'Clean up your plate' sounds awfully familiar

Clean up your plate so you can have dessert. Or watch TV. Or go outside and play with your friends.

Most of us heard such admonitions when we were growing up. Our parents placed a high priority on making sure we ate enough to fuel our growing bodies.

Want strong teeth? Clean your plate.

Want good eyesight? Clean your plate.

Want strong muscles? Clean your plate.

Those were the days, of course, when mothers cooked meals and served them to the assembled family gathered around the kitchen or dining room table. Times have changed. Fewer meals are prepared at home. Many families rarely sit down together to eat.

As a result, what we eat and how we eat it have been cited as critical factors in obesity and other health problems among Americans.

Fortunately for most Americans, there is an abundance of food whether it is a home-cooked meal or something picked up at one of the many restaurants or convenience stores. Most supermarkets these days have an array of prepared foods that can be taken home, heated up and served in a short time with little fuss or mess.

Along with the availability and choices of good things to eat comes a lot of waste.

Chartwells, which operates food services at Southeast Missouri State University and college campuses nationwide, has started a project to educate diners about waste and to reduce leftovers that are thrown away.

One beneficiary of this project are charitable organizations that give food to the needy. Since the last part of February, SEMO students have reduced food waste an astonishing 22 percent. As a result, Chartwells has donated food to the Salvation Army.

Part of the waste problem in situations like university dining halls comes from the fact that students pay a set fee for a semester's worth of meals. Other than being educated about the unnecessary waste, there is little incentive to prevent a hungry student from taking far more food that he or she is likely to eat.

Of course, there's one technique that worked well for our parents: All those starving children in Africa. Or China. Or India.

In fact, there are hungry children all over the world. There are lots of people in this country who won't eat a good meal because of poverty. Or because of a misplaced sense of how their money should be spent, choosing to buy cigarettes or drugs instead of food.

Chartwells and the participating students at the university are to be commended for their efforts through Project Clean Plate to increase awareness about food waste.

Along the way, they are doing a good thing by helping to stock food pantries at worthwhile organizations.