Why we don’t want to waste food

The above two quotes come from discussions with people about food waste, that we held some years ago. We heard various reasons why people do not want to waste food. As illustrated by the quotes, some people are concerned about the money that they waste, while others feel they have moral obligations. For them, wasting food is something that you just should not do.

Environmental concerns also matter. After all, the food that we buy has used up precious resources while it was grown, transported, packaged, and stored. Once we waste the food, we also waste all those resources. And a final reason why people do not want to waste has to do with what others may think of them. We often worry about the impression that others form of us, and well, maybe being wasteful is not what we want to be known for.

All in all, there are thus four important reasons why people do not want to waste food: money, morality, environment, and social impression. But do all these reasons actually matter? Which of these would inspire us most to treat our food with care and to waste less? These are the questions that Daphne Ribbers set out to answer in her research, together with Maggie Geuens, Mario Pandelaere, and myself.

First, Daphne carefully developed the MAFW-scale: the Motivation to Avoid Food Waste scale, with 21 questions to measure the four reasons why people do not want to waste food (the scale is available in the paper, if you are interested). Next, she tested whether these reasons predict people’s intention to diminish food waste and various behaviours that people can do to waste less (such as planning their food shopping and eating leftovers).

Which reason do you think mattered most?

Before we saw the results, we put our money on… well… money. Despite the second quote above, we thought that most people would feel it in their wallet. You can imagine our surprise when the results came in. Money was not the factor that mattered. Rather, morality concerns (“you should not waste”) mattered most.

So, regardless of whether food waste hurts the pocket, it should hurt the soul. That way, we waste less.