part of her meal, then expect it to be there the next day. Of course they would eat it. I kind of see both points of view on this. She preferred to eat her portion at a different time, and they were hungry teens who wanted another helping at dinner that she wasn't eating. I guess it depends whether you're a "here's your share" kind of person vs. a "it's dinner time everyone eat your fill" kind of person.

I feel like this encourages strange eating habits--it's not really fair if someone isn't super hungry right at that moment to insist that they eat all their portion right then, otherwise it's open season for others to grab. Especially if it's dessert. It would just cause a scarcity mentality and overeating in some people.

I guess we were raised differently. Culturally in my family if it’s dinner time and everyone is eating, you eat. If you’re not hungry, eat less. Later if you want to scrounge around fine, but you can’t be upset that nobody saved the main dish for you. If you don’t want dessert now, cut yourself a slice now when it’s out, and wrap it up and tell the family that it’s yours.

If anyone is going hungry at your house you need to make more food.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care how you were raised, I can't imagine gobbling up all of dinner knowing that my teen is going to be hungry when he gets home.

+1 We always save food for a family member if they're eating later. It's so rude not to.

Although my sister and our brothers used to get so annoyed with each other because she would save her dessert or part of her meal, then expect it to be there the next day. Of course they would eat it. I kind of see both points of view on this. She preferred to eat her portion at a different time, and they were hungry teens who wanted another helping at dinner that she wasn't eating. I guess it depends whether you're a "here's your share" kind of person vs. a "it's dinner time everyone eat your fill" kind of person.

I feel like this encourages strange eating habits--it's not really fair if someone isn't super hungry right at that moment to insist that they eat all their portion right then, otherwise it's open season for others to grab. Especially if it's dessert. It would just cause a scarcity mentality and overeating in some people.

Anonymous wrote:We have six kids and though we don't call it "first come, first serve" if you're elsewhere for dinner, we are not saving a plate of leftovers for you. Because we assume you're eating dinner elsewhere. When you get home if you're hungry and there are leftovers you can have some. But if there aren't any, you can go find something else.

I have 5 kids and this is how we do it, too. With a big family nothing is ever going to be exactly equal. It all balances out in the end pretty much.

Anonymous wrote:The set aside system for food as described doesn't make sense to me. Why would someone want to eat a 4 hour old McDonald's burger? And if the teen is hanging out with friends at dinner time, why isn't he eating with them? Why do you need someone to save you a plate at a party? Just eat maybe?

I think you are territorial about food in a way that someone from a large family is not. Food is just food. It's not that deep. If what you wanted is gone eat something else.

Agree the examples are weird. But in the teen going to a friend’s house example, I’d cook enough food to have plenty of leftovers. All these situations seem like there just isn’t enough food to go around.

Anonymous wrote:I have the same issue with my DH, OP, and I'm not an only child. My issue with DH is that he will simply eat all the food because he eats more food, and this means that often DD and I don't get as much of "special" food in the house because he was more hungry.

So yes, if we get special takeout, he'll eat all the leftovers without asking if anyone else wants any, meaning he gets twice as much as anyone else did. It is rude and annoying.

However I have gotten him to stop doing it for specific things, by just doing fewer communal things. So now DD and I both have foods and snacks that are "ours" and no one else can have any unless they ask. This has finally allowed us to have snacks or leftovers around the house that don't get vacuumed up by my voracious DH before we have a chance to eat them. I used to have to label them but I'm starting to not do that and DH seems to have internalized, for instance, that he can't eat up all of DD's favorite crackers that I buy explicitly of her lunch, or eat the leftover Thai food that I ordered extra of specifically so I could have leftovers the next day. It's taken years to get this through to him though. He used to just wander around the kitchen eating whatever he found without thinking for a second whether it was being saved specifically by a family member. So weird!

This is incredibly rude. Does he eat your leftovers, too? Like if you ordered the kung pao chicken and he ordered the Mongolian beef, he would eat his beef AND your chicken? I would rip him a new one.

I'm an only child and I also find this weird. Though I also grew up quite poor, and can't imagine throwing away food instead of saving it - especially if there is someone coming home later potentially wanting a meal.

We have six kids and though we don't call it "first come, first serve" if you're elsewhere for dinner, we are not saving a plate of leftovers for you. Because we assume you're eating dinner elsewhere. When you get home if you're hungry and there are leftovers you can have some. But if there aren't any, you can go find something else.