Wasted Food A Sin?

[franklin]

Is it morally wrong/sinful to waste or throw out perfectly good food/leftovers?

So at my church young adult group we had a cookie exchange for the holiday season. While everyone enjoyed themselves and there were a ton of cookies/treats to go around, there was a mountain of leftover cookies that was ultimately taken and thrown in the trash since no one was interested in it. I’m the kind of person who makes sure that absolutely nothing goes to waste, so I felt really irritated when I saw this as these cookies/treats could have been saved within the church and distributed to guests/visitors or given to a shelter. Since one of the corporal works of mercy is to feed the hungry, I would’ve thought that some people would have known better than to just throw away perfectly good food.

I’m rather new to the group so I didn’t voice my opinion, but generally when I see food being wasted (at work, church, etc.), I get irritated and try to rationalize it by saying that the food will be consumed by microbes/insects, animals and ultimately recycled as fertilizer, but since so much time/effort probably went into putting together the food for human consumption as well as the fact that there are people who probably want/need food makes it unnerving for me to see food just discarded so easily.

Thoughts?

 

[Brendea]

I personally would’ve asked if I could take them to donate to a charity or shelter

 

[franklin]

In hindsight, I definitely should have. I just didn’t know that they would take them and just throw them away. (It caught me off guard.)

 

[Rutherford2]

Yes, you could have saved some of them and gave it to the poor or your colleagues first thing in the morning. God gave you this good opportunity to spread his abundance of produce and love to those who are less fortunate. We cannot store God’s gifts. As for whether it is a sin, it is complicated to say as:

1. Some do not take that much for health’s sake.
2. Some did it purposely to hurt others’ feelings.
3. Some does not like the taste.
4. Some miscounted the number and made too much.

Therefore, it is up to God to judge, not you. You do what is right.

 

[JackFrost]

Is it morally wrong/sinful to waste or throw out perfectly good food/leftovers?

Many in the world will this very day die of hunger .

That reality should help you to answer your question .

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

On the macro level, yes, wasting food is a sin.
And if you were to make a feast, then throw the whole thing away for no good reason, yes, it’s a sin.
But if you overestimated what people would eat, maybe there are other options, like refrigerating the left overs and eating them later.
Or if your parish has a program like Aid For Friends, where you put the leftovers into trays and take them to the nearest freezer, where they will be picked up and delivered to the home bound.

Sometimes food gets wasted because of laws and regulations. For instance, in nursing home settings, the laws dictate that every patient must be offered “x” amount of food. And by “offered”, that means, put on their plate. So if Mrs Jones only ever eats one piece of chicken and never touches the peas, you still have to put two pieces of chicken and the serving of peas on her plate anyway . Then what’s left will be thrown out.
You can’t hold back the chicken and peas and donate it to charity later.
I think restaurants operate under similar laws in some areas, that they can’t simply donate the excess. Or, there’s a tremendous amount of red tape and paperwork.

Basically, use your common sense and try to figure out how much food you will actually consume, and don’t fret over a few bites here and there.

 

[exnihilo]

Here is another consideration. Cookies and treats are of low nutrition value but they are high in calories. For many people consuming them is likely more sinful than throwing them away because they are overweight.

Let’s say I’m overweight and I bought a half gallon of cream cream (I wish - they changed to a smaller metric unit to fool us). If I had one bite of it and then realized I shouldn’t eat it. I can’t donate it. So would it be a sin to throw it away? Or should I eat it? To me it see clear I should throw it away.

I’d also point out grocery stores give a lot of food to the needy. They give food that is safe to eat but they can’t sell. In the whole scheme of things your cookies probably wouldn’t amount to much compared to what they give.

 

[CelticWarlord]

I certainly share your feelings, though I wouldn’t say it was a sin. I work in a hotel, probably the most wasteful industry there is although things are improving. By law, at least where I live in Canada, we have to use certain portioned servings that are sealed and discarded if even the slightest bit of food is used. Not that anyone would want someone’s leftover jam, butter, or cheese portion, but throughout the days and weeks these add up to a huge amount of perfectly good food. This is to say nothing of the waste in disposable cups, insulated wraps for takeout coffee, lids, straws, stir stix, sugar and cream portions etc etc.