Parents polishing off the food on their kids' plates is perfectly ordinary, but one mum shared she went as far as to rinse and eat her son's pasta.
An American mum explained her unusual strategy to cut down on food waste, asking viewers if it was 'weird'.
The woman walked through her meal in a video on TikTok in which she explains what she did with the pasta her son didn't eat at lunch, the Mirror reported.
Rather than throwing it in the bin, she decided to reuse it for her own dinner.
And while that might seem innocent enough, one talking point has been leaving viewers baffled - as the mum washed off the sauce in the sink so that she could make a new sauce for herself.
In the clip, the mum could be seen rinsing the cooked pasta under the tap in a colander before making her own additions to the now-plain carbohydrate.
The woman, who posts under the username @myplantbasedfam, said: "I need you guys to settle a debate for me.
"I wanted a different type of pasta, and my son did not touch his pasta during lunch.
"So I decided to save the pasta by rinsing off the sauce and creating the pasta I wanted to have again, which was the kimchi pasta that I had in my previous video that my friend makes - it's really good, you should try it."
She concluded: "But my husband thinks it's really weird that I did this. He was looking at me like I was crazy when I was rinsing off this pasta.
"So I gotta know, is it weird, or is it a good way to reduce food waste?"
The video's caption reads: "I feel like I'm about to have my feelings hurt posting this" followed by a cold sweat emoji.
And as the food hack sparked a debate between the mum and her husband, people in the comments were also torn over the idea - as some said it was "genius" but others branded it "weird".
One person said: "It's a good way to reduce your waste. It would've gone in the trash otherwise and when you had an idea to use it for, why not?"
While another added: "No, I love this. I cringe literally anytime I throw food away for whatever reason."
But someone else disagreed, stating: "I wouldn't do it - it's weird. I'd have either eaten my kids' pasta [as it was] or saved it for later and eaten what I wanted. But more power to you."
"I'd do it for my kid but I probably wouldn’t do it for me because for some weird reason it weirds me out," a fourth wrote.
The mum later replied to some of the comments and agreed that her methods were "unconventional", but insisted that it works for her and her family so she doesn't see herself stopping any time soon.
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