The Clean Plate Club

[Jean McMillan 2,973]

Are you a member of the clean plate club? Perhaps a lifetime member? Perhaps even its president?

I belonged to the CPC (Clean Plate Club) for over 50 years, so I consider myself something of an expert on it (and I am, after all, The World’s Greatest Living Expert on Everything). I thought it was a lifetime membership, but my bariatric surgeon rescued me from the CPC Cult – oh, excuse me, Club - and deprogrammed me so that I’m able to function more or less like a normal person now. Here’s my story.

I was inducted to the CPC as a child, when I was too young to realize that the promise of going to heaven if I always cleaned my plate was a bit more complicated than it sounded at the time. All I wanted to do at the time was to please the cult leaders: my mother and my grandmother.

I have reason to believe that my grandmother, whom I called Dranny, was the original founder of the CPC. Orphaned as a small child, she was passed around the family like a piece of unwanted furniture, and she raised her own children during the Great Depression. Through the combination of those circumstances and her own peculiar (and wonderful) character, Dranny was a pack rat. She didn’t live in filth and disorder (just the opposite, actually), but she couldn’t bear to throw anything away, especially not food. If three green peas were leftover from a meal and she hadn’t been able to persuade someone to eat them, she would lovingly place them in a custard cup covered with a shower-cap style cover (this was in the days before Glad Wrap), and store them in the fridge, where they would remain until someone ate them (or my mother threw them out while Dranny was in another room).

I’m a lot like my grandmother in various ways, and also something of a pack rat. So after eating my way through hundreds of childhood meals with Dranny and my mom (who was not a pack rat, but who was offended by the idea of wasting food that she’d worked so hard to procure and prepare), I emerged into adolescence with warring impulses – part of me still wanted to clean my plate, and part of me wanted to starve so that I could lose weight and be as skinny as the British supermodel, Twiggy.

101 WAYS TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE

One of my problems with meal planning and storage is that it's hard for me to predict how much food I'll be able to eat at a future meal. Often I don't know that until I've eaten several bites. My basic strategy for dealing with this unpredictability is to keep my plate clean from the very start so that the food I leave behind doesn't overwhelm me or provoke an attack of guilt that could bring down Dranny's loving wrath upon me.

A simple way to keep your plate clean is to prepare smaller batches of food so you won't be tempted by serving dishes overflowing with food or burdened with an excess of leftovers. I can't speak to recipes for baked goods (not my department), but most other recipes can be easily cut in half, thirds, or even quarters through the use of simple arithmetic.

Sometimes I prepare the whole recipe, subdivide into 2 or 3 batches, serve one batch immediately and freeze the other 2 for future use. When we lived in the northeast, the elderly widow who lived next door was delighted when we shared excess food with her. Sharing food with family, friends, and coworkers can yield multiple benefits. When I'm craving a food or recipe whose leftovers would be a problem for me to store (or resist), I prepare a big batch of it for whatever social event is on the horizon and keep only one or two portions of it at home so that we get to enjoy it without having to worry about to do with all that food. I use cheap, recycled, throw-away packaging so that no one can insist that I take my corning ware, Pyrex or tupperware container of leftovers home with me.

You can also keep your plate clean by using the portioning technique I recommend for bandsters who are still learning their band eating skills, food portion sizes, and stop signals. Here's how it works for me. When planning my day's food (which I commit to my food log and my accountability partner every morning), I might decide that I'll eat 4 ounces (by weight) of chicken thigh and 1/2 cup of barley and veggy salad for dinner. Come dinner time, I grab my small plate (a salad plate) and put half of my planned meal on it: 2 ounces of chicken and ¼ cup of the salad. If I'm able to finish that, great. If I'm still physically hungry when I'm done with it, I go back to the kitchen and dish up the remaining 2 ounces of chicken and ¼ cup of salad. At the end of the meal, I'll probably have only 1 or 2 tablespoons worth of food to save or throw out instead of a plateful of food, therefore much less guilt to deal with.

When I do have a plateful of food leftover, I usually scrape it into a small plastic container that I can quickly grab and stick in my lunch bag when I go to work the next day. Fortunately, we actually like leftovers at our house, and arguments occasionally break out over unauthorized consumption of leftover food ("Who ate the rest of the eggplant Parmesan?!?"). The same approach works with restaurant meals. We're happy to take leftovers home in what used to be called a doggy bag (as if I'd share my Maryland crab cakes with a dog!).

My sister-in-law used to scrape leftover food into a bucket to add to her garden compost pile. I have no idea if that's a good practice. We'd have to have a 40' high electrified fence dug 20' into the ground and topped with razor wire in order to keep dogs, cats, deer, rats, raccoons, and other critters out of that kind of compost pile. I've also known people (including my mother) who fed leftover food to their 4-footed garbage disposals (dogs & cats), another practice that we avoid because why would you want to cultivate a fussy eater? Our pets have survived eating (stolen) candies (complete with foil wrappers), latex paint, and kip tails (fishing flies), and at our house, a fussy eater will end up starving because someone else is always willing to clean your plate for you, sometimes long before you've decided you're finished with it.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STARVING CHILDREN?

After over 6 years of post-WLS life, I'm now better able to detach myself from my emotional attachment to the food on my plate enough to throw out what's left. If it didn't taste right because my tummy was in an odd mood, if it caused me eating problems, if it wouldn't reheat or store well, I let it go. I haven't been struck by lightning for doing that, nor has God punished me with plagues, floods, or infestations (apart from the dog infestation, that is).

Like many, I was raised to eat every meal while listening to a chorus singing the Children Are Starving in (fill in the blank) hymn. I agree that in world where so many children (and adults, and animals) go hungry, it is just plain wrong for an overfed middle-class person like me to waste or throw out food. But the fact is that me eating more food than my body needs (rather than throwing out) is not the solution to the problem of world hunger. The solution to world hunger, and to diminishing global food resources, is far, far more complicated than that. Working in your community (be it a village, a city, a country, or a planet) to solve that problem is a worthwhile effort, but you taking personal responsibility for causing the death of a starving, unknown child in India or Appalachia because you threw out a chicken wing and 5 green Beans last night is (in my opinion) a misguided and foolish use of your energy.

And you eating that extra bite of food just because you can't bear the thought of throwing it away is also foolish from a medical standpoint. If that extra bite causes you to PB, get stuck, or over-pack your pouch, it could lead to messy and expensive medical complications like esophageal or pouch dilation and/or band slips, especially if you eat that way on a regular basis.

Finally, as long as overeating endangers your health through co-morbidities and through disrespecting your band, you may never be able to help deal with the hunger problem, whether on an individual, local, or global basis. So, first things first: make a top priority of eating sensibly for your own sake before you tackle the rest of the world.

[☠carolinagirl☠ 18,721]

jeannie

it is so easy to see why you have best selling books and well read blogs as you write so well/easy and def reach the person reading it...as always, another outstanding post.

[kll724 3,055]

Jean, great article. I, too, was raised to make sure that I didn't leave food on our plates because of the staving children in China,Russia or wherever. I am not quite sure how they were supposed to be helped with OUR empty plates, but whatever! This was a favorite way to get kids to eat back then, and maybe still today. I don't think that my own daughter uses this method, thank God. We are a family of "fatties", so she is cautious of forcing empty plates. Thank you for a great article, Jean. We all need to relearn our way of thinking. Karen

[Maddysgram 6,159]

My starving kids came from India....

My father also worked at a huge bakery that made things for grocery stores. He brought something home every night and you couldn't have any, unless you cleaned your plate. I guess thats where my addiction to chocolate cake came from.

Thanks for the tips. I am going to incorporate them all, especially putting half my serving on my plate and then going back for more.

I practically have trouble with, its just one bite left.....

Once again, thanks for your humor and wisdom.

[Jean McMillan 2,973]

As a kid I had to clean my plate, and I would've cleaned anyone else's plate if they didn't want to. But my mom would watch me eat, starting with my least favorite food, and say, "You'd better not save the best for last, because you never know when your plate will be snatched away from you."

I know she meant well, I know she loved me, but that was a crazy thing to say to a little girl. No wonder I felt I had to gobble up every last morsel of food.< /p>

[CHEZNOEL 4,061]

My starving kids were from India too! LOL!

[jfc193 718]

I had 5 siblings, 4 sisters and one brother and usually there was a friend or two around at meal time so there was not very much food left over for the starving children anywhere.

So if anyone did not clean their plate then one of the friends or siblings would reach over and finish the plate. So in fine fashion I rarely did not clean my plate but was usually one to finish someone else's plate.

I do finish my plate know but the plate is not much bigger than a salad plate and have to remember to resist the urge to get a second serving.

[feb27bandwoman 112]

Maddysgram and CHEZnoel..... When I read that your starving children came from India....... I seriously thought that perhaps you both had adopted children from India!!! Such an image!! I really must wake up !!!thank you for the giggle.

Jean- great article, great story.I always enjoy your thoughts on this struggle that we share.

I don't recall being a member of the CLC, but I did raise my children to eat only what they santed. No restrictions, just offering balance and good fresh foods. They have grown into young adults with few weight issues.

[kll724 3,055]

Maddysgram and CHEZnoel..... When I read that your starving children came from India....... I seriously thought that perhaps you both had adopted children from India!!! Such an image!! I really must wake up !!!thank you for the giggle.

Jean- great article, great story.I always enjoy your thoughts on this struggle that we share.

I don't recall being a member of the CLC, but I did raise my children to eat only what they santed. No restrictions, just offering balance and good fresh foods. They have grown into young adults with few weight issues.

You are probably born later than those of us in the "clean Plate Club". I think that was baby boomers. I am glad that we are able to get past that, now! Raising children without weight issues is tough.

[FentonMama 19]

I was raised with the clean your plate rule but my parents served out our huge portions.... I don't allow my kids to waste food but they choose thier portion and I always remind them to start off small you can always add but it is hard to subtract food from your plate.

*FentonMama*