My kitchen tip for this week: Get in the habit of cleaning your plate! I'm not talking about stuffing yourself when you're full -- I'm talking about getting into the habit of taking small servings and eating every single bite off your plate. Every piece and scoop of everything.

Why do we eat everything on our plates? We're making ourselves think about what we're dishing up, before we put it on our plate, rather than mindlessly filling a plate with food and then either throwing away what's left after we've picked over it or else going to the bother of putting away individual leftovers.

Before we eat, we thank our heavenly Father for the blessing of a delicious meal -- and we demonstrate our thankfulness for His provision by not wasting any of it.

And on a practical note, requiring that each person at the table clean their plate before being dismissed means that the dish washer (me!) doesn't need to fiddle with the compost bucket after meals. My dish water doesn't get nearly as dirty when the plates have been scraped neatly. And that means I can wash more dishes with less water!

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