Ever been to a restaurant and wondered "why in the heck did that kids parents get him/her such a big meal?" and notice how much of the food the kid isn't eating and will be thrown away? Actually, I've seen adults do the same thing. People spend out good money on a good meal, THEN, instead of taking what's left home, they leave it sit and it gets dumped into the garbage. I sometimes have a habit of watching what others do in a restaurant. Wife and I also notice just how messy the table is after people leave from eating. Sometimes, very gross looking! Then again, just like the old saying goes...….."it's their money, they can spend it or waste it any way they want to.", which is true. Just like, "how they eat is their business".
I can't say I've noticed really, because most people in restaurants here order childrens' portions for their under 12's . Adult portions in restaurants here are smaller than those served in the USA...but still enough food for most people. Here in the UK it's very unusual for anyone to ask for a ''doggie bag'' to take leftovers home, it's just not the done thing, although if you ask they'd do it, but it's not common!!
Having owned and operated a restaurant, I agree that it is wasteful how some people order food and then don’t eat it; but that is probably something which is always going to happen. Since we lived in the back part of the restaurant, and had a place for the dogs to run out behind the property, we could feed most of the leftovers to our dogs, which they loved; but most places can only throw things out. It used to be that farmers that had pigs or chickens would go by restaurants and grocery stores and gather food scraps for their farm animals; but I think that is not allowed anymore either, so the food is totally wasted. As far as taking food home, we always do that, and usually it is food that we take home for the dogs. When we sometimes go to the Mexican restaurant, I always have rice and other food left, and I mix it all together and put it in the container and take it home for the dogs. They LOVE it ! !
We love it when we pay for a good meal and have leftovers for another meal. We try to have something leftover, which means that we didn't overeat. We eat pretty respectfully, IOW not messy. Then, after we eat, we will stake up the dishes in the middle of the table, if a waitress doesn't get to the dishes first. We actually leave a very respectable looking table when we leave. Funny, some restaurants, the "higher class" ones, like Mimi's Café, will have their waitresses wipe the table crumbs onto a used plate, or a member of a "clean-up" crew will clear the table and put crumbs into the plastic bin that the dirty dishes are in. And yet, at other restaurants, the waitress will just push the table crumbs onto the floor. If the floor, in front of and/or under the table we are about to sit at, we will request for someone to sweep the floor at the table. I hate seeing food stuff laying on the floor at a restaurant, but then again, not all restaurant waitresses or managers take pride in how their section or restaurant looks. Weird thing is, from what we've seen, a lot of folks don't even care how the floor looks under or in front of their table. I don't get that, but.......
Interesting to read that @Cody Fousnaugh . With the exception of pizzerias which usually offer different sizes of pizzas, portions in most restaurants are oversized and there aren't special portions for kids nor elderly people in every restaurant. If there are, other people must not order them because those meals are cheaper. What seems to matter most is that restaurants want to, and have to offer something for which they can charge a certain price. For smaller portions prices would have to be reduced and that's what most normal restaurants have to avoid. Thus, it doesn't matter if food gets wasted through leftovers as long as those prices are paid. What also seems to be true is that restaurants want to avoid negative word-of-mouth like: "Portions were too small. I wasn't full." Let me put it that way: It's certain customers who set the standard as to the size of portions which then apply to everyone else. Floors are usually clean except in some self-service restaurants and when normal restaurants are being too frequented at peak times during the day.
When we take the grandkids to dinner, they always order from the children's menu if available. I has been so long since we had small children at home that I don't remember what we did then but I am sure that no food was wasted. For years we had goats, pigs, dogs, cats and chickens, so if we didn't eat it, one of the critters did. We never wasted anything. We only have chickens, one dog and one cat now, but they still eat most leftovers. Anything not consumed gets composted. When we used wood heat, we even burned the bones not suitable for animals and used the ashes for garden fertilizer.
We always did about the same thing when I lived out in the country and had a variety of pets and livestock, @Don Alaska . When you live in the country, nothing gets wasted because it can all be used in one way or another, even if it is just being burned for the ashes to put on the garden. Wen we had scraps and leftovers, I often put them in a big pot and cooked them all day on the wood stove with some added rice or other grain (we bought bags of rolled oats for the horses and chickens ) and then fed it to the dogs that night. One day, we had company, and the pot was simmering away on the stove, and my friend asked what was that wonderful smell. I told her, “it is dog stew”, and she got a horrified look of shocked disbelief, probably almost fainted if I hadn’t quickly explained what I actually meant to say.
Our hogs absolutely loved anything we threw to them, but especially watermelon rind. My wife will sometimes complain at how much meat is on a sandwich she buys, like at Arby's. I simply tell her that people have probably complained about paying a descent cost for very little been in the sandwich, so Arby's now stuff's their sandwiches with meat. Generally, when she gets an Arby's sandwich back home, she will take part of the meat out and use it for a sandwich the next day at work.
Yeah, the good thing about hogs/pigs is they will eat about anything. Our chickens will also eat watermelon rind down to the skin, and will do the same with winter squash if there are "leavin's" on the skin of the squash. We also found that sheep will eat what goats will not. I have no experience with cattle, so I don't know what they will eat, but I hear they will eat what sheep leave behind.
I hate food waste also m In America we are served way too much food at one time. Many times I would order one meal and spilt with a friend or the kids. Many places will not let you do that now. One way to cut cost and food waste with kids...feed them at home...let them have dessert at the restaurant. They have kid size meals ..some places let you order that.But a Senior size would be nice.
Actually, I have taken pride in my resolution to stop eating when I am full, even when that means leaving food on the plate. At home, uneaten food is composted so it's not wasted. In restaurants, my experience has been that any food taken home sits in the refrigerator until it starts to smell, and then it's composted, so I leave it behind. Where restaurants have meals that are labeled senior meals, they are generally about the size of kid's portions and they are not enough, while regular portions are often too much. I'm okay with leaving it behind. I'd rather waste it at the restaurant than store it as fat that I don't need in my body.
If folks wish to inquire about a restaurant they will either look at a review or ask someone else what they think about the food and establishment. Inevitably, the food portions will come up and the ever so popular comment of “generous portions” will be highlighted. Needless to say but I’ll say it anyway, people do not dine any longer; they wish to be belly busting full for the most part and those are the restaurants that are most sought after. Now the question arises, would you go to a restaurant that is touted to serve good food but too little of it for the price? No, probably not unless the place was high up on the “to do” list and you were trying to impress someone and really dine for a change. Now comes the really bad part and it is all about buffets. I like buffets and we owned a restaurant with a buffet but: A good cook or a chef will go out of their way to insure that each item that is prepared tastes differently. No two items on a buffet will taste or look the same, everything is totally different. When I see people loading up their plates with stuff (at this point it is not longer food but stuff) on top of the other looking much like something one would feed his dog, I get a little more than frustrated. Note: I am not an extremist because most of the time I do not mind if one serving of something touches the other, but I want to be able to taste each item as it was prepared and not a big glump of intermixed tastes that have no definition at all. Then, like lemon juice is to an open wound I see people who eat eat half of the mess and leave the rest to be thrown away and go back for another big helping of glump. Why oh why did God give some folks taste buds and nerve endings that can pick out so many flavors, heat and textures to simply sit there and hope something to test their individual talents will eventually come along? Poor taste buds, poor nerve endings. Doomed to waste away like the half filled leftover plate of food awaiting the garbage can. To piggy back on what my wife wrote about waste; there used to be a time when an “edibles” waste barrel was kept by the restaurant and it was sold to hog farmers for a few dollars and some of the expense for wasted food was recouped by using that method. The farmers nearly always picked up the barrels every night so no worries. Now, the U.S.D.A demands that the restaurant re-cook the slop then brought down to temp properly (just like prepped human food has to be) sealed and stored in the coolers until the farmer comes to pick it up. It’s cheaper to throw it all in the dumpster and forget about it. The farmer and the restaurant both lose out because now the farmer has to buy top dollar feed and the restaurant can’t recoup any costs for waste.
There are always left overs when I eat out with my daughters and grandkids but we always ask them to box them up so we can take them home and eat more later. One meal out usually makes two meals for me...and I enjoy both of them. Most of our eating places here have children's menu's and many places even let the kids eat free on certain days of the week.
This really reminds me of what happened, while having a nice Sunday Champagne Breakfast at the Paris in Las Vegas a number of years ago. My wife's mom, wife's brother, both sisters and us were there. All of us had gotten our food and was enjoying it, but my wife's younger sister, who was somewhat mentally unstable at times, had loaded her plate up with different foods. It really was a "mountain" of food mixed together. Anyway, she was gobbling food down, like she hadn't eaten in days and...……..wham-o, she ended up vomiting all over where she was sitting at. Everyone couldn't believe it, but a couple of workers helped clean up the table. Basically we all lost our appetite. My BIL asked my wife's mom, "why didn't you stop her from getting all of that stuff?". Dear mom's answer was, "she's an adult, I can't tell her how much to and not to, eat." It was probably the most sickening breakfast I'd ever been involved in. The food was great, and we paid a nice cost for it, but after the SIL did what she did, I couldn't eat anymore.