Wasting food makes me angry

It really does. There is not much that is more aggravating to me than wasting food. It is a huge waste of money, time, and resources. When M makes something for dinner (or breakfast or lunch for that matter) she makes enough to feed everyone, almost exactly. If not, we have leftovers and they are eaten the next day. It is great, and we almost never throw any food away. Except for in some circumstances, but I’m just not going to get into those since they aren’t really about me or either of my girls. Anyways!
Every now and then it pops up either in the news or on a blog that I read a large number of pounds of food being thrown out despite still being perfectly edible. Why? Because they are ‘day old’ or their ‘serve by’ date has passed, just as one example. Other times, it’s just because someone made too much food and has no concept of eating leftovers. It seems to me, and this is just my opinion and how I see things, that the more affluent people tend to think they are above eating leftovers.
What’s wrong with leftovers? If it was good enough to eat once, it’s good enough to eat again. Especially if it’s homemade.
Am I wrong? Is there something inherently ‘poor’ or ‘desperate’ about eating leftovers? Personally, I think they are the greatest thing when it comes to making my lunch in the mornings.
Oh, wait. Maybe that’s the issue? Affluent people don’t bring lunches? I work in the downtown core of my city, and there are A LOT of people who eat out for lunch everyday. Is that simply because they’re lazy, or they think that it’s a good thing to spend their money on? Sure, I like to eat lunch at a restaurant sometimes. Not everyday. It’s a treat, it’s something to brighten me up on a boring or lousy day. If I’m too lazy to find something in my fridge to eat… well, that doesn’t happen because there’s always something to eat.
Sometimes it’s just a bag of crackers, a few fruit and a container of vegetables. I’ll throw some hummus in there too. It’s just a mish-mash of stuff to eat, but it tastes good and gets me through the day.
At restaurants, I know from personal experience from working in one, there is a lot of food that gets thrown in the garbage. Whether it’s because it goes bad, the ‘quality timer’ expires, someone clumsy drops it, etc. That’s part of the reason I don’t really like to eat out very often. There’s also the fact that you have no real idea where the food comes from in a lot of cases, but that’s a whole separate concept.
If I want to eat something fancy, I just tell M that I have an idea for a dinner/lunch/breakfast/snack and work with her to find a recipe and help her make it. That way, it’s made with ingredients I know I’ll like in realistic quantities. And the leftovers taste delicious, no matter what.
Wasting food just makes me really angry. There’s the fact that there are starving children and adults across the world, including in our own cities, who can’t afford to eat. There’s the fact that the carbon emissions from growing, harvesting and processing that food are just thrown into the trash, literally. There’s also the fact that it is a horrid waste of money.
In a world where everything is about earning more money to buy more crap, you would think that people would be less likely to throw it in the trash. You may as well be throwing your money into the garbage directly for all it’s worth. I just don’t understand why there are so many people who just throw their food into the garbage (or compost, which at least fertilizes the ground, but still) and then wonder why they have no money at the end of the month.
Anyone have any tips, or are you as confused about this as I am?