Leftover life: could you survive on other people's food scraps for a week?
Almost a third of Australians leave food on their plate when dining out, so Dianne McGrath challenged herself to live off their leftovers
n 2016, I was sitting outside Bobis, the well-known bakery in Spilt, Croatia, enjoying a strong black coffee and a pastry. The couple beside me departed, leaving their coffee cups empty but their paper bags surprisingly plump.
Curiosity got the better of me and I discovered more than half of a fresh cheese burek remained in those plump paper bags. The pastry was warm, delicious – and too good to discard.
I’m currently in the middle of my environmental engineering PhD, examining food waste in the hospitality sector. My interim data suggested 29% of Australians leave food on their plate when dining out. They leave around 15%, sometimes up to 78%, of their meal. It reminded me of Bobis – and it made me wonder if I could survive for a week eating nothing but the food I found left on other diners’ plates. Nothing bought or cooked with existing ingredients. No dumpster diving. The only thing I allowed myself from home was water. Let the experiment begin.
The number one question I was asked was: “Won’t you get sick?” Other favourites were “Are you counting calories?” or “What if someone sees you?”
My response to the ‘ick’ factor was simple: who doesn’t share food with friends or family at home or even out? Ever dipped your hand into someone else’s packet of hot chips? Poked the fork onto your partner’s plate while asking: “That looks delicious! Can I have a taste?”
The ick factor that some people feel reflects the tension of social norms, a fear of strangers, and perhaps a hypersensitivity to germs. Yet we share food with people we know all the time. We share buffets with strangers, using the same serving utensils to dish out the pasta salad. But we don’t share the food directly off their plate – and in doing so our social discomfort allows us to create waste.
This social pressure is powerful. Research published last year showed the guilt of leaving food is less powerful than the perceived shame in asking for doggy bags when we dine with others.
And it is entirely a perception: the spotlight effect describes the thought that people notice us, and our behaviour, far more frequently than they actually do. In reality I was able to sit right next to people to finish other people’s coffee, eat their toast, and transfer meals into my own containers unnoticed. Staff that did notice usually left me alone.
I knew breakfast would be the hardest meal to scavenge for between Monday and Friday. My preliminary research didn’t find a single diner who left any breakfast behind if they ate out on a weekday. When I was successful, my “harvest” was remaining part-portions of toast, mouthfuls of muffins and segments of bagels. I also filled my own glass jar with an assortment of coffees left behind by diners. This ranged from those last few sips to entire cups. I wondered why someone would leave so much – perhaps it comes down to huge serving sizes, they disliked it, or it was purely a time filler while the takeaway toastie was being made.
Before the experiment, I predicted plant-based food would be left most often. Research by the UK’s Waste & Resource Action Programme in 2013 showed people value this the least as it is the cheapest part of the meal to buy out or at home, so they don’t feel as guilty if they leave it.
This is exactly what I observed. Whether it was a food court, fast food venue, cafe, restaurant, pub or a catered event, just like the UK research, the most common food left by diners was plant matter: salads, chips, vegetables. And baked goods – plenty of baked goods: bread, muffins, toast, bagels and the like.
The reason is wheat is a cheap commodity, making bread and other baked goods affordable, and most Australians are relatively affluent, so we can choose not to eat the crust of the loaf because we don’t like it.
Yet the amount of land cleared to grow enough wheat to produce one loaf of Wonder White is around the size of the average studio apartment in Melbourne: approximately 38 square metres. With nearly 1 in 3 loaves ending up in the bin, our daily bread disposal is wiping out apartment building floor-sized plots of land used for growing wheat, and destroying the ecosystems that once lived there. OK, I’ll eat your crusts.
Meat and fats cost more when cooking at home, so diners value them more when they’re out. I’m not a vegetarian, so I was mentally prepared for a diet of bread and lettuce, yet I was surprised to discover how much chicken diners leave when I scavenged for lunch and dinner. Has chicken become a commodity food now?
All up, I fed myself from food waste across the week, consuming the retail equivalent of around $300 worth of food and drinks and saved over $100. I wouldn’t say I thrived off the experience however. As someone who predominantly eats a low-carb diet, my gut disliked me immensely, and reminded me frequently of its discomfort.
Unexpectedly, the biggest difference I noticed was the change in my mental health. I have generally been eating better for a few years and have seen dramatic changes in my mental health over that time. I’d assumed that was due to my improved personal care and mental health practice – meditation, journaling, etc. Little did I realise what an impact my diet alone was having. After only a few days on a high-carb, low fat diet and I was moody, negative and grumpy.
It’s been a few weeks since my experiment now, and I’m back to buying, cooking and dining out like “normal”, but the experience has changed the way I see the world and its food waste. I cannot walk past a cafe without glancing at someone’s plate. I clear other people’s trays in food courts. I may not be scavenging, but that instinct is ever present.
Last night I went out for dinner and ordered some tender lamb shoulder. Between bites I noticed that a diner near me had finished their meal, and then left a quarter of a bowl of raw coleslaw and an untouched lemon wedge. The leftovers looked like the perfect accompaniment to my lamb. And they were.
Originally published in The Guardian on 11 March 2018