Waste not, Want not

• Ever been to a gurudwara? Which is a place of worship for Sikhs. They have a great tradition of serving free food, ‘langar,’ where you get as much as you want as long as you don’t waste it. In Sikhism and many religions and cultures, it is disrespectful to discard food , showing their respect for food.

• It is said that one-third of all food produced is wasted globally,  even though 100s of millions of people go to sleep on an empty stomach, not because they want to, but they have to. So I don’t consider wasting my food as just wasting food. I think of it as that I took it away from someone else’s plate. But, it’s not just food - how much do we all waste energy? How much do we waste water? How much trash?

• Our grandparents and parents were a great example of “waste not, want not.” They had a deep value for everything. They valued money and everything that it could buy. I remember there was a time when my grandmother used to make quilts out of old clothes and reused the same clothes repeatedly. Only the firstborn gets the new clothes, passing them down to the younger siblings until they can be recycled into dust rags. It’s better for our planet if we can be more waste-conscious and use the things we already have wisely  to be less likely to need more things. Waste not, Want not.

But that’s just my take. Comment and share yours.

If this topic interests you and you’re curious to learn more – check out this book through this Amazon affiliate link that I thoroughly enjoyed – The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters