Holy waste: The unseen drivers behind plate waste and Arab hospitality
Omar Moufakkir
What the paper says
Food waste is a critical environmental issue worldwide. This qualitative study explores why plate waste persists in Arab societies, despite religious beliefs that consider wasting food ungodly and teachings that explicitly discourage wastefulness. Previous studies have acknowledged excessive Karam (‘hospitality’) as an important factor but have not fully explained the underlying causes of this phenomenon. This article makes a unique contribution by uncovering the deeper drivers behind Arab Muslims’ expressions of excessive hospitality – an often-overlooked aspect in existing research. The study unpacks the complex connections between hospitality, religion and food waste and advocates for rethinking generosity within Arab Muslim hospitality to address both the environmental and ethical implications of food waste. While considerable research has focused on food waste reduction, far less attention has been devoted to strategies that prevent food waste from occurring in the first place. This article aims to contribute to this area by offering insights into food waste prevention within Arab hospitality contexts grounded in interviews and Islamic teaching.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.