Ramadan Waste

The articles on Ramadan food waste continue to roll in here at Wasted Food Headquarters. This article in Qatar’s Gulf-Times provides an Upstairs, Downstairs-like, behind-the-scenes insight on how breaking the Ramadan fast leads to food waste:

Contrary to the essence and spirit of fasting, which is meant to incorporate piety and kindheartedness in those observing them, people have been observed to end up violating the very ideals that they were supposed to uphold, by wasting huge amounts of food,” [sources] said. Yousuf, an Asian man, who works for a prominent Qatari household, said: “The food that gets served to one person here is good for 20 people.”

The article continues:

Because a fasting person has had nothing to eat all the day, he will keep all the food stuff while preparing to break the fast, without realising that it is impossible to consume all that he has received,” said Zainab, a working mother of three, who thought the phenomenon was just like a hungry shopper going to a supermarket and filling the cart with items that are never consumed. ramadan_dinner_2005-11-07.jpg

The Peninsula reports that across Qatar, about 100,000 tonnes (c. 110,000 tons) of food waste are carted away daily from sites of Iftar, the communal end-of-day meals that break the fast.  

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