Monday Q&A-Dishwashing, Pets, Grocery Budget, and Picky Eating
Every Monday I answer a few questions from you, my readers! If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post (or a question that you'd like me to pose to my husband), leave me a comment, or email me (the frugal girl {at} gmail {dot} com) and put "Q&A" in the subject line.
Is it better to wash dishes by hand or use the dishwasher every day?
-Anne
I researched this a bit when our electric company raised our rates by 70%, and most of the evidence I found suggested that a dishwasher is more energy efficient than hand-washing. Amy Dacyzyn tested this out back when she was publishing her Tightwad Gazette, and she found that even the most water efficient hand washer (the type that uses a bin of water to rinse dishes) could only tie with (not beat) the energy efficiency of a dishwasher.
She concluded that if you didn't already own a dishwasher, you could save money by not buying one, but that if you already owned one, using it to wash your dishes would cost you no more than washing by hand.
That was back when dishwashers were less energy efficient than they are now, so if anything, the odds are more in favor of the dishwasher these days.
My kitchen is not set up well for hand-washing, so I was relieved to learn that hand washing was not going to save me any money! I use my dishwasher for most of my dishes, but I hand-wash large items (like mixing bowls and baking sheets) and items that are not dishwasher safe (like cast-iron pots and wire strainers).
Do you have any pets, and if so, do you include pet food in your weekly grocery budget?
-Wendy
The only pets we have are two fish and a solitary hermit crab. The food for these kinds of pets only needs to be purchased about twice a year, and it's only a couple of dollars, so I don't bother including it in the grocery budget!
I am SO not an animal person, and so the idea of having a creature in my house that I have to feed, clean up after, and take to the doctor is not remotely appealing to me. I already have plenty of people that need feeding, cleaning, and taking to the doctor! Fish and hermit crabs are very low maintenance, so I am fine with those. Anything larger would make me kind of cranky, though. 😉
Does your $100/week grocery budget include things like toilet paper, makeup, soap, shampoo, razor blades, dishwasher detergent, shaving cream, OTC medicines, laundry detergent, trash bags, etc? I was just wondering how you account for all that.
-Wendy
(This is one of the most common questions I get, and when I finally get around to making a "Frequently Asked Questions" page, this one will so be on it!)
Yep. My grocery budget includes food, beverages, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and paper/plastic products. Part of the reason this is possible is that I don't use a lot of paper/plastic products, and I also don't use a ton of cleaning supplies either.
You'll often see toilet paper in my grocery pictures, and shampoo and dishwasher detergent are in there semi-regularly as well.
i was just wondering this about your food waste so i thought i'd ask: do you throw away food from your families plates if they don't finish? or do you have an "eat everything on your plate" policy?
-Elizabeth
Good question! I know I've mentioned something about this in passing, but it's been a while.
We don't have an "eat everything on your plate" rule at our house, but neither are we especially soft on picky eating.
Here's how we run things. At dinner, I put an appropriately sized serving of food on our kids' plates. They each get a portion of all the things we're eating, so even Zoe gets a salad with her meal if that's what we're having as our veggie.
If our kids eat what is on their plates, then they can have more of the main dish, side dish, or fruit/vegetable. Not being huge main dish fans, they usually opt for seconds of the side dishes. Also, if they eat what is on their plates, they can pick a small treat from our treat box after dinner (this would be something like a Starburst candy, a small Tootsie Roll or something similar).
If they don't eat what is on their plates, that is no problem. They're free to do that if they choose, and they do sometimes. However, if they don't eat the food that's on their plates, we don't offer them other food choices (for instance, if Zoe eats her roll but not her chicken or her salad, we don't offer her more rolls until she eats her chicken and salad). And of course, we don't offer them a piece of candy if they haven't eaten their dinner, because I don't want to encourage our kids to eat Starburst instead of broccoli.
I know Amy Dacyzyn had harder-nosed rules about plate-cleaning than we do (and people threatened to call CPS on her over it!), but this works pretty well for us. Though all of our kids have gone through fairly picky phases between the ages of 2 and 5 (Zoe's currently in that phase!), the older three are now at the point where they cheerfully eat almost anything I serve to them.
Anyhow! All of that is to say that the older three rarely have food left on their plates (this is a result of me giving them appropriately sized portions and also them being used to eating their dinner). Zoe does often have food left on her plate at dinner and what I do with it depends on what condition it's in. For instance, if she has salad left, I'll just eat it (her salads are pretty small to begin with!). Or if she has some of her main dish left and it's hardly been touched, I refrigerate it for later use. Sometimes she has leftovers that I don't want to eat and that I don't want to save, though, and those usually go into the compost bin.
The amount of waste that is produced this way is very minimal, though. Plate waste was never really the big problem in our house...produce and leftovers comprised most of my food waste, and so that's been my main focus.
I am a grandma many times over now but when our two daughters were young we had pretty much the same dinner rules as you do. You must taste everything prepared and no dessert unless you eat at least a little of it. And often, there was no dessert to be had since that was not standard issue at our house. The longterm result: one daughter eats pretty well and the other still does not in her mid-thirties, although she reads books on nutrition. After thinking this over for some time and watching some of the fairly current literature on how we taste things, I've concluded that my not-good eater and my husband are semi-supertasters. Neither is a full-blown supertaster but they both exhibit some of the characteristics of one. My husband, for instance, says that peaches are bitter to him. He also doesn't like whole wheat bread and a number of other common, nutritious foods for the same reason. I can't change the way he tastes any more than I can change the way I do. He and I practically NEVER agree on bitterness in food and we also seldom agree on what we like.
I think your rules are right, Kristen. They are absolutely in line with the way I would probably do it today if rearing children all over again, but there are some things beyond a parent's (or wife's) control. How we taste is one of them. You are lucky to have eaters at your house with similar tastes.
I'm glad you don't force your kids to clean their plates--it's a bad idea to teach children (or anyone, for that matter!) to ignore feelings of fullness and just blindly gobble down whatever's on their plate.
I definitely agree with Cate.
Since you do not offer other food choices if one of the kids
isn't eating what is on their plate, they will learn to eat what is served when they are hungry enough. In today's society with obesity rampant in children, you are model for other parents to follow. You are teaching your children good eating habits and serving them nutritious food.
My son was a very picky eater when young and during the toddler through first grade years, he would chew his food forever, and thereby taking a long time to eat a meal.
Now he is 24, and eats all vegetables and meats and willingly tries new dishes. We never bribed him with desert (deserts were only on special ocassions like birthdays and holidays) or made him "hurry up". There were times I worried if he was getting enough to eat as he was very slim, but he eats well now and is still slim. So, for any parents out there reading this, your children won't starve to death if you don't fix them
something else if they don't like what is served. They will eat when hungry !
"I can't change the way he tastes any more than I can change the way I do." I agree with Carla about this. We have a kid (8) who is a supertaster and of course he's been this way his whole life. He's also extremely sensitive to just about everything: light, noise, other people's moods, textures like tags in his shirts, and the textures and tastes of food. He's getting more adventurous as he gets older, but it's been a long, hard haul just to get to this point. He looks so skinny (but 50% percentile on the doctor's scale, so I know he's really okay) and to keep him going, I prepare something from his favorites list and then he tries whatever my husband and I are having. Last night, he tried a casserole containing broccoli and cauliflower and even liked it, which was practically a miracle. Every time he adds something to his repertoire (like he's finally eating grapes and no longer freaking out about the texture of the skin!), it's cause for great celebration around here.
I also applaud you for letting them have treats. When I was a kid, I never knew when I'd be allowed those forbidden items, so when I did get my hands on some candy, I just went crazy on it. By time I got to junior high with its tempting vending machines, I ate a fruit pie and honey roasted peanuts (at least some protein and fiber there!) for lunch every day, followed by something else sweet when I was home alone after school. Yeah, I was quite the chub and I had a ton of cavities. Ah, the '70's. So with my kid, he has a little treat every day (eaten with some allergy medicine he doesn't like but has to take) and that way, he's content with just a piece or two. His Halloween candy lasts all year because he parcels it out, he's never sat and eaten the whole bag like I would have. It sounds like your kids can handle it well, too.
Julia, my son sounds sort of similar to yours. He didn't have so many issues with the texture of his food, but he had terrible issues with his clothes. He's a lot better now, but he was SO particular about how his clothes and shoes felt and fit when he was younger.
And yes, that's exactly right about the treats. I want my kids to learn what it feels like to eat ONE piece of candy and stop, or to eat two cookies and then stop. I worry that if I ban sugar altogether, they'll do like you did once they get older and eat it in unhealthy amounts. So, I'm hoping that this will help them to learn moderation. It's the way my parents handled treats when I was growing up, and it's worked out pretty well for me and my siblings.
Carla, I've never heard of the supertaster idea/research. I'll have to google it and educate myself! My husband has some texture issues (for instance, he hates eggs because of the texture), so maybe that's why.
Julia - kudos to your son, that's he's willing to try new things despite the fact most of them turn out to be unpleasant. That's just awesome!
The true supertaster phenomenon is actually very rare. The rest of us just have likes and dislikes. Which strikes me as OK, too, as long as we aren't rude to our hosts.
For me the tough one is how to handle kids' pickiness when I have some myself. I dislike egg yolks, rich creamy goops including mayo and avocado, and loathe coffee with my entire being. Given that, how far do I go to accommodate, say, my nieces' preferences - even if I think they're just too darn picky.
PS: Broccoli rules! It's a magic food, too: makes just about every top ten list of nutritionally awesome foods, along with cottage cheese, cantaloupe, and spinach.
It's not difficult to catch the basics: some people have more taste buds on their tongues than others do and sometimes they have more in certain spots. Most of these people will find things bitter that the rest of us don't. They experience taste at a greater intensity than the rest of us. They often don't care for vegetables, even relatively mild ones like broccoli. (Remember the first President Bush?) My husband will eat some broccoli, but I can tell he doesn't like it that much whereas if it is cooked right, I really do. Unlike many of the supertasters, though, he loves sweets and fatty foods. This is why I called him a semi-supertaster since he shares some of their characteristics but not all. Actually, he's pretty good about eating things he's not terribly fond of because he knows they are good for him, but it's not pleasurable to him, which is rather sad, actually. It does make it quite difficult to cook for him because we don't taste things the same way.
Supertasting is not a texture issue at all. Texture is an entirely different sensation from bitterness.
William, I have a handful of dislikes myself. I hate coffee in every single way, shape, or form it presents itself (like even in ice cream or with chocolate and whipped cream). I also don't like avocados or mushrooms (though I will eat mushrooms and I do like guacamole).
There are some other things I don't like in some forms...for instance, I HATE canned green beans, but eat fresh ones. That I consider to be more of a cooking preference than anything, though, or maybe a preference for fresh foods.
When it comes to other people's children, I don't feel bad about accommodating picky eating....the only kids' eating habits I worry about are my own kids'. When one of my kids has a picky friend visit, I let them cut off their crusts, I don't insist that they eat a salad, and so on.
Carla-that must not be my husband's issue, then! His dislikes are rarely based on flavor, but on texture.
I have a allergy to onions (I break out when I eat them) and despite being 27 years old and not under my parents care anymore, my dad still tells me I'm faking and that I should eat whatever is offered to me.
Besides my allergy I am a picky eater but I do at least try new things. I've always believed that if you at least try it and don't like it then you shouldn't have to eat it.
WilliamB: I'm siding with GHWB on broccoli. It's nasty when cooked and really only edible either raw or with gobs of high fatty substances such as cheese or cream soup on it. That's no health food, it's a bitter mess.
Have you ever tried baking broccoli in the oven? It's a lot less bitter that way. Just toss it with some olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet, and make sure to watch it so it doesn't scorch.
Here's a tip that I've heard to avoid food waste, and it works super for me. Have two containers in your freezer, one labelled "soup-to-be" and the other one "bread-pudding-to-be". All leftovers (unless gross) go into the soup if savory and into the bread pudding if sweet, unless there is enough of them to make a leftover meal for someone. Whenever the container is full, use it to make surprise soup or surprise bread pudding (mix half and half with "new" material.)
This is great for PBJ crusts, for example, or that vegetable that they won't eat. I used to just eat those leftovers (and had the weight gain to show for it); turning them into soup/bread pudding is much better.
If you don't have a steamer, try cooking broccoli this way: Boil just enough water to cover your florets in the pot. Put lid on (off of the heat). Wait 5 minutes. Eat your deliciously tender crisp green broccoli. No fatty substance required!
I prefer washing dishes by hand. I often have to clean dishes from our dishwasher after a load. This is after they have sat for several days before we get a full load. I feel like my hand washed dishes are cleaner and look brighter and shinier after being hand dried as well. It will take the machine about 90 minutes with drying cycle. I can do the whole thing in less than 30 minutes.
When I have seen comparisons, they only show water usage and do not take power usage into consideration.
Having said all that, if we can fill a load after having friends and family to dinner, I am happy to run a load in the dishwasher.
@hiptobeme: I think I'll just put a few in my salad. Cooking vegetables is a crime in my book.