Food Wastage
Our world has been exploited heavily by humans for a long time. There have been talks of food shortages and agriculture being impacted by climate change. Yet, in my country, food wastage is still too prevalent. Affluence and ignorance might be to blame, in my opinion.
There are nationwide campaigns on this topic. People just do not seem to care about wasting food. It is a common sight in any food court to see half eaten meals left behind on the tables to be thrown away by the cleaning staff.
Parents do not set good examples for their children and they in turn imitate this bad behavior to throw it away if they don’t want to eat it. This coming from a person who has seen parents setting poor examples to their kids multiple times.
Nowadays, it does not even seem like commonplace to hear parents teaching their kids to finish what is on their plate or not to waste what they cannot/will not eat. It is more common to hear the words “leave it”, which means to throw it.
Few people get their leftovers packed to eat later and almost no one brings their own container. I am embarrassed for my fellow citizens to say that I have only seen non-Singaporeans exhibit such admirable behavior. Have we become so affluent that we have forgotten the most basic of lessons taught to us in childhood, to not waste food?
Very few of us can do something about the “starving people around the world”. But we can all take care not to waste the food that we are fortunate to have enough of. The doomsday predictions always talk about food scarcity in the near future. I don’t understand how some people can throw perfectly good food away when the future seems so bleak. In a country like Singapore, which imports nearly all of it’s food supply, it should be even more imperative that we be mindful of this.
Singapore is an affluent nation but we still have people who struggle to put food on the table. There are children who go hungry and many who rely on charitable organisations for food. Few hungry is not zero hungry. It pains me to think of them when I see plates of uneaten food just nonchalantly thrown away. Personally, i have observed women doing this more than men. Perhaps they want to reduce carbohydrate intake by not eating rice. Yet, why don’t they just order the food without rice or half the amount?! It is so frustrating.
Since September, Singapore has passed a law for patrons at public eateries to return their plates and trays after their meals. I would like to hope that clearing their own plates will open people’s eyes to the food that they leave uneaten. It might call their own karma into question when they do the action of discarding.
At the same time, I applaud the authorities who are trying to spread the word on food wastage and are running campaigns to fight it. One step at a time might be the way to go forth.
