I decided to not get food delivery for lunch today and instead pick it up (what a hard working life when your company pays for your Seamless order every day) — it would get me out of the office and give me a little more exercise. So I ordered takeout from Laut, a nearby Malaysian fusion restaurant, and picked it up during lunchtime. When I walked in, I noticed a commotion near the windows with over a dozen dishes all lined up with specific lighting and multiple DSLR cameras nearby. It was a food photo shoot! I’d never seen that happen before. And of course, because natural light is the best, they were placing each dish individually by the window to shoot.

I made small talk with the people doing the photo shoot. They work for a corporate food delivery service that makes it easy for companies to do group orderings for different dishes at different restaurants, all in the same order. I asked them if they actually get to eat the food after they’re done shooting. They said that occasionally they’ll take a bite or two, but they never ask to eat for free and don’t want to impose on the restaurants by asking to take the food to go, so they leave the food at the restaurants… which eventually throw the food out.

That is so freaking wasteful and made me so upset. We’re a world full of waste everywhere when there are literally homeless people down the street who are starving.