Throwing candy away - Page 5

[loraxc]

Huh. I just threw out some candy yesterday! We have had a TON of birthday parties with candy-laden goodie bags lately. DD is allowed to have a piece or two a day, but it was just too much. It was junk candy that DH and I wouldn't have eaten anyway (like, Pxie Stix and gumballs). Not that I need the calories.

This was, admittedly, a handful of stuff. If I had a whole bunch of chocolate candy I didn't want to have around, yes, I'd have DH take it to his office.

I think I've thrown out Halloween candy before, too. Normally we are very anti-waste, but--it's CANDY.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by Calidris

well the flip side to that is the "eat everything on your plate" message. And I don't like that that message at all. I struggled with that for a bit, but in the end I decided that i would rather throw away what DD doesn't want than eat it myself (feed here not junk).

That depends, imo, on how you handle the "eat everything on your plate" thing. I don't expect my kids to eat everything on their plates, if I dish it out. If they choose to take more food than they want, then they can finish it before taking something else.

I don't mind my kids eating the candy at Halloween. If it were a big problem for me, I wouldn't take them trick-or-treating. There are other fun things to do at Halloween.


As for donating extra candy, I'll admit I've never done that. I'll try to keep it in mind. Honestly...I have trouble with donating, in general. It's not that I object to it - far from it. It's not even that it's too much work. It's just that I have phone phobia issues, and I find it hard to find donation information online (not sure why), and sometimes even find it hard to find phone numbers. I donate gently used clothes, but they're stockpiling a little...because the drop-off bins are all disappearing. I wouldn't know where to donate candy.

[GuildJenn]

I love the cookie plan. That's what happened with us last year.

We went to two Hallowe'en events - a trick-or-treat at my son's daycare and then my son went out for half an hour on our block. We ourselves gave out pencils, play-dough, and candy (we let the kids pick out two things).

I thought we would end up with a limited amount of candy. We ended up with a ton!!! Seriously I could not believe it. We couldn't work our way through it so all the chocolate stuff ended up in our Xmas baking (which we give away). I put a bag of extra candy in the food bank bin at the grocery store. But seriously I still don't know how we ended up with so much stuff like that.

I really think if people want to throw it out, it's okay with me. Yes, it's a waste - right now it's the gap between what we kind of know about consuming candy and our need to go through the cultural ritual. When I was growing up we got apples, bags of home-popped popcorn, peanuts, cookies, homemade toffee etc., that were both less packaged and also a broader range of food.

But now that's not the norm - nut allergies, fears of poisoning, etc. have changed that and I just am not sure we've really caught up.

If parents want to bridge the gap with a bit of waste well, that's ok. The packaging is already thrown out, so the waste factor is really high whether it has the food in it or not.

[loraxc]

Really, you all think I should use a gallon or more of gas to drive to a homeless shelter to give them 10 to 20 tootsie rolls?

Yeah, this is kind of boggling my mind a little bit, too. I mean, if I had a HUGE BAG of candy, like a pound, I wouldn't toss it. But, you know, 20 little pieces? I'm supposed to be agonizing over this? (BTW, I donate and volunteer quite generously.)

How many of you order food that you can't finish in a restaurant? Do you ever throw out the rest of a soda or coffee? Have you ever accepted food at a gathering to be polite but then not finished it? I mean, not that I am advocating this American way of eating wastefully, but I'm just sort of bemused by the judgement and anger here when I think the vast majority of posters probably waste lots of food.

I think it's not so much about food as about a sense of "How dare you throw away something *I* bought???" Well, it happens. You give what you give, and you can't control what happens after it is given.

[GoBecGo]

My azz would thank me if i tossed it, but we all love candy here, so we eat it! I don't mind if other people toss what i give them, so long as they don't call me to tell me they did (would seem really off/odd to do that). To be fair we give out nuts and fruit as well as candy at hallowe'en and i bet a LOT more of my satsuma's get tossed by kids than my cookies or shop-bought lollies etc. do!

[aprons_and_acorns]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

I wouldn't know where to donate candy.

If you put it in a decent container like a little Halloween bucket or a gift bag, nothing fancy but just to make it look nice and clean, there are a lot of places you could drop it off as a little treat for people on the job. I would take it to the library, the post office, the bank, the grocer, the child care place, a real estate or insurance office, the school, the hospital, the family enrichment center, anywhere with a lot of customers or employees. Chances are someone will want it and appreciate it, or take it home to their families. A lot of businesses this time of year have a little container of candy up by the register for customers to take one. This is coming from a small town perspective by the way! It might be different in different places. Around here it wouldn't go to waste, and the places I mentioned above would recognize me and it wouldn't be like I was some stranger coming in with candy.

[aprons_and_acorns]

By the way, I'm imagining a regular amount of Halloween loot, like a mix of little candy bars, M&Ms, lollipops, etc. when I suggest bringing it in to working people. If it's just the "dregs" of Halloween, a few hard Mary Janes and some old black and orange peanut taffy, stale bubble gum, yeah I wouldn't bother with that. I would just toss it.

[sunshine's mama]

I've tossed it bc it gets forgotten about and old.

We go to the neighborhood I grew up in bc old friends bring their friends to trick or treat at grandma/grandpa's.

We start on the right side of the street and hit the 8 houses or so on that side, cross the street and hit the houses on the other side of the street. Sometimes they are all home, sometimes they aren't. So we don't end up with a TON of candy. Some of it dd1 doesn't even like so I'll have a bite and that's about it.

There is a dentist on the street and she looks forward to her new toothbrush and apple (we take the apple bc we know him well)......There is an older gentleman (I'd say early 70s) who passes out little golden books.....so I spose we don't get all candy.

My friends just take it to their office after letting their kids eat a few bites on Halloween and after keeping a few pieces for treats etc.....

[paxye]

We love to go ToTing but because of allergies the kids can't keep much of it...

Our solution is to go out early, ToT for a while and then come home and quickly separate what they can and can't have and then give what they can't have out to later ToTers... no waste and as much as my kids love going door to door and getting candy and treats... they also love giving it out again along with something else I get to give out (last year was glow sticks)

[JL83]

Every single grocery store around here has a donation bin for food! Even the floofy over priced natural/organic store has one.

How hard is it to take the bag of candy you don't want, put it in the large cardboard bin, and then go do your shopping?

There's no phoning or driving or anything beyond what you normally do.

Even the dreaded evil Walmarts have them.

That way the candy could go to people while it's still pretty fresh and be enjoyed by someone who wouldn't otherwise get any.

[DevaMajka]

I tend to think that wasting candy isn't the same as wasting food. Eating candy just to avoid wasting it actually has a negative impact on our health. If it's just thrown away, it's still gone, but we are healthier for it.
BUT it does seem wasteful (money, resources, etc) to take it with the intention of throwing it out.

Originally Posted by meowee

If someone gave you a pack of cigarettes would you throw them away or donate them? Candy is not much better than cigarettes. You're doing the world a favor by throwing it away. Sugar, HFCS, artificial flavors/ coloring, hydrogenated fats, preservatives, an often sticky consistency which is horrible for teeth and gums.

Just to play the other side- wouldn't it be better to not have any money go to the cigarette (or candy) company in the first place? To not waste the resources to make the product?

Originally Posted by lilyka

as a kid i never got candy because we were too poor. one fun sized bar would have mede my day. someone brought us groceries once and can still remember exactly what fun cereal was in that bag. junk yes. some yummy, fun and like the other kids though. I am so glad someone took the time to donate that! it filled more than my tummy

Thank you for sharing that. I will remember it for a very long time, and it will definitely affect my donating in the future .

[Alyantavid]

Originally Posted by JL83

Every single grocery store around here has a donation bin for food! Even the floofy over priced natural/organic store has one.

How hard is it to take the bag of candy you don't want, put it in the large cardboard bin, and then go do your shopping?

There's no phoning or driving or anything beyond what you normally do.

Even the dreaded evil Walmarts have them.

That way the candy could go to people while it's still pretty fresh and be enjoyed by someone who wouldn't otherwise get any.

That's a great idea if it's available to you. I've never seen any food donation bins here that take anything except for boxed or canned items.

[pjs]

Wow this thread is so amazing to me! Throwing away candy is wasteful and greedy but on the happy meal thread buying a happy meal so the kid can get a piece of MIC junk and then not have to eat the food (because it's crap anyway and not nutritious at ALL) is ok for special occasions. Huh?

We throw away the candy we won't eat- like almond joys, hard candies, etc

Oh, my dentist "buys" back Halloween candy for so much a pound (I'm sure that ends up in the trash too)

[JL83]

Originally Posted by Alyantavid

That's a great idea if it's available to you. I've never seen any food donation bins here that take anything except for boxed or canned items.

Here they are just large cardboard boxes. People put into them what they like.

I went to church with a woman who worked at the food bank and she said that they will accept and use any and all "sealed" type things. So individually wrapped candy is perfectly OK.

Are you sure yours only accept boxed and canned goods? Most of the time they are just labeled against perishables.

[crl]

Originally Posted by JL83

Every single grocery store around here has a donation bin for food! Even the floofy over priced natural/organic store has one.

How hard is it to take the bag of candy you don't want, put it in the large cardboard bin, and then go do your shopping?

There's no phoning or driving or anything beyond what you normally do.

Even the dreaded evil Walmarts have them.

That way the candy could go to people while it's still pretty fresh and be enjoyed by someone who wouldn't otherwise get any.

Ok, that makes sense to me for an unopened bag of Halloween candy. But I can't imagine that they really want individual pieces of candy, like starbursts or tootsie rolls, floating around in there. (Those are the kinds of things that end up left over around here. If it's mini chocolate bars, we eat it.) I'd think it would be hard to sort little pieces like that and the individual wrappers would get torn and it would just end up with the food bank having to pick them all out of the other food and pitching them.

Maybe most of the disagreement on this thread is really about how much candy people are envisioning being thrown away? I can see being more motivated to find a "home" for the candy if it was hundreds (or even dozens) of pieces of candy. . . .


Catherine

[JL83]

As far as I know, from people who work at the food bank and work with charities in general, is that they are happy to take pretty much everything. They put together bags of loose candy to give people. Not everyone wants loose candy, but most stuff is still fine to give away.

We have a youth emergency shelter here that will take perishables too. It's pretty awesome.

[EnviroBecca]

Loraxc wrote:

How many of you order food that you can't finish in a restaurant? Do you ever throw out the rest of a soda or coffee? Have you ever accepted food at a gathering to be polite but then not finished it? I mean, not that I am advocating this American way of eating wastefully, but I'm just sort of bemused by the judgement and anger here when I think the vast majority of posters probably waste lots of food.

I can't speak for the majority, but I'll speak for myself: I normally eat everything on my plate, literally every grain of rice and sauce scraped up with the side of my fork. If a restaurant serves me more than I can eat, I bring home leftovers (if possible, I bring my own containers for them), and I or someone in my family will eat them. It's very unusual for me to throw away part of a non-water beverage, and I even tend to finish my water if possible (sometimes restaurants refill so often I can't keep up!) or give it to a plant. If I've accepted food to be polite, I'll eat it if I possibly can (I'm not painfully full, and it doesn't literally make me gag) and adjust my eating later in the day to compensate. My partner and I finish things our kid doesn't want. I don't care what's the American way or what "everyone" does; I hate seeing stuff go to waste! When I worked as a restaurant dishwasher, I actually found it difficult to resist eating leftovers from strangers' plates; I did refrain, because of germs, but it was hard to scrape all that good food into the garbage. We do sometimes have food go bad in our house, and it makes me so sad, even if we can compost it to make fertilizer for our flowers, because the resources and human effort that went into growing the ingredients and preparing the food did not get used as efficiently as they should.

[JL83]

Originally Posted by loraxc

How many of you order food that you can't finish in a restaurant? Do you ever throw out the rest of a soda or coffee? Have you ever accepted food at a gathering to be polite but then not finished it? I mean, not that I am advocating this American way of eating wastefully, but I'm just sort of bemused by the judgement and anger here when I think the vast majority of posters probably waste lots of food.

I think a better analogy would be whether or not posters go to a buffet and load up 5 plates full of food, then eat 2 bites off each plate, and throw the rest away.

[moondiapers]

I agree that it's wasteful, but I also don't want my kids to miss out on the fun. So here's what we do......when we notice the bag of candy is getting too full....we stop trick or treating. I tell the kids that it's mean to take more than you can use...that it makes it so that some other kids might not get any.


Then we come home....and pick out the things that they can eat (things that don't adhere to teeth) and the rest gets dumped in the bowl along with the candy that we purchased for trick-or-treaters...and we give it out to the kids that knock on our door.

Examples of candies that we keep....we keep chocolate, hard candies, pixie sticks...but not taffy, caramels, tootsie rolls or sugary gums...we try not to eat things that are hard to remove from your teeth afterward because dental problems are really prevalent in our family on both sides. But most of the time we're able to give them out to other trick or treaters. Any that is left at the end of the night though, does get tossed. We just CAN't have tons of candy in our home. It will get munch on constantly until it is gone....and dh and I have both had weight loss surgery.

[littlemizflava]

yes i really feel like that would be a waste of money, someone bought it to give out to be nice. i would feel hurt knowing i spent enough on buying treats and they are thrown in the trash my money was wasted. we get 200-300 kids some years even more so yes that is alot of money buying treats.

if you dont want your dc to have lots of candy when you go to the door you can say "just give them one candy please" ya i have done it before. the point of trick or treating should be the fun not just the candy.

we shell out and we go out trick or treating. i dont want my kids to bring home huge amounts of candy so i just let them take a really small bag for the candy when it is full we go home. if there is things i dont want them to have or no one likes it goes in the shell out bucket.