Areia, I hear what you are saying about waste. Food does use resources and we are so forunate to have access to it. It is wasteful to throw it away. But I look at it in that it is also wasteful if I eat what I don't need. Either way, the food is not being used appropriately. In my body, however, it creates harm. Socking away cream cheese frosting calories on my behind would be wasteful too....my body doesn't need it.

Does anyone else remember the movie Labyrinth? At one point, the girl comes across someone who lives in a junkyard and carries around all of this stuff. This person starts loading the girl up with stuff and junk too until she is physically impaired by what she is carrying.

That's how I try to view leftovers/junk food. Do I want to carry it in/on my body? Strain my heart, arteries? There's so much evidence showing how some foods increase the risk of cancers, illnesses, etc. The waste of my health is a far greater waste.

I agree with the posters saying that eating leftovers just to avoid wasting them is a bad idea. I saw my grandmother doing plenty of that, even with foods she didn't like, and I don't think it makes sense. Instead, as some you said, I make sure to have good strategies in place to avoid ending up with tub of frosting in the fridge - they just broke down because I was too sick to organize.

By now, a few days into feeling better, the remaining leftovers have been distributed to others. The pretzels are divided into sensible portions. The errant frosting has been combined with the leftover cake and frozen into cakeballs to be taken to a friend's party next weekend, where they can help build someone else's hips. (I suppose I could defrost them and tempt myself, but at that point it's easier to just eat one of my healthy snacks).

So no, I'm still not throwing anything out. I don't expect anyone else to live by my rules, but I know that I have better ways of avoiding temptation than throwing food away.

It's very nice that you hosted a party for other people, but it's unfortunate that the leftovers remained in your home. Our whole household has covenanted to eat healthily. My husband has the ability to "cheat" when my daughter and I can't see him (he's "skinny" but flabby vegetarian) so we are not tempted or undercut by his cheating. If other people eat in our home, they eat what we eat, period, because it is our home. It's really no different than being a no-smoking house or a no-alcohol house. We happen to be a house where we eat food for nourishment, not entertainment or comfort. There are establishments that serve all kinds of food where all our needs can be met, so we meet people there. Likewise, if we go to someone else's house, we don't expect that our needs will necessarily be met there.

I understand that you don't want to waste the food, but why shoot yourself in the foot keeping it in your fridge? Call PADS, put a note out on Craigslist, take the food to work. Frosting (even one little lick) isn't a food you can eat on any diet that I know of, so why are you keeping it in your fridge for one minute longer than you have to? That's just torture! Make your home your safe haven, your sanctuary, your refuge. When you open your fridge, it should be filled with wonderful, wholesome options, not pitfalls and stumbling blocks.