Unlimited Thali - Unlimited Wastage

Ever ordered for the south Indian or north Indian thali at a hotel? Unless we are one of those pizza-burger-pasta types, most of us must have tasted the food in the thali.

Today while I sat at one of the hotels & sipped coffee at lunchtime, the guy in front of me had ordered for a south Indian thali & was gorging on the food like there was no tomorrow. But what he ate was only the rice. The good helping of side dishes was ignored completely. As he drank his glass of water & proceeded towards the hand wash, the leftover side dishes, a bowl of dahi, a bowl of rice kheer & may be a good 5 spoonfuls of rice got me thinking.

Probably, the guy’s stomach could only accommodate what he ate. May be he didn’t like the food. May be he didn’t like me sitting in front of him & watching. Whatever the case the bottom line is the amount of food going waste in a thali is enormous & a cause for worry. And if you consider the ‘unlimited thali’ then the wastage is a lot more. Ever been to the Nagarjuna? Seen the way they serve food there?

The amount of food wasted by two people eating out of a thali could easily feed an underprivileged child.

I wonder what the hotel does with all the food that is wasted. It probably goes to the bin & dispatched off the next day with the regular garbage.

This has to stop. I know of a few small hotels in Bangalore where they actually shout at you for wasting food. The others haven’t done anything like this, probably for fear of losing out on their customers & business. Neither can the hotels put up grim statistics or images of how people are dying of hunger. It will require better education & awareness on the part of the hotel staff & the customers.

We should also get rid of this concept called unlimited thali, its actually unlimited wastage. Customers should consciously say ‘No’ to items that they don’t generally consume even before it is served to them.

The hotel that I visit regularly for the excellent coffee available there, serves an enormous amount of food in its limited thali. To me no normal person, including me, has been able to finish the whole plate completely. They should limit the amount of side dishes & provide dahi etc only on request. In case of waiters serving rice, they should be educated & trained to serve little first & an extra serving only on request. May be the customer should himself be allowed to take how much he needs. May be hotels can also put up boards saying, “don’t waste food” along side those “No Smoking” ones.


I remember seeing the conserve water campaign on TV. For whatever reason conservation of cooked food hasn’t received the same kind of treatment. Its time it does.