"Man Lives to eat or man eats to live???" -my first reaction when I saw the episode of Man VS Food. Amazingly the guy empties the plate each time and the man wins each time against food. Be it any food the man triumphs each time. But my sole concern is not how that man defeats food but the leftovers in his plate but obviously it's NONE.

Then I think of plates that I see around in parties and get together, well why they ask for the food they cannot eat. Food waste each time, at the times when we are raising our concerns on the food waste from the Americans and the Europeans we have not peeped into our own lifestyles to see how much food we are wasting.

One of those is the food habit in Newari society of Nepal. I am not sure should I advocate the management of possible food waste or possibility of food waste in Newari society. Myself being a Newar lad I am proud to say that the Newari culture has significant contribution in cultural richness and food variety of Nepal. From birth of a child to the death of a person we have many rituals and functions where we invite guests and share our happiness and grief along food. At these times estimation of food for the higher number of people is obviously high and the possibility of food waste is even higher if the guests do not arrive in time. We have at least 10-15 varieties of food in each major function while the varieties might be same in smaller function but in small quantities. Inviting 300+ guests and preparing adequate amount of food is not an easy task in itself that is why the estimation is made pretty high. And the interesting thing is the party of a major event continues for 2-3 days. But the best thing about such parties is, children from the early age are taught that food should be respected and should not be wasted however despite all these, collection of food waste is huge in each festival- actual calculation yet to be done but the amount dumped shows its HUGE which is feast upon by the dogs and other animals. Hence no matter how hard it is tried food waste is inevitable in each case.

The story of food continues with the prepared food that is still uneaten. Since the estimation was already made huge and prepared accordingly in each major events the amount of remaining food is also high. However people gather again to clean dishes, clean up the places and manage everything in order within few days, at these times the food is eaten till they are edible. Also the food is given to the relatives, kin and poor people to clear off all the remaining food this is how the food waste is avoided.

However during summer the chances of larger amount of food waste is high as the food becomes inedible in very short time. Hence the Newari culture has high possibilities of producing larger food waste however they also have strategies to avoid such situations.

Being a Newar family we also have to follow the tradition and culture of the society and organize some gatherings and throw parties at festivals. In my context though so far there has not been a bigger occasion to organise a bigger event we organize small family get together. At those events what we do is reduce the variety of food to avoid food waste. What my dad thinks is if the variety of food is less then we stick to option we have and we end up eating all of it. However if we have variety of food then by nature we try to taste most of them and end up eating very few increasing food waste. Also for our family get together does not mean eating fancy food, we share what we have and create a dish out of what we have. And since the family members are less we do not end up coming with huge preparations we just stick to less varieties and more quantity but no leftovers in each plate.

My strategy to avoid food waste is different from my fathers, while being with friends we order in installments. We usually order fewer dishes at the beginning and then order another round if our appetite is not fulfilled. Hence we do not end up producing food waste.

These two simple ways have always been helpful for us to avoid the food waste, my effort to reduce food waste is not a campaign rather it?s an initiation that I learnt from my culture, my family and my friends. Avoiding food waste has not just saved food but also our resources, energy and effort.

We actually Think-Eat and Save.