ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we address some of the ways in which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam approach the issue of food waste. The Abrahamic traditions all have proscriptions against profligate wastefulness, stemming from their belief in the divine provenance of creation, and all express a concern for the just distribution of the fruits of the Earth. In this chapter we discuss contemporary and historical Abrahamic literature on wastefulness and provide several examples of how the legal and moral frameworks of food provisioning are put into practice in some of the faith communities. Through these texts and examples, we argue that faith communities have a strong moral imperative to reduce waste, and while much remains to be done, they can offer hopeful avenues and models for mitigating waste and simultaneously addressing social justice issues.
