Boy, we're pretty bent out of shape about our food. Before we can legitimately ask ourselves 'how can we waste less food', we first need to ask 'What is food fo

Boy, we're pretty bent out of shape about our food. Before we can legitimately ask ourselves 'how can we waste less food', we first need to ask 'What is food for?' The simple answer is that food provides us with the energy and nutrition we need to survive; but of course, if you take a look around it's pretty obvious we dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy to eating that extends well beyond basic sustenance. We have all sorts of complicated but erroneous aesthetic and cultural reasons for eating, which, in a first world country extends several levels of abstraction beyond merely serving basic needs. I mean, if optimizing only for sustenance was the goal, we'd all be munching hamster pellets or choking down some Soylent like hydrated paste. We certainly wouldn't be interested paying premiums to have exotic, perishable fruits (which are mostly water) shipped in from other continents only to throw half that in the garbage.