In the United States, people tend to take their meals and food for granted. Based on my experience of seeing my friends and others eating at restaurants or at home, it appears that it is a social norm to not finish your whole meal and then just have it thrown it away. Personally, I do not like to waste food, so whenever I do not finish my meal, I ask for a take out box or I will save the food for later. This does not affect my food choice, but it does for many people. This social norm connects to food choice because people think that it is “okay” to order/cook and not finish any kind of meal (whether it may be a sandwich or a chicken dinner with various sides) and just aimlessly throw away a perfectly good meal. This also connects to food choice because if someone knows they are not going to eat most of a big meal, then they should order/cook something small, so they don’t waste any food.
The main societal issues that this connects to are food waste and environmental issues. People tossing out meals causes environmental issues since the leftover food is being thrown into landfills, where it decomposes and produces gases that are bad for the environment. Also, when people throw away perfectly good meals, they are being altruistic because there people from other countries starving to death and would do anything to have even a fraction of the thrown out meal. Just as the module states, “If we care about distributive justice, then we may choose foods that leave more food available for others.” Wasting food also causes money to be wasted since the food cost money to be put on the table. Thus, in my opinion, I think that the social norm should be that it is “not okay” to toss out the rest of your meal, rather that that the norm is to save the food for later or not order/cook more than you can finish.
Hey Julie, my name is Doug and I agree completely with your point of view on food wastes. Whenever my friends and I are at a fast food restaurant, I always tend to order on the conservative side. I finish all of my food and then decide if I want to go up to get more or if I am satisfied with that amount. My friends always question why I do it but it lowers food waste and also financially, I do not buy more than I can consume. http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/03/03/module-6-douglas-apple/ In my post, I talk about eating Chipotle and this can relate to your post because if I don’t finish my bowl or burrito, I can take it home later to eat rather than throwing it away.
Hi Julie, my name is Omar. Here is a link to my post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/03/libyan-social-norms-and-food-choice/
In my post I talked about how Libyans eat lamb meat for food enjoyment as a social norm and how that can cause health problems down the line. I really liked your post because it draws attention to an important issue which is food waste. I have also noticed such thing while studying here at Penn State, especially at the commons. I think in general people tend to overestimate how much they can eat at buffets which contributes to this problem, I admit that this happened to me several times. I also wanted to point out to the issue of preparing too much food from the buffet’s side, if too much food is prepared then it will also go to waste.