In all fairness, there are too many answers to the above question for them to fit in this single blog post. (Also, I dread writing and having to use words to cover such a broad topic would be the end of me!) Consequently, I have decided to limit myself to two human shortcomings, my shortcomings, that lead to food waste and to provide a few of the solutions that work for me.

1.Reluctance

I’ll start with the one that I am the least proud of. In the rare occasions that I intentionally waste food - I really, really try to avoid this - it’s usually because there’s a leftover dish that I am reluctant to finish; for example, the week-old rice in the fridge’s corner or the odd loaves of bread buried in the closet’s. To my family’s dismay, I deliberately allow such foods to spoil to avoid eating them. As of now, I don’t know any solutions to this problem except learning to ‘suck it up’, sometimes literally, and accepting the fact that all meals (unfortunately) can’t be pizza. Sometimes, reminding myself how lucky I am to have food in the first place and how disrespectful it would be to waste it works too…

2.Forgetfulness

The number of times i’ve opened the fridge and smelled something funny only to find a savory sauce all gooey and moldy is quite embarrassing. It’s not that it was a crummy meal or that I procrastinated on eating it. I simply forgot it existed. To me, that is the most agonizing way to waste food. In order to minimise said occurrences, I try to monitor my food as much as possible. Either through conventional methods such as making containers visible in the fridge or by using food tracking tools - cough…FoodSpan*…cough - i’ve ensured that smelly surprises are a thing of the past and that I know the status of my food (most of the time).

Conclusion

I really hope you enjoyed this post and that if it didn’t give you any insight into why people waste food you could at least relate to my experiences. I do not plan on blogging again anytime soon so you can thank Matt. W, FoodSpan’s lead developer, for this one-off.