Whenever I enter a restaurant that offers buffet lunch or dinner, half my thoughts are devoted to asking myself which one to pick first. Whether it’s a Japanese-Korean eat-all-you-can or Western themed banquet, I am urged to head towards the most sought-after dishes along with others who share the same strategy.

However, I also make it a point to know my limits. That means I don’t have to fill my plate with my favorite menu of the day for a) fear of running out of the dish when I make a return or b) feeling too lazy to fall in line later. As I glance at other tables, I feel sorry for the unconsumed food headed to the rubbish bin. Unsold pastries and bakery products can still be consumed before expiry dates, but buffet food easily spoils so it has to be thrown away at the end of the day.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/people/32123311@N00/

Hong Kong has thousands of restaurants for a certain reason. Tourists love to try local and international cuisines while locals love to dine outdoors, whether it’s a casual night out or a family tradition. Beyond enjoying a hearty meal with family and friends, we should start thinking of reducing food waste not only because we can save more on restaurant bills but also realize that food is a finite commodity that, in some parts of the world, has been dwindling and caused people a great deal of distress.

Friends of the Earth (FOE) estimates that about 20 percent of food served at banquets is wasted. The group sent delegates to four wedding banquets serving Chinese dishes in hotels and served more than 1,200 guests. The combined food waste weighed 400kg, about 22 percent of the total food served. FOE also noted that desserts, which usually came at the end of the meal were already being snubbed by diners already full or carefully watching their weight. Perhaps, we go to banquets not primarily to eat, but to socialize.

Some dishes such as fried rice and noodles were untouched when they headed back to the kitchen en route to the dumpster. This observation on food waste is not only at banquets; disposal of waste food, other than that fed to swine and cattle, also adds to the thousands of tons of garbage heading to landfills. Food waste coming through the sanitary sewers from garbage disposal units is treated along with other sewage and contributes to sludge.

We may marvel at how Hong Kong is a paradise for food lovers, with a handful of Michelin-awarded restaurants and a wide variety of dishes from places near and far. But somehow food waste is not exactly how we appreciate food correctly. We not only waste our money spent on unconsumed food, but we deprive other people to partake of this basic necessity. It has been known that Hong Kong society is a wasteful one. We can pin the blame on ourselves for not being responsible enough, but also on how things are enforced — or the lack thereof. Changing weather patterns reduce farm outputs in many places in the world. Widespread floods and extreme weather conditions not only disrupt holiday travelers but also destroy farmlands and affect food supplies.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization report in October 2010 revealed that 925 million people worldwide do not have enough food to eat — more than the combined population of the United States, Canada and the European Union. Ninety-eight percent of them live in developing countries. More than 70 percent of the world’s 146 million underweight children under five years of age live in just 10 countries, with more than 50 percent located in South Asia alone. Malnutrition contributes to 53 percent of the 9.7 million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries, according to UNICEF. Maybe not a lot of us see these figures before we throw away food.

Hong Kong imports most of its food so as long as there are exporters willing to take our dollars, we’re okay. But what if in extreme cases those countries decide not to sell their commodities amid shortage in supply? I think it is a bit of a long shot for now, but not impossible in the future. It’s about time restaurants, hotels and even at home we practice resourcefulness before that unthinkable situation takes place.

The government can certainly help in reducing food waste. Certain countries implement food disposal fees to discourage food waste. While I don’t think this will be very effective here in Hong Kong, at least efforts to mitigate the problem could lead to a change in people’s behavior and lifestyles. Other practical methods to reduce food waste include sharing dishes with friends or family or incentives for asking waiters to serve smaller portions. We not only save extra dollars, but more importantly we help preserve the earth’s dwindling resources in our own little way.