No Waste Family

That is what I call our family to our kids whenever they do something that is wasteful to me--"What family are we?" In monotone unison, "The no waste family." "That's right so eat that last grain of rice!"

I really hate it when things or food go to waste. I am not sure if it is the Korean immigrant mentality in me, the tree hugger in me, or the scrooge in me--probably a combination of all three.

While I don't go to the lengths of 1st generation Korean moms who would reuse ziplock bags (I actually rarely use ziplocks because they are not recycleable, but if I do and there are no greasy food particles in it, I will use it to wrap Sam's poopy pull-up), I am pretty bad, or good, depending on your perspective--

All the artwork our children do at home is on the back of a piece of paper. Only if they are drawing a picture for someone's birthday card, do I give them ONE piece of clean paper. When I give them the pristine sheet of paper, their eyes light up like it is Christmas.

If there is cake leftover from a birthday party, I see it as my own personal mission to eat it all up before it goes bad. Once we had 1/4 sheet of ice cream cake left and I ate it all up on my own in less than a week. It was a tough job but the thought of throwing out all that cake was too painful.

As far as I am concerned, those "best used by" dates on food are an approximation, give or take a year...and that includes dairy products. Chang and I are big into the sniff test. A little sour odor just means there are more active bacteria to help us poop better...waaay better.

Reduce, reuse, recycle!