S/O Loose candy from Purim WDYD?

Bnei Berak 10

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 5:53 am

challahchallah wrote:

Anything and everything gets eaten if I put it out in the common area at work, so that’s usually how I dispose of things we won’t eat.

This is the BEST and most efficient way to get rid of anything you don't want. When you return home the container will be empty, promise you. Works every time.

watergirl

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 6:14 am

amother wrote:

Admit it... you weren’t wearing gloves, were you?
You stopped in the middle to answer your germ filled phone, fix your sliding off snood, put a few candies in your mouth and with your breath now all over your hands you continued to touch everyone else’s jelly beans. Did you really think people eat unwrapped candies? Yuck !

Ummm no. None of those actually.

amother

Beige

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 6:23 am

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

This is the BEST and most efficient way to get rid of anything you don't want. When you return home the container will be empty, promise you. Works every time.

Yes, my husband brings all the purim candy to work and leaves it in the snack and coffee room and it is gone a couple of hours later.

Simple1

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 7:32 am

If I trust the people who gave it and it was packaged clean and attractively, I would use it. People all the time repackage mini marshmallows, chocolate covered thingies etc. into pretty little boxes or bags. No riskier than eating homemade food - which I understand some won't eat.

SixOfWands

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 3:22 pm

Yocheved_G wrote:

Do you consider sugar & chemicals to be food?

A chemical is any substance consisting of matter. This includes any liquid, solid, or gas. A chemical is any pure substance (an element) or any mixture (a solution, compound, or gas). So kale is made of chemicals, as are beans, and lean chicken.

Energy is not a chemical. So, light, heat, and sound are not chemicals. Nor are they food.

Ergo, all foods are chemicals.

Our bodies also require sugar in order to function. In fact, all carbs are converted into sugar by our bodies. A cup of whole wheat past has more than 37 g of carbs -- which your body converts to sugar. A cup of split pea soup? 21 g of carbs. Sugar, sugar, sugar. And yes, its food.

A Laffy Taffy mini, BTW, has only 8 g of carbs.

If you're referring to treats with refined sugar, I think its extremely detrimental to children to disallow all treats. My kids were allowed treats. As teens, they eat mostly healthfully, and can take a square of chocolate and leave the rest for another time. But shall we talk about the times when they're treats were taken my kids who are never allowed a treat? It just makes them horde and binge.

I also abhor sanctimoniuos comments about how others eat.

33055

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 4:06 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

I don't know. If you never taste something, do you aquire a craving for it? I don't want lobster or ham.

My kids never acquired a taste for candy. I didn't give them candy in their formative years. They never had candy Shabbos parties. They are neither hoders, nor bingers. They hardly ate the candy they were given as prizes. Candy doesn't speak to them.

amother

Yellow

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 7:10 pm

amother wrote:

Do you eat meals from people after you have a baby? They didn’t wear gloves. Some people wear gloves handling raw chicken, but you can’t count on that.

amother

Sienna

Thu, Mar 01 2018, 11:42 pm

Maybe it IS a good idea for us to share some of these preferences here. I am NOT a germophobe, by any means, but I find loose candy in a mm to be very unappealing. In many cases it looks like it was packaged by children, which is wonderful and meaningful, but as I said, unappealing, even to a non-germophobe.

miami85

Fri, Mar 02 2018, 12:04 am

I repackaged candy into different bags according to our theme, but I was careful with how I handled them--I didn't wear gloves, but I washed my hands every time I changed activities. I was respectful of how I would want my food handled and since it was a candy that has a not-kosher version I mentioned the hechsher information on my poem-insert. I find it insulting that people "assume" that I wouldn't be careful with my mishloach manos and treat it as "garbage"--that is somewhat antithetical to the mitzvah. As for candy--honestly I try to teach my kids moderation, and they've been fairly good about not "pigging out" and I find that its all gone within a week. Not worth fighting over.

amother

Sienna

Fri, Mar 02 2018, 12:13 am

I think you have to keep in mind that the likelihood of any given mm is that it will be one of many. So packages of snacks and candies can be put away for future use. But random handfuls of jellybeans and gum drops are just not really store-able. I mean, how does that work really?

Bnei Berak 10

Fri, Mar 02 2018, 1:49 am

myself wrote:

I don't remember ever getting loose candy but I certainly throw out some of the really junky stuff (think oodles) that I wouldn't want my kids eating. I'm very particular about baal tashchis but I don't classify this as food and my kids are not garbage cans.

Ever thought of bringing the "really junky stuff" to work for your coworkers? Or to donate to Ohel and similar organizations?

amother

Burlywood

Fri, Mar 02 2018, 4:59 am

amother wrote:

What I wonder, for people who feel this way, is, do you ever eat food that was prepared by other people? Or is this only a concern with shalach manos, and if so, why is that?

Do you go out for a Shabbos meal, do you take food after you have a baby or if you make a simcha? How do you know the host /giver wasn't talking on her phone and adjusting her snood and coughing and sneezing while her children drooled in the food she was cooking?

I am being serious, I do wonder why people think homemade shalach manos food might be unsanitary more than any other homemade food.

In terms of the original question, loose unwrapped candy would make me uncomfortable, but repackaged in a different container wouldn't.

watergirl

Fri, Mar 02 2018, 6:02 am

Quite a bit of the mm that we got this year was unwrapped, repackaged stuff. What did the whole family fight over? A box of cookies (home made), homentash, loose popcorn, dried fruit, all mixed together. Why? Because we love the person who made it and know that her cookies are the best and the rest was good too. Other candies were repackaged like how I’ve done - jelly beans in smaller mesh bags with ties, bulk candy (blue passy candy, you know the kind) in a bag, I thought of this thread while trying some. I dont know them well. But I trused them and dug in. To each their own.

red sea

Fri, Mar 02 2018, 7:07 am

watergirl wrote:

Also wanted to ask - the title of this thread has the word “inexpensive” in it. Why the distinction?

Because I wanted to talk about jelly beans etc and didn't want or to skew the voting with any exceptions people thought of.

Also because I wanted to separate between a single unwrapped sour belt and a big closed package of sour belts (which I think people might be more incline to either use or find a new home for).