Many of the people in my study were not yet separated from their families, they may not have had the power to make decisions about food consumption, food planning and their food waste behaviour was influenced by other family members and family intentions. Therefore, I chose to observe them in the Cafe, when they were more free and their food waste behaviour was more influenced by self-consciousness and their own factors.
The subjects of the research are mainly students at the University of Edinburgh, most of whom are relatively young and highly educated.
Understand the purpose of their meal: lunch break, chat with friends, supplement at work, etc.
I pay attention to their conversation content, mealtime, expressions, etc.
Record time：week3-week6
Some of the inevitable food scraps, which I don't even consider to be waste, aren't exactly discs either, so I put them up.
The two girls at this table had been talking about the dissertation, about art theory.
A girl in a black leather jacket, eating and talking loudly on the phone as she left some fries and left in a hurry.
The boy at this table was so focused on working on his computer that he took a few sips of his soup and set it aside until it was cold.
" Some leftover sauce is not a waste."
"I don't consider leftover sips of coffee to be food waste." -- a Boy in blue sweatshirt.
A table of Korean girls who couldn't understand what they were saying
Had a great time chatting in her seat
She was skinny and slow to eat, honestly the portions weren't huge but she didn't finish them. I noticed that Korean girls are very controlled eaters and eat very little (my Korean friend agreed with me on this point)
The set menu at the cafe is the same amount for both men and women, and there are so many fries that I often can't finish them.
The set menu at the cafe is the same amount for both men and women, and there are so many fries that I often can't finish them.(This is my friend who said she had a lot left over because the beef burger was too fishy for her appetite that day)
A somewhat sad girl, who ate a few bites and then went out, her sadness was obvious and she kept looking at her phone..
"It's really bad, but there's not much else to choose from, so I probably won't want to continue eating until I'm not hungry."
What I Found:
The waste situation in the cafe is not serious and people almost always finish their food - except for a few people due to portion size, taste or other reasons (about 20%)
However, they all had more or less one bite left - a sip of coffee, a bite of bread, a few fries
I asked a few people and got very similar answers - they all thought that this one bite of food was not a waste and that it would have a minimal impact -- "it's a small thing that doesn't matter."
In fact, one more bite is enough to "empty the plate", but they don't feel the need to.
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