One of the main features of Spring Festival is dinner. But the amount of food that is wasted when such dinners are held in big or small restaurants is amazing. According to a conservative estimate, the annual waste of proteins and fat is 8 million tons and 3 million tons, enough to feed about 200 million people for one year, says an article on gmw.cn. Excerpts:

1942, a film released recently, shows the devastation caused by a famine just more than 70 years ago. Some members of the older generation have vivid but sorrowful memories of that famine as well as the one in the 1960s. Therefore, they rarely waste food and teach their children not to do so as well. Usually, in ordinary households, people store leftovers in refrigerators to be eaten the next day or later.

But the reality in restaurants is quite different irrespective of whether it is a private or official dinner. More often than not, the hosts order excessive amounts of food just to "save face", which is nothing but an attempt to show off one's wealth or power.

Such hosts think it is impolite to order just enough food for the guests and thus end up ordering so much that at times even half of the food has to be thrown as leftovers. No wonder, more than 200 billion yuan ($32.16 billion) worth of food is wasted as leftovers in China every year.

The central government has taken measures to stop wastage of food especially at official banquets. But with Spring Festival approaching, officials as well as non-officials should remember not to waste food, for it is no less than a criminal offense to do so.

(China Daily 01/29/2013 page9)