7 Reasons to Fall in Love with Left Over Food

We humans need to eat to survive. And to fulfill this basic need, we have through the stages of evolution come up with ways to make our meals more enjoyable.

We all love to enjoy a finger-licking meal. And sometimes in our food preparations, we may make more food than we can consume at a specific meal time, leaving some leftovers to be consumed later.

I am a great lover of leftover food.

I have heard lots of people complain about it though. I have a friend who likes her food freshly prepared. And she consumes leftovers with disdain, complaining that she feels as though it sucks the life out of her.

And I imagine she is not the only one who needs a few reasons and remainders to love leftovers. Here are 7 reasons to help you change your mind if you are in this club.

It helps you save time and frees up more time for relaxation Food preparations can take a lot of time, especially when preparing intricate meals for many people. To save some time one can prepare more food to have leftovers.

For example, make more food during lunch hour to have some leftovers for dinner. This will leave you with some relaxation time before dinner, time that would have been spent preparing another meal.

Food preparations also lead to lots of dirty dishes that would need to be washed. Combining food preparations helps you save this time of washing more dishes which leads to more relaxation time.

A love for leftovers could help you save time and give you more time to relax.

It helps prevent food wastage Lots of people throw away their leftovers in preference for freshly cooked meals. This leads to a lot of food wastage which is sad, particularly in a world with food insecurity.

Learning to love and enjoy leftovers could help prevent this. Not just at the global level but at the household level too. Why would you throw out perfectly edible food? Just because you had a few bites of it or because you ate a portion of it yesterday?

Learn to consume your leftovers for these reasons

It saves you money.

Enjoying leftovers could also help you save money. This is right from the preparation stage and all the way to storage.

When you prepare more food at once, you save on gas, water, essentials etc. When you consume your leftovers, you also prevent food wastage and save on money that would have otherwise been spent on buying other food.

It will help you maximise your resources.

Right from when you prepare more food at one go leaving some leftovers to be consumed later, you are maximising your resources next to saving money and time.

Relatively the same amount of gas, water and other essentials could be used to prepare more food. When you do this a number of times, you maximise their usage.

It’s yummier when flavour has time to fuse

Did you know that some leftovers are yummier than their freshly prepared counterparts?

Yes. Some foods particularly vegetables such as spinach, eggplant, okra and green peppers have flavour taking abilities. This means that they take the flavours of the other foods that they have been prepared in.

When you let such foods and meals lay for a while, they marinate and have enhanced flavours that make these meals taste yummier. Even overnight cake is tastier than freshly baked cake!

Fall in love with leftover food so that you can experience wonderful yummier tastes of your self prepared meals.

It helps spur your culinary creativity Many times when you have gone into your fridge and found some leftover food and had thoughts of bringing them alive so that you may enjoy them in a meal. Found some leftover mashed potatoes? Why not fry an egg as an accompaniment.

Found some leftover beef fry? Why not enjoy it with some toasted bread and coffee for breakfast.

Or you could even throw it in a pan add some red and yellow peppers, sautee them for a minute and enjoy a leftover fresh meal!

Leftovers can help bring out the hidden chef in you.

It can help create new recipes for yourself When playing around with leftovers trying to freshen up a meal for yourself, you may even come up with a brand new recipe!

New recipes are created when foods are mixed or cooked in ways they have never been cooked in before. And leftovers could help you do just that!

It is good to note that leftovers need to be stored properly and under the right conditions for them to retain their flavours and their nutritional value. Store your food in clean, stainless, tightly-sealed containers. And place them in cool and dry places away from the reach of small children, pests or animals. Otherwise storing them poorly could lead to them being tampered with or going bad, which will lead to food wastage and lost resources. Also, consuming this food could lead to food poisoning or other health issues.

As you enjoy your newfound love for leftovers, remember to mix it up a bit and still enjoy freshly made food to avoid culinary boredom!