Taste Cheese With Chopsticks

I was having lunch with friends from my environmental class the other day at Ross. We were all starving after the long lecture, and the long line in Ross made us even more hungry. One of them took half a plate of turkey and two slices of cheese pizza.

We had great conversation about the issue of food waste on campus, and everyone agreed that something needs to be done to reduce food waste.

After lunch when we were taking our plates to the dish rack, I snuck a glance of my friend’s plate. I doubted that he ate any of the turkey.

I asked him why he didn’t finish the food, and he said he was so hungry that he took more than his stomach could handle.

Things like wasting food while talking about food waste happen a lot among students.

How can we throw away paper that is only printed on one-side while criticizing the logging industry in Brazil? How can we leave refrigerators, laptops and other devices in our dorms plugged in 24 hours a day while encouraging others to save energy? How can we drive to the gym to work out while fretting about climate change? How can we act one way, while advocating something completely different?

My parents never complain about the logging industry or climate change with me, but they also never waste food. Sometimes when we’re very hungry, we cook too much as well. But we always save it for another meal. Or we just finish it and get really full.

Next time when we are hungry again, we can remind ourselves of the consequences of preparing too much food and learn to cook the right portions.

For my grandparents’ generation, they never wasted food because food was so valuable at that time in China.

For my parents’ generation, they don’t waste food because their parents taught them not to.

I remember my grandparents convincing me at age four to finish the last bit of my rice because “if you don’t do so, your boyfriend in the future will have as many pocks as the number of rice that got left in your bowl.”

Since I really didn’t want my boyfriend to look like that, I always finished all my rice.

When I grew older, my parents told me that we should be grateful for the food we eat because there is always someone else in this world starving and suffering. I accepted their reasons to not waste food not because those reasons are moving and touching, but because I know they treasure every single bit of food themselves.

On weekend mornings when my family enjoys breakfast together, we always have a competition to compare whose bowl is the cleanest. After eating our porridge, we always lick the bowl,  careful to not let the last drop of porridge be wasted.

It is not convincing if I encourage my friend to finish the vegetables on her plate with my plate full of leftovers.

It is not convincing at all for us to talk about environmental awareness without meeting the standards ourselves.