No crumb shall be left behind. Perceptions of food waste across generations

• Main Author: Ioana Ioniță
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bucharest 2017-12-01
• Series: Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology
• Subjects: Food saving; food waste; aging; food shortage; communism; post-communism
• Online Access: http://compaso.eu/wpd/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Compaso2017-82-Ioni%C8%9B%C4%83.pdf

This paper aims to explore whether there are age-specific differences in perceptions about food waste in two groups of women living in Bucharest (born in/after 1989 vs mature in 1989), as well as the extent to which such perceptions are influenced by relatively recent periods of food shortage they may have experienced/heard of (Communism, the transition period). While circumstances such as the difference in the pace of personal/professional lives, available budgets as well as other wider-scale economic factors (such as a general food shortage) are proven to dictate, to a large extent, how the elder group acquire food, it will be argued that their present-day beliefs about the value of food and strategies to avoid food waste appear to be rooted in their childhood experiences. Additionally, members of the elder group seem to have developed food saving and recycling practices that inadvertently transform them into exemplary eco-friendly citizens.