How Do You Politely Stomach the Garbage People Feed You? Like Food Waste

I was made to feel bad about saying no, like being trapped in a perverse dynamic where someone could stab you, yet you were still expected to find a subtle way to distance and protect yourself without upsetting them. They are immoral, and yet, they feel entitled to their offense when you try to dodge them.

I'm not sure if anyone else has had to endure this, but there are moments when it feels as though I don't even have the right to protect my own dignity, to ensure the very food I eat is hygienic and safe to eat.

There was a period when my condition rendered me incapable of doing anything, let alone preparing my own meals. I was completely reliant on my partner for my meals. I couldn't even collect deliveries myself. I was unable to leave the house, and the delivery services wouldn't come to my floor.

One particular day, he stood there watching me eat with a strange, uncomfortable look. I took one bite. Then, he confessed that what I was eating was scraped and packed by his sibling from their leftovers.

It felt as if he, too, had been manipulated, made to believe it was acceptable to scrape together half-eaten food and present it as a proper, clean meal. Perhaps something in him knew it was wrong, and that conscience made him confess.

I suppose that was the only time I could praise him for having the moral clarity to reject and acknowledge that something was not right.

He told me I shouldn't eat it, that I should throw it away and order something new. From the way he spoke, he seemed restrained, unable to say too much because it was his sibling. He knew about the state of the food before it was recycled for me.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I know my circumstances mean I shouldn't be choosy, but it's not that I asked my partner to buy me food from expensive places like what they were having. But that doesn't mean that expensive food waste would suddenly become acceptable to deceptively feeding it to someone as if it were clean, freshly cooked food.

I’m not demanding luxury. I don't mind having something else; bread is less than a dollar.

On a separate occasion, according to him, there were constant chatters among his family, their disdain for people who don't work.

Also, I was told that they discussed me when my stories came out, naturally being indisposed, jobless is one of the main topics, though I hadn't pressed for details.

Now, those shows of disdain felt like they were for me, not just people who don't work—I was that person.

So, I was this useless, sick person, living under the mercy of my partner, that's okay to be treated like an animal deserving of scraps. Like it's acceptable to feed a useless person food waste and literal spit.

I wonder how many other times had they done that to me? I remembered the egg with its shell in soup (in our country, eggs aren't washed to preserve their bloom unless specifically sanitized) and the unknown accumulation of food grime.

They were only for me. He never got to have them. I had to finish every bit right before their eyes. I don't know how many times I had unknowingly consumed chicken shit, old food grime, and spit.

Since that day, I have rejected everything from them. Raw eggs, any food, and everything from them. Sometimes I wouldn't even touch souvenirs given to him.

Whether he was genuinely forgetful or feigning ignorance—one would surely know why I refused, given that history—his face would still contort with that look of disdain when I declined.

I’m at his mercy; I can't afford to offend him, remember?

I had to pretend I was full, even if I hadn't eaten all day, or act too busy to eat, discarding the food the moment he turned away. It was wasteful, but I couldn't risk giving away food that might be contaminated.

I actually learned this from him. He had always complained about his mother's horrible cooking, routinely pretending to take the food home, only to discreetly discard it later.

Meanwhile, eager to please her, I used to dutifully eat them all, always trying to find something positive to say, even though I secretly agreed with his thought of the taste.

Now, I'm constantly scrutinizing the food he bought, as if I can see the tell-tale sign. Some common ones, like a McDonald's set, are easy to tell; you can't piece together rotten lettuce and a chewed patty, can you? Or paste together half-eaten fried chicken, unless, of course, someone dredged the chicken on some surface—then I wouldn't know that.

Sometimes I would ask a lot of questions if I didn't know where he bought or got the food, or I'd pretend to ask something else to subtly find out if he was having a meal with certain people. There were times when certain liquid foods had little bubbles, like spit.

I didn't know if I should eat them or not. while I know that I wouldn't die from eating those things I knew and saw, but still, the thought of what I might have been fed made me eye everything with suspicion; I felt I would probably die from the sheer stress of it all before anything else.

I can't describe the sheer anguish each time I had to struggle with creating excuses, to politely decline things. My body would tremble, my teeth would grit, and sometimes, tears would well up in my eyes as I tried not to say it outright that I do not wish to eat shit or spit.

Food waste. Was it simply because I was a person who couldn't work that I deserved such treatment? Even when we offer food to someone on the streets, we ensure it's clean, untouched, and hygienic. We would also explain it, and we might ask if they mind.

I'm writing this based on how I was made to feel, what I saw, heard, experienced, and ate. I wasn't the one who opened this can of worms; his confession, which let out the worms, launched me into this paranoid stage. It's hard to blame me, because his confession seemed to correlate everything.

Did they have any idea about the dehumanizing nature of their actions, or am I merely the overly sensitive one, burdened by a morality that finds offense in everything?

I feel myself slipping back into that self-blaming mode again.

©Britt H.

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More about the person behind the writing in My Introductory Post