Fasting & Food Waste

The Food We Never Eat

Perhaps one of the strongest environmental connections between fasting and food is food waste.

Producing food that is never eaten means that the land, water, fertilizer, energy and transportation associated with that food have effectively been used without delivering nutritional value.

Our World in Data estimates that food waste accounts for around 6% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and that roughly one-quarter of the calories produced globally are lost or wasted.

More recent UN reporting has also highlighted the enormous scale of food waste at household, food-service and retail levels.

Could Fasting Reduce Waste?

Potentially — but indirectly.

Someone who fasts may:

• Purchase fewer meals
• Prepare fewer meals
• Have fewer leftovers
• Reduce impulse food purchases
• Become more conscious of food quantities

But fasting could also have the opposite effect if a person buys excessive food before fasting or prepares large quantities that aren't consumed.

The Psychology of Food

Fasting can change how a person perceives food.

When food becomes temporarily unavailable, its value may become more apparent.

A person may become more reluctant to throw away food after experiencing several days without eating.

This is a psychological possibility rather than an established universal effect.

A OneYearFast Experiment

Food waste could easily be measured.

Record:

• Food purchased
• Food consumed
• Food discarded

Then compare fasting and non-fasting periods.

That could reveal whether fasting changes not only how much food is eaten but also how much food is wasted.

The Bigger Lesson

Reducing food waste is environmentally valuable regardless of whether someone fasts.

But fasting may provide an interesting behavioral framework for becoming more conscious of the relationship between food availability, consumption and waste.