Talking Turkey: Residential Food Waste and Thanksgiving

Abstract

The act of wasting food is embedded within consumer food culture. However, little is known about how cultural events, such as the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, relate to the amount and pattern of residential food waste. We analyze the self-reported food discards of a national online sample of U.S. household food preparers recruited with demographic quotas and post-stratified to the U.S. household distribution during Thanksgiving week. Participation in a Thanksgiving meal was associated with significantly greater discard of once-edible food, with those who hosted a meal discarding 78% more than those who neither hosted nor attended such a meal, while those who both hosted and attended a meal wasted 140% more. Those who only attended a holiday meal discarded 59% more than those who neither attended nor hosted a meal. Among those who prepared food for a holiday meal, 74% reported preparing more food than was needed, with 25% of this group attributing this excess to uncertainty of guest appetites and 12% to traditions of excess. Efforts to mitigate waste included the 37% of meal hosts who sent guests home with leftovers. Additionally, 19% of those who prepared holiday food reported that substantial waste occurred when making room for Thanksgiving meal provisions. Respondents who also self-reported waste during a non-holiday week in December had 39% more waste in weight and 40% more waste in value during Thanksgiving week. We discuss how these estimates can inform national estimates of total annual food discards and interventions to curb holiday food waste.