I'm sorry but throwing food is nothing like shutting down a server. In the first case (food), significant amounts of water, energy and effort have been expended

I'm sorry but throwing food is nothing like shutting down a server. In the first case (food), significant amounts of water, energy and effort have been expended to create what is being thrown away, but in the latter case you merely stop using electricity or bandwidth (which doesn't get wasted). A better comparison would be buying 3-4 different types of servers because you weren't sure what the final load would be, and then deciding to throw away a few because you bought too many. California, America's "salad bowl", is facing a drought that threatens to turn it into a dust bowl. So even as a foreigner I'd think America throwing away 35 million tonnes of food every year is a serious cause for concern.