A distinctive feature of Indian hospitality is the hoary tradition of treating guests with respect and kindness in accordance with the dictum Athithi Devo Bhava. Feeding guests to their satisfaction is considered a privilege and bounden duty of the host.
Conservative hosts feel deeply disappointed if their guests declined the food offered. They go to the extent of entreating such guests to have at least some water before they leave. It is not uncommon to see a host insisting on his guest to eat more, even as the guest pleads that he has finished and is full after eating the sumptuous meal.
“Take a little bit more,” the host suggests to the guest, presuming the latter is somewhat shy to ask for more. Talking of shyness in eating, I have often observed in household functions, a person wanting one more laddu would not openly ask for it, but would, with an elfish twinkle in his eyes, direct the server to provide one more laddu to the one sitting next to him with the hope that the server would definitely drop one laddu on his plate also out of courtesy! Shyness, however, does not prevent some of the elders with diet restrictions from asking the serving person to pack the sweets and give them, instead of serving on their plates.
During my visits to our ancestral home in the past, my aunt used to serve food as we, family members, sat on the floor in a row, each with a banana leaf before him or her. Due to her deep affection for us, she used to empty the cooked rice she had on her serving plate on everyone’s leaf, whether one wanted it or not. Once when she was about to serve excess rice on my leaf despite my protestations, I told her to stop and asked her in mock seriousness whether she understood the meaning of the word “enough”. It touched her to the quick. From then on, she discontinued her habit of over-serving. To me, importuning a guest to eat more is tantamount to intrusion into privacy.
Humongous waste
There is no gainsaying the fact that driven by a desire to ensure that every guest eats well and there is no shortage of any food item when entertaining them, more food than what is actually required is prepared at homes that result in food waste. Moreover, in big fat weddings and other grand celebrations, a plethora of dishes is offered in buffet lunch or dinner. In the razzmatazz of such mega events, many guests do not eat every item displayed while there are others who do not finish eating everything taken on their plates; they discard a lot of uneaten food into trash cans.
In both the cases, enormous quantities of foods are wasted.
Smaller events also contribute to food wastage, albeit on a less scale. It usually occurs due to inaccurate estimation of food needed and the number of guests expected. Thankfully, a thoughtful present-day host, unlike his counterpart of yesteryear, does not consider it inappropriate to ask his guests to indicate the number of people who will attend the marriage, as knowing the exact number of attendees is crucial for bookings and catering.
All said and done, wastage of food does take place largely in homes and dining halls. Combined with poor storage and the loss that occurs throughout the supply chain from farm to consumer, food wastage assumes gargantuan proportions at the global level. It is estimated that about one-third of all food produced in the world for human consumption does not make its way to hungry mouths.
Food waste and global hunger are therefore mutually connected issues with one exacerbating the other. Wasting food also leads to significant resource depletion and environmental degradation. It is gratifying that several volunteer organisations in our country work to get surplus food from restaurants and wedding halls to the less fortunate sections of our people. Households and housing societies in the cities are also uniting to combat food wastage. By partnering with local food banks, they donate excess food, still in edible condition, to charitable organisations.
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