Homemade shalach manus - bal tashchis

Log in / Sign Up

List of Forums + New Post Recipe Box Usergroups Following My Posts Bookmarks

Private Messages Advanced Search Rules New User Guide FAQ Advertise Contact Us

Forum -> Yom Tov / Holidays -> Purim

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next

View latest: 24h 48h 72h

salt

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 3:46 am

amother Indigo wrote:

And in my house the store brought sodas and snacks and wafers and alcohol go straight to the garbage…..

In the garbage?
Why would you throw out non-perishable items.
Donate them, give them to neighbours, friends, workplace, reuse them for other people's mishloach manot.
Why would you throw it out if it's closed?

amother

Indigo

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 3:46 am

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

WHY? Is it too much for you to donate it?
I will be more than pleased to take the alcohol. (Use it for baking and cooking usually)

Donate where? I don’t want to send it to shul where everyone who sent it will see that I passed it on…. I live in Israel , I don’t like the packaged goodies here, only homemade.

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 3:48 am

amother Lime wrote:

Maybe people just should do whatever is most fitting for their community. We and our neighbors love and eat homemade mm. There are no kashrut concerns, people know what they are doing.
If in other communities this is a non-starter, so don't.
However, here on imamother there are also every year many threads about throwing out store bought sweets because they are unhealthy and kids shouldn't eat them and whatnot.

So, no homemade goodies and no store bought sweets - what CAN one still use to fulfill the mitzvah?

Grape juice
Rice crackers
Tuna salad in cans
Canned gherkins and olives
Any canned vegetable or beans

watergirl

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 3:48 am

Wow! BH you have a lot of people who are enough about you to make the effort to bring you mm!! 20 iced coffees? We don’t even get 20 mm, much less 20 of one item. So many homemade perishables that fridge space is a concern? Ashreichem! You have a lot of people who love you!

OP in your case (and truthfully for anyone else who throws out perfectly good food), I think it’s best for you to notify everyone in advance not to bring you mm this year. You seem to have specific food preferences and concerns, which is every bit your right to have, but you should let the many people who send iced coffee not to waste it this year, you understand, and they should skip your family moving forward. Maybe send you one of those “in lieu of mm, a donation has been made in your name to XYZ tzeddakka”.

Also please consider not delivering too many mm, as people are sure to reciprocate with items that you are not comfortable eating. Just stick to a few people and then send other people cards as well.

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 3:54 am

amother Indigo wrote:

Donate where? I don’t want to send it to shul where everyone who sent it will see that I passed it on…. I live in Israel , I don’t like the packaged goodies here, only homemade.

Who said anything about shul?
There are offices
gmachim
Bikur cholim
Co workers
Hospitals or kupat cholim
The list is almost endless

amother

Stoneblue

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:11 am

There’s a post about this

https://www.imamother.com/foru.....50068

amother

Rainbow

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:12 am

And there I was thinking that there was no such thing as too many iced coffees. You learn something new every day!
(We probably get one a year and me and my husband ration it out between us. The kids don;t even know about it! I'll happily come to your house OP, and take care of your iced coffee problem.)

amother

Stoneblue

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:16 am

amother Rainbow wrote:

I’m actually making ice coffee for mm this year. Op I hope you’re not on my list Wink

amother

Impatiens

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:17 am

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

Grape juice
Rice crackers
Tuna salad in cans
Canned gherkins and olives
Any canned vegetable or beans

I've never seen canned gherkins. Only comes in glass jars.

amother

Calendula

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:20 am

amother Indigo wrote:

Donate where? I don’t want to send it to shul where everyone who sent it will see that I passed it on…. I live in Israel , I don’t like the packaged goodies here, only homemade.

I'm surprised you live in Israel and don't have organizations or individuals in your community who collect leftover goodies after purim. Where I live the possibilities are endless. There are afternoon programs for underprivileged kids, there are people who give out goodies in hospitals, there are collections for chayalim... There's always somewhere to donate your unwanted goodies.

watergirl

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:24 am

amother Indigo wrote:

And in my house the store brought sodas and snacks and wafers and alcohol go straight to the garbage…..

You are also somebody who should tell everybody before Purim This year you will be giving out tzedakka cards, and people should reciprocate with the same. Please do not let your friends waste their time and money to bring you something that’s not good enough for you that you can’t even be bothered to donate.

amother

Brown

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:28 am

amother Wallflower wrote:

This. I know someone who politely doesn't accept. Know your limits. If you can't handle the food and you feel bad about bal tashchis, you can just let people know that you don't want.

Where I live there was a campaign "make a donation to xyz instead of sending me MM". Maybe OP could launch a similar initiative where she lives? This would put an end to the waste.

That said, an elderly gentleman was all outraged when he received a card "we donated instead of sending you MM" - he wanted his MM!

amother

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:30 am

- many people don’t eat from at home bakeries that don’t have a hechsher

- the homemade perishables make me more sad than shelf stable because those at least can go to cleaning lady

- organizations don’t accept homemade.

- if you dump a box of purim leftovers in a local shul intended for people in need it will also go to the garbage. I have a relative who is a Gabbai - he told me he hangs up sign to please not leave purim food and no one listens and janitor has to throw it out

- iced coffees make me the most sad TBH. That’s so much milk wasted that could feed children. One year I decided to combine all the iced coffees into one large pitcher and offer a pitcher of iced coffee to someone who wants it after purim. No one wanted it because you never know what kind of milk is in it. Cholov stam, OUde, I had no takers and cleaning lady didn’t want either.

amother

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:41 am

My favorite shalach manus are the paper bags with 2 shelf stable items in them.
After purim we have a collection of little grape juice bottles that we sometimes use for kiddish, tiny alcohol bottles that I’ll use for baking over the year, snacks, tangerines and such things.

One year I got the most clever shalach manus.
It was a store bought bag of rolls with a pack of precut salami.
My kids ate salami sandwiches for lunch. There was no family sticker on the package and I wish I knew who it was from so I could tell them how brilliant their idea was.

This post wasn’t meant to offend anyone who makes shalach manus homemade. It was to raise awareness how not every person eats homemade from other kitchens and most people won’t tell an adorable raggedy Ann dresses girl to please take her iced coffee back home.

watergirl

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 4:56 am

amother OP wrote:

Again, the onus is on you to communicate to people that they should not come by with any kind of mm for you at all and you totally understand. Anyone who is selective in what they will eat should do the same. You are entitled to your food preferences, but you’re not entitled to waste other peoples food, time, and money.

Re: the pitcher of random mixed iced coffees, that doesn’t sound very appealing to be honest. I cannot imagine that would taste good with all the different special bruises and recipes people come up with to make their iced coffee taste good and special.

Re: unwanted MM donations in shul - If the janitor Is throwing them out and this is a known issue in your shul, then it is on the shul leadership to solve this problem.

Sidenote, do people in your community not label homemade goods? You indicated they did in your first post. We keep CY So if I send something dairy, I always label it CY.

I would love to hear from you regarding what you give.

amother OP wrote:

One year I got the most clever shalach manus.
It was a store bought bag of rolls with a pack of precut salami.
My kids ate salami sandwiches for lunch. There was no family sticker on the package and I wish I knew who it was from so I could tell them how brilliant their idea was.

most people won’t tell an adorable raggedy Ann dresses girl to please take her iced coffee back home.

If the salami was precut and packaged, and you have no idea who sent it, I'm surprised given the rest of your posts that you ate it, not knowing how long it's been out of the fridge and not knowing who cut it and what hechsher it had.

The point I was trying to make, which I think you missed, is not to send the cute girl home with her iced coffee, it's to tell everyone BEFORE PURIM not to send you any MM at all and to send tzedakka cards. You can't tell people what to bring and what not to bring, so just tell them not to bring.

amother

Honeysuckle

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 5:06 am

Jj ice coffee only need to be fridgerated after opening.

amother

Gladiolus

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 5:12 am

amother DarkGreen wrote:

OP, How about you tell us what you would love to get for MM?
A custom pre packaged charcuterie board does not count.... Nor does a 10$ chocolate.

Where I live the Torino chocolate bars are usually 2 for 4$/5$. I almost always give one of those, you know it’s not getting thrown out and it’s even KLP. I give it with something to match the colors of our costumes and it’s always super cute.

amother

Wallflower

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 5:54 am

amother OP wrote:

Home bakeries are not the same as items baked in someone's home, and a person's home does not need a hechsher.

I know which of my friends keep cy and which keep chalav stam. I'm not getting shalach manos from strangers.

amother

Lily

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 5:56 am

amother Gladiolus wrote:

Wow how many mishloach manos are you giving? Seems expensive to do that for a lot of people.

amother

Charcoal

Thu, Mar 07 2024, 5:58 am

We already had so many of those threads... can't please everyone!
Like posted before, If you're particularly picky, don't take mm!

I do not understand ppl that put stuff in the garbage!!! Sad

Page 2 of 5

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next