Food Waste and Toddlers: Accepting the Messy Middle

It’s Okay to Waste Food: Confessions of a Toddler Parent

I want to be a responsible, environmentally conscious human.

But I also have a toddler.

I hate wasting food — I really do. But if there’s one thing raising a small child has taught me, it’s that food waste is an inevitable part of the process. You can only do so much to control it. Some days, you just have to say goodbye to the bowl of soggy cereal and move on.

This essay has been simmering in my mind for a long time. It’s there every time I scrape untouched food into the trash, or when I’m crouched under the high chair picking sticky pasta off the floor. The waste nags at me. It feels worth talking about — but I’ve struggled to find the right angle.

And then I realized: that is the angle.

Raising a toddler leads to food waste. That’s my reality. And I’ve made peace with it.

So, consider this a small manifesto. I recognize the situation, I take whatever reasonable steps I can to reduce the waste — and then I let go of the guilt. That’s my best effort, and that’s enough.

When it’s just us adults, food waste is easier to manage. We know our appetites. We serve ourselves what we’ll eat. Toddlers? They’re chaos with legs. What they devour one day, they won’t touch the next. Last night, mine inhaled enough steak, cheese, bell peppers, and cucumber to feed a linebacker. Tonight? She’s declared a strict diet of a single rice cake.

Our pediatrician once gave me a piece of advice I now repeat to myself daily:
“Don’t worry about the meal. Don’t even worry about the day. Look at the whole week.”

And it’s true. Some days she eats like a competitive eater. Other days, it’s crackers for every meal. I have to believe she’ll be fine. Eventually, a vegetable will pass her lips again.

I’ve gotten better at adjusting based on her preferences. She doesn’t love leftovers. She enjoys a wide variety of foods, but she likes them served separately — a deconstructed plate, if you will. I once made a delicious pumpkin and bean chili, confident she’d like it. After all, she loves pumpkin. Loves beans. But she wouldn’t touch the chili. Turns out she wanted pumpkin and beans — just not together.

That still feels like a parenting win. She ate the ingredients, after all. But I still had to toss her untouched chili portion. And that’s the thing — teaching a kid to eat involves trial, error, and a whole lot of waste.

My job is to expose her to the world of food. She needs to see it, smell it, maybe taste it if she’s feeling adventurous. My job is to offer it. Over and over again. Even if she only eats the sauce with a spoon and rejects the pasta. One day, she’ll come around.

In the meantime, I keep portions small. But I also have to be ready in case she does like something. If she wants more and I don’t have it immediately, the moment passes. She’s on to the next thing — a toy, a tantrum, a nap. Timing is everything. She wants what she wants right now, or not at all.

For example: she was on a banana kick. So I stocked up. Naturally, the second I filled the fruit bowl, she lost all interest. Banana muffins it is.

That’s life with a toddler — just when you think you’ve figured them out, they flip the script.

So I’ve adapted. I’ve become a scavenger. I eat her leftovers. It helps me feel better about the waste. On some mornings, her half-eaten pancakes make the perfect quick breakfast for me — convenient and often sneakily nutritious.

But let’s be honest — it’s not always appetizing. I don’t like shrimp, and she loves it. Sometimes I’m just not hungry. And while it helps reduce food waste, this habit can take a toll on my health and eating habits.

We hear a lot about preserving your identity and mental health in early parenthood. But I think we also need to say this louder:
You are allowed to eat what you want — not just what your kid didn’t.

I don’t have to finish her chicken nuggets just because she left them behind. I don’t need to turn her scraps into my snack. We both had our meals, and that’s okay.

So again, I give myself permission to let it go. To scrape the plate. To throw out the rice that was only poked, not eaten.

Because modeling healthy eating goes beyond what we put on the plate. It includes how we talk about food, how we respond to fullness, how we treat meals. I want her to know it’s okay to stop eating when you’re full. It’s okay to try something and not like it. And maybe — just maybe — it’s not okay to throw everything on the floor. But we’re working on that.

So to all the fellow toddler parents out there: repeat after me —
It’s okay to waste food.

If we’re doing our jobs right, the small sacrifices we’re making now — those uneaten Cheerios, the abandoned broccoli florets — are investments in future healthy eating. Let’s not stress over the soggy cereal. One day, they’ll eat the pasta with the sauce. We just have to be patient.