My mom is one of the least wasteful people I know. Growing up in India in the 60s and the 70s, she used to bring her own aluminum tins to the market to load up on staples like rice, lentils and flour.

It’s the unfortunate truth that these days, buying food often means producing a lot of waste. There’s the food waste we produce when we don’t eat all the food we’ve purchased before it goes bad, of ...