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Quite frankly, I’m shocked.

As I start pulling trays off the stack, I notice what’s coming off on the dishes and going straight into the trash. Untouched grilled chicken breasts, plates full of spaghetti, double cheeseburgers (a special request) only half eaten, unbitten apples, entire pieces of cake, soft drinks sloshing out of their glasses, bowls full of soup, salads made (custom, by the student) that overflow untouched off of their plates—all being discarded by the students without a care.

I had expected there to be a few, maybe even several cases of blatant food wastage, but it was more than half of every tray that contained nearly entire items of food. Out of those, about a third had items of food that were entirely untouched, yet still had been taken by the students.
“Stupid American kids,” I thought to myself as I dumped a chicken burger and fries into the trash, “Such wanton wastage is inexcusable!” But is it really an American phenomenon, or is wasting food something else entirely?

At first, it seems like it is. The growing trend seems to be “more food is better” when it comes to any sort of American restaurant. Next time you go to the fast food restaurant, check and see if you can find any mention of “small” on the menu. Check out the writing on your vending machine candy bar—“Now with 10% more!” shouted a Butterfinger at me from behind the glass. Starbucks’ venti sized cups contain more non-water fluid than any person should normally need in one sitting.

That still doesn’t answer the question, however. Is American culture really the culprit? In order to find out, I took a brief survey of my friends, classmates, co-workers, and more, asking them each a few questions about wasting food.

Interestingly, the strongest examples of prohibition of food wasting came from the most American parents. That is to say, those parents whose families have been in the country for generations upon generations. All the strict fathers who demanded that their children stuff every crumb down their throats, all the adamant mothers who said “Clean plate, or BEDTIME!”, all of these were longtime American families.

That is not to say there were no examples to the contrary in the “very-American” category, because there certainly were wasteful examples there. That is also not to say that 1st generation American parents are never strict with food waste, either, because there were quite a few of those.

The point is that although there were “very American” families who do seem as wasteful as UCLA students, there are plenty of examples to the contrary. Is it American culture that is really the problem? I don’t think so.

Is it affluence that leads people to become wasteful? People who came here from Mexico remember when they were very small and very poor. Wasting food was a huge deal then. Now, they are living like royalty compared to those times, and wasting food here and there is normal. Wasting food seems to be a learnable trait, and people waste more as they make more money.
However, even though being able to afford a little food wasting from time to time might seem to be related to the level of waste, it really doesn’t seem that way from what I gathered in my investigation. In fact, the consensus seems to be that parents teach their children to avoid wasting food, no matter the culture or income level.

The reasons range widely. Waste is morally wrong to some. How many of us have heard the “There are starving children in Africa” line? The intent is not to send your food to them, but to let you know that in wasting food, you mock their starvation. The Qur’an advises believers not to waste food (Qur'an, al-Araf 7:31), and many follow their religions when it comes to food. There are families who value “good eaters” and raise their kids as plate-cleaners. There are families who simply want their kids to be healthy, and so encourage them to eat everything given to them.

The USDA did a study recently and discovered that the amount of food wasted in the US in one year—minus all the food lost from the farm-to-retail section—is about 91 billion pounds. That’s about 26% of all edible food in the US. Remember that the next time you reach for that extra serving of fried chicken.

You can find the USDA study results at: http://www.ibiblio.org/london/permaculture/mailarchives/sanet2/msg00693.html