One experience I have had in dealing with social norms and food choice was at a seafood buffet in Maryland. I really dislike most types of seafood, but I was with my girlfriend’s family. One of their main goals on this vacation was to eat at this particular restaurant. It was about $30 per person, and they paid for me to enter. After such a high price I felt pressured to at least try a large variety of foods. I did not enjoy any of it, and out of six full plates I wasted about 3/4 of the food. I felt terrible for wasting it, but they assured me that it was fine, because we were at a buffet and people wasted food all the time, and we essentially paid for the food anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
This leads to a social issue of food waste, which in turn causes environmental issues. The food that I personally wasted, and the food that other people consistently waste leads to an abundance of over-fishing. I was overwhelmed by the high price to try as much food as I could and “get my monies worth” but at the expense of wasting food. Even though I wasn’t paying any additional money, I was paying for it in environmental costs. After my terrible experience I ended up just going to McDonald’s and eating very cheap food, which was essentially wasteful because I had already had so much other food. The social norm should be if you don’t like food, don’t get it instead of trying to “get your monies worth.”
