Does having kids necessarily mean wasting food?

I have heard from a lot of friends that they find it extremely triggering to waste food. But all feeding experts strongly discourage parents from forcing kids to clear their plate. What to do?

1. Serve smaller portions: If you are serving the food, you can serve your kids small portions. Really. You might even consider tiny portions (like 1 tsp.), especially if the food is one they rarely eat or if you have a toddler. If they are serving themselves (and note that serving family style is recommended by feeding experts), encourage them to serve themselves small portions and take seconds if they are still hungry. This only works, of course, if they feel confident that their preferred foods will still be available. If they worry that someone else will take what they want, they won’t be willing to wait. Small portions are helpful with meals at home but also when packing a lunchbox. If I sent Chickpea an entire apple or an entire carrot it almost never gets eaten. But if I send 1/4 of an apple and 1/4 of a carrot, there’s a good chance both will be gone when I check her lunchbox after school.
2. Eat your kid’s leftovers: If you don’t mind sharing germs, go ahead and eat your kids leftovers, either immediately or another day. I routinely wait to take seconds until I see if Chickpea is actually going to finish her dish. If not, I eat hers instead of taking more directly from the serving dish. This is a win-win, because it slows me down as well. (I tend to eat way too fast!) Other times I save her food and eat it myself at another meal. DD doesn’t like the idea of eating leftovers off someone else’s plate, but it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s not like we aren’t all sharing each other’s germs anyways.
3. Repurpose their leftovers: Save whatever they don’t eat and use it in another meal. Some examples of how I do this are below. Even if there is only a small amount of something leftover, I like to save the “little bits” and then repurpose them in later meals.
4. Make an “eat me now” section/shelf in the fridge: This is especially useful if you have a hungry spouse or hungry teenagers in the house. Somehow section off an area of your fridge (this could be a shelf, a half of a shelf, or certain big tupperware, or whatever) and designate it as an ‘eat me now’ place. Any item of food that needs to be eaten up (produce, leftovers, etc.) gets added to that area. If someone is looking for a snack or something to make a meal with, that’s the first place to look.
5. Choose one day of the week to empty the fridge: Choose a day of the week (ideally before you do your biggest shopping run) and make one meal of the week “leftover lunch” or try a “smorgasbord snack tray” and try to use up little bits of whatever is still in your fridge.
6. Other ideas?

There are tons of ideas online about how to repurpose leftovers, but here are my top tips:

1. Fruit, for example pears: Chickpea is extremely picky about pears. She doesn’t like them hard as a rock and she doesn’t like them when they’re at all soft. And I’m not great at telling when a pear is ripe. So invariably I cut her a slice of pear and she doesn’t eat it. But I really like pear in müsli or yogurt, so I will often eat whatever she doesn’t eat. And Chickpea likes pear (even overripe pears) cut up into blueberry sauce on amaranth porridge, and she is not as picky about pear in salad as she is about eating it plain. So if I have some pear leftovers I might throw them into a beet and lentil salad, for example. (In fact, I throw all kinds of leftover fruit into salad. DD isn’t a huge fan, but Chickpea and I both really like the sweet juiciness it adds, especially if the salad has something more savory or salty like olives or nuts or feta in it. And when you dress the salad it covers up the fact that the fruit might have gotten slightly browned, which always scares Chickpea away.) Alternatively, I might freeze pieces of uneaten pear (especially if it’s extremely ripe) and use it in a smoothie. If I have a bunch of barely eaten apples or pears I might turn them into a quick apple/pear sauce. It’s even better if I happen to have cranberries or rhubarb to add to it. Yum.
2. Fruit, for example pomegranate: Sometimes I even give Chickpea her own leftovers on another day in another form. For example, imagine that on Wednesday I give Chickpea pomegranate in her lunchbox, and it comes home untouched. I might put it back in the fridge and two days later for afternoon snack on Friday I might give her rye Finn Crisps crackers topped with mashed avocado and pomegranates (which is always a favorite). Or maybe for Friday breakfast I will serve müsli with pomegranate and grated apples. Just because she didn’t want the pomegranate for snack that day doesn’t mean she won’t want it a day or two later, especially if it’s in some other incarnation. Of course, if she never likes pomegranate I wouldn’t do this. I probably wouldn’t put in her lunchbox to begin with, or only a tiny amount. But if it’s a food she often happily eats, and she just didn’t eat it (or eat all of it) one day, then I am likely to serve the leftovers to her again shortly thereafter. That is, if I don’t eat them myself first. I love pomegranate!
3. Raw veg / crudite, for example red bell peppers or carrots: I often put raw vegetables into Chickpea’s school snack, and sometimes they come back partially or wholly untouched. If we are having a soup or a salad or a stirfry for dinner that night I will often throw the leftover veggies into the dinner. Even if we are having something else like chili I might just throw leftover random veggies into it. I wouldn’t normally put something like carrots in chili, but when it’s such a small amount you don’t even really notice it, and it makes me feel better to not throw it away :). Alternatively I might add leftover raw veggies to some scrambled tofu I’m making for breakfast the next morning.
4. Cooked vegetables, for example roasted parsnip or cooked chard: I most often repurpose leftover cooked veggies into a bean tortilla. Chickpea will eat almost any vegetable when it’s in a tortilla with beans and cheddar and salsa. Sometimes I add leftover cooked vegetables to whatever I’m making for dinner. For example, maybe I’m making lasagne soup or enchiladas. I wouldn’t normally add eggplant or kale to those dishes, but if I have some left I just throw them in. No one will notice a little bit of whatever.
5. Beans: I often give Chickpea beans in her snack, and usually she eats most or all of them, but sometimes they come back untouched. And I can’t just throw them in the fridge and save them for another day, because after sitting in the lunchbox for hours they usually don’t last long. I might throw the leftovers in whatever salad or soup or stew or enchiladas I am making for dinner. But that doesn’t always work, especially if we are having something more East Asian for dinner. Sometimes I heat the leftover beans up in the microwave as an appetizer for Chickpea before dinner, or roast them in the oven with some spices. Chickpea loves “exploded” beans, and she will often happily eat them warm and exploded (popped?) even if she wasn’t interested in eating them cold at 10am at school. She also likes the way roasting makes beans crispy.