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Food

when you buy perishable food, you sometimes won't be in the mood to eat it before it goes bad.

when you serve yourself a plate of food, you will sometimes put too little on the plate and get seconds. so too will you sometimes put on too much and throw the excess out.

when you cook, sometimes you will mess up, and the food will turn out gross.

some food you buy just won't be very good quality (like some fruit that turns out mushy or not sweet)

sometimes you won't read the labels closely enough, and will buy the wrong food by accident

sometimes you will make food for someone else, but because of miscommunication it won't be wanted.

sometimes you will start to cook some food, then change your mind about what you want to eat.

when you buy more than a bite of something new, you may not like it, and would thus throw most of it out.

the error rate on all these things goes down with skill. thus younger people, esp young children, tend to have a higher rate of throwing food out.

this is all to be expected. you shouldn't be upset in the slightest if 10% of the food you buy isn't eaten. more if you are young, or have young children, or have many children.

and none of these things qualify as "wasting" food.


Elliot Temple on July 12, 2004

Messages (3)

it seems really frowned upon by older people to "waste" food.

oh wait, actually maybe its frowned upon by culture in general. i looked up "why do old people get annoyed when you waste food" all the links were recent, and based off the title they were not talking about elderly people, and seemed to have a consensus that "food waste" is bad.

i can understand it somewhat for older people, cuz maybe they grew up when food wasnt as easily available, so seeing it not being used reminds them of those times. but why tf is it so common of an opinion today? food is cheap, its not that big of a problem if you waste it.

i wonder how many people care about iphone waste, and all the iphones destroyed due to accidents, and how that compares to how much they care about food waste.


Anonymous at 5:53 PM on September 15, 2019 | #13520 | reply | quote

#13520 People don't judge things by economic efficiency.

People don't actually think the price of something tells you the amount it matters.

People don't conserve stuff based on its price.

People have *social metaphysics*. They are second-handed. They care about what other people care about. Caring about food waste is a cultural trend. It's not related to logical reasoning.


Anonymous at 9:21 PM on September 15, 2019 | #13521 | reply | quote

After a few years of looking into it - all diets are personal. The few real universals are (1) sugar and processed flours are horrible for everyone, (2) obesity is bad, and (3) all calories are not equal.

Diet is 90% of physical and mental health. First question any doctor or psychologist should be asking is - what are you eating?


Anonymous at 10:11 AM on October 6, 2019 | #13746 | reply | quote

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