Food Waste Is No Longer a “Rich Country” Problem
We should think, eat, and save responsibly.
Early in my career, I worked at an agency for about two years, where part of my job was to coordinate roundtables between various government and non-government organizations.
These roundtables were held at different five-star hotels in the capital Dhaka, where high-profile individuals from different sectors gathered to address important socio-economic and development issues.
As expected, these roundtables always concluded with a buffet lunch, where all the invited guests, along with the journalists, enjoyed the culinary delicacies.
During lunch, I often noticed some guests — mainly journalists and their camera crews — overloading their plates with mutton biriyani, beef rezala, chicken roast, hilsha fry, prawn korma, naan, Greek salad and more. Their plates looked like food mountains, way too much for a single person to devour. Yet, they always seemed indifferent to this.
Only halfway through the eating did they realize that they had piled on more than they could possibly handle. As a result, the unfinished food often ended up in the bin, tucked away in a corner.
As a coordinator of those events, this was a painful sight for me, though I hardly ever saw any guilt…
