Things Mama Taught Me: "Clean Your Plate"

Doctors and nutritionists who are concerned about obese Americans no longer think eating everything on our plate was such a good idea. That was probably the start for many people of habitually eating beyond the satisfaction of their hunger. "Waste not, want not," was a stern lesson learned during Depression days by our parents or grandparents, and leaving food on one's plate was careless and wasteful.

A book I've just read with "rules" about food and eating suggests that I practice not cleaning my plate as I was taught, but instead leaving a few morsels so as to eat less and to develop self-control. As a matter of fact, not eating everything is an extremely important courtesy in some cultures to show that the host has provided adequately and the guest does not need to be served more food. Although we are not as concerned as some, it actually makes a lot of sense to give this visual signal to those who would press additional food on us.

Thinking of food and self-control and realizing again the significance of fasting during Lent, I saw in a new light the significance of not cleaning my plate. Could it be a mini-fast, a small reminder of how many people in the world are hungry? "Think of all the children in China who would like to have what you are leaving on your plate," my mother would tell me—as if my eating all of it would somehow fill their bellies. But there was more to it than that. I think her intention, besides curbing wastefulness, was to raise my awareness of the abundance I had while many others suffered lack.

Cleaning my plate down to the shine has become an ingrained habit through the years, so that it no longer has any connection at all with the hunger of many others in the world. I am wondering if not cleaning my plate might remind me of their need. "If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday." (Isaiah 58:10)


MaryMartha

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Art from http://www.sxc.hu/