No dent in the pile!

Thanks to my housemate, yesterday we managed to finish up the mixed berries, chicken thighs and bananas. three things gone from the huge pile in the kitchen. Unfortunately, two of these were on what I consider the "active" food list. These are foods I buy, eat and replace consistently. The chicken thighs seem like they should have been on that list but they'd been in the freezer a while.

I've been thinking about how I got into this situation of having so much food around the house. I consider myself to be a relatively conservative shopper. I usually tell myself not to buy too much because the more food I have around the house, the more I will eat. Apparently, that is only true for certain kinds of items.

Some of what I have I bought because it was such a good deal. Obviously, it's handy to have a few prepackaged meals around for those days/nights when I don't want to cook but want something substantial. The Indian meals were really cheap at a Diwali festival last year so I stocked up on them. Likewise, I bought a bunch of honey all at once because it was three jars for a set price and there were some really nice exotic flavors.

Some of what I have is sort of seasonal food. For example, I tend to eat a lot of cous cous in the summer because it is so easy to cook without heating up the house and goes well with all sorts of vegetable dishes.

I try to live by an "eat to live" philosophy rather than "live to eat" but I think I've been fooling myself. If I were really just eating what I need to keep myself going, surely I'd have worked my way through this stack of stuff already?

Another dilemna I faced yesterday and today is food at work. We often have leftovers from meetings. Sometimes bagels, muffins, fruit, cheese, lettuce. This happens frequently but not always so I can't go into to work on those days assuming that I will have free breakfast or lunch. Yesterday I ended up substituting fruit for the tiast I was planning for a mid morning snack. Today, I know that there are bagels, muffins and fruit from yesterday.
On one hand, I'm sort of of the "if it's free I should eat that" mindset. I'm pretty sure that most of us feel underpaid and a free meal here and there is a nice perk. On the other hand, if I eat the work food, I risk wasting my own food.
For the fruit it's not a big deal; I used up most of my fruit yesterday anyway so I'm happy to have another source. I'll probably pass up the bagels and muffins because they are higher in calories and lower in nutrition than what I have at home.

But it begs the question "does it make a difference if I waste my food or someone else's?" Is the issue the waste or who spent the money on it? In the long run, it's still food in the trash. I suppose I feel better if I'm not wasting my own money because I could have controlled that to begin with. But in a global sense, it's all going into the same trash heap.