This post is about food, particularly its wastage. Food wastage has always been at the top of my list of pet peeves. And now, being in the US for two odd years, staying with friends and cooking my own food, I find it appalling how many people take food (and other resources like electricity and water) for granted. I find it surprising (an understatement) that they are all "devout" when it comes to visiting temples and praying in front of lifeless statues, while having no regard for stuff which actually fuel our existence. I have seen refrigerators at most friends' place having some leftover which would be days old. These leftovers usually end up in the trash can. I have seen rice cookers containing rice cooked ages ago which apparently no one noticed. The stuff would be so old that should you - in all your innocence - take the lid off the cooker to see what's in it, you would unleash a reek which could raise the dead and kill a living soul.
Before you guys start showering me with insults for being barbed, let me remind you that I have been here long enough to know that it can become difficult to cook the perfect quantity of food. No, you can't avoid having leftovers but you can certainly avoid wastage. A little sense, a reasonably good memory and learning from experience will very easily avoid wastage.
1) A little sense - The quantity of food we cook should be so much that the latest it should all be consumed is the following day. If we think about it, this quantity would be neither too less for one meal nor too much to overwhelm us for days. Of course, when we have leftovers, we need to make sure they are refrigerated for the next day. We should also use our sense when we are cooking for a Friday dinner and we are thinking of an outing for the weekend, since an outing invariably means eating out, which means any leftover we have stays a leftover over the weekend.
2) A reasonably good memory - Okay, we have done a good job refrigerating the leftovers, but if we forget all about them, what's the point? Most of us have a bad memory, so we will need to develop the habit of checking for leftovers before we cook anything more. If the leftovers are enough for that meal, why cook fresh stuff? Unless it is a side-dish or can be eaten with the leftovers, I don't see the need to cook anything. If the quantity of leftovers is small and we have to cook fresh food, we need to remember to eat the leftovers too while we have our meals.
3) Learning from experience - I said in point (1) that we should only cook as much food as would be consumed latest by the next day. How exactly do we know how much? This is where we will have to use our experience. Enough said.
And then there is food wastage on "special" occasions. The other day it was "Shivarathri", and I joined my friends on an outing to a temple (Yes, it was merely an outing for me since I have no belief in idol worship). While there, I saw a table on which were about 50 jugs of milk, each jug containing a gallon (a gallon is almost 4 liters) and there were more such jugs being brought in by the "devotees". I was wondering what all that milk would be used for and ended up thinking, "Maybe it will be used in the temple canteen". I realized how wrong I was when I actually saw where all the milk was going. It was being used for the "Abhisheka" for the "Shivalingas" (not one or two, but there were about 10 or more of such Shivalingas on a single pedestal) and people were standing in a line waiting for their turn to do the Abhisheka. The way I saw it, people were just waiting for their turn to senselessly waste milk by pouring it on some lifeless rocks, and to my dismay I was in that very line without my knowledge. I couldn't see where all the poured milk from the pedestal was flowing to but I doubt it would have been used in the canteen after having gone through such a treatment (at least not in the US with its stringent kitchen hygiene regulations and stuff). Anyway, the point is that I didn't get the damn point! What kind of God would like to see people wasting so much milk? Even if they had to do it, only one person (the priest) doing it would suffice. People are fools if they think their mental malignancies or sins (or whatever it is) will be washed away by the act, when in fact they are merely wasting what could have filled a starving tummy.
No, I don't want to talk about that poor child in Africa who is starving. Each of us at some point of time has seen and shared pictures/videos of one or the other "dying African kid" and possibly stuff about other hungry people and food wastage. A few moments of emotional upheaval and maybe a tear or two are all such stuff can produce. No, we don't need to go all philanthropic and feed a starving person.
All we need to do, in this practical world, is to use our head and develop some respect for the food we eat. Why take it for granted just because we are well-to-do?
Before you guys start showering me with insults for being barbed, let me remind you that I have been here long enough to know that it can become difficult to cook the perfect quantity of food. No, you can't avoid having leftovers but you can certainly avoid wastage. A little sense, a reasonably good memory and learning from experience will very easily avoid wastage.
1) A little sense - The quantity of food we cook should be so much that the latest it should all be consumed is the following day. If we think about it, this quantity would be neither too less for one meal nor too much to overwhelm us for days. Of course, when we have leftovers, we need to make sure they are refrigerated for the next day. We should also use our sense when we are cooking for a Friday dinner and we are thinking of an outing for the weekend, since an outing invariably means eating out, which means any leftover we have stays a leftover over the weekend.
2) A reasonably good memory - Okay, we have done a good job refrigerating the leftovers, but if we forget all about them, what's the point? Most of us have a bad memory, so we will need to develop the habit of checking for leftovers before we cook anything more. If the leftovers are enough for that meal, why cook fresh stuff? Unless it is a side-dish or can be eaten with the leftovers, I don't see the need to cook anything. If the quantity of leftovers is small and we have to cook fresh food, we need to remember to eat the leftovers too while we have our meals.
3) Learning from experience - I said in point (1) that we should only cook as much food as would be consumed latest by the next day. How exactly do we know how much? This is where we will have to use our experience. Enough said.
And then there is food wastage on "special" occasions. The other day it was "Shivarathri", and I joined my friends on an outing to a temple (Yes, it was merely an outing for me since I have no belief in idol worship). While there, I saw a table on which were about 50 jugs of milk, each jug containing a gallon (a gallon is almost 4 liters) and there were more such jugs being brought in by the "devotees". I was wondering what all that milk would be used for and ended up thinking, "Maybe it will be used in the temple canteen". I realized how wrong I was when I actually saw where all the milk was going. It was being used for the "Abhisheka" for the "Shivalingas" (not one or two, but there were about 10 or more of such Shivalingas on a single pedestal) and people were standing in a line waiting for their turn to do the Abhisheka. The way I saw it, people were just waiting for their turn to senselessly waste milk by pouring it on some lifeless rocks, and to my dismay I was in that very line without my knowledge. I couldn't see where all the poured milk from the pedestal was flowing to but I doubt it would have been used in the canteen after having gone through such a treatment (at least not in the US with its stringent kitchen hygiene regulations and stuff). Anyway, the point is that I didn't get the damn point! What kind of God would like to see people wasting so much milk? Even if they had to do it, only one person (the priest) doing it would suffice. People are fools if they think their mental malignancies or sins (or whatever it is) will be washed away by the act, when in fact they are merely wasting what could have filled a starving tummy.
No, I don't want to talk about that poor child in Africa who is starving. Each of us at some point of time has seen and shared pictures/videos of one or the other "dying African kid" and possibly stuff about other hungry people and food wastage. A few moments of emotional upheaval and maybe a tear or two are all such stuff can produce. No, we don't need to go all philanthropic and feed a starving person.
All we need to do, in this practical world, is to use our head and develop some respect for the food we eat. Why take it for granted just because we are well-to-do?
