Miss Wang has met Professor Kennedy before.

Kennedy: Come in, please.
Wang: Good afternoon, Professor Kennedy.
Kennedy: Good afternoon. I have been expecting your first visit to my home.
Wang: It is an honor to be invited to meet you at your home.
Kennedy: My honor, too. Have a seat and be at home.
Wang: Thank you.
Kennedy: Coffee or some juice?
Wang: Juice will be all right.
Wang: Thanks....Very nice apple juice.
Kennedy: You seemed to have told me that you are from Shandong, where you grow very good apples.
Wang: Yes, you certainly have a very good memory since there are about 50 students in our class.
Kennedy: But not so many Chinese, ha, ha, ha...
Wang: I’ve been in the U.S. for more than three years, and I have been convinced that the American people are enjoying very good material life.
Kennedy: You are right partly, I’m afraid. You should know the other side of the matter.
Wang: What do you mean exactly?
Kennedy: Well, the Americans are wasting the most materials in the world, too.
Wang: I’ve heard so. But I don’t know much about it.
Kennedy: Oh, it’s easy to know. If you go look into garbage cans, you’ll find that the average family wastes at least $150 per year in food.
Wang: Wow, that’s unbelievable!
Kennedy: That’s true. Homemakers go out of their way to save pennies at store and they don’t realize that waste of edible foods adds up much more at home.
Wang: This is interesting. People save at stores but waste more at home.
Kennedy: That is the point. American families throw out between 8 and 20% of edible food at a cost of $4.5 billion per year.
Wang: Gee, that’s almost as much as the federal government spending every year for food stamps and child nutrition programs. I learned the figure in my class.
Kennedy: Good.
Wang: But on what did you base your estimates?
Kennedy: I based my estimates on an annual garbage collection study by my Arizona research group, measuring food wasted in the Tucson area.
Wang: But is the Tucson area typical?
Kennedy: Well, I know it is rather presumptuous to make national estimates based on Tucson-area studies. But...there’s no other data available.
Wang: No doubt your study is very valuable.
Kennedy: In somewhat of a paradox, food items which are costly and in short supply tend to be wasted more...
Wang: Is that so?
Kennedy: Yes. During the 1983 meat shortage, meat waste increased to 9%, compared with 3% in 1984 and 1985.
Wang: Is it because meat easily gets bad?
Kennedy: No. Sugar and sugar products waste jumped to 19% in 1985, 5% higher, when sugar prices doubled from the previous year.
Wang: What conclusion have you drawn from your study, Professor Kennedy?
Kennedy: My conclusion is that high prices force consumers to experiment, sometimes buying in large quantities. In the case of meat, sometimes low-priced cuts or unappetizing varieties are purchased. Consumers then tend to waste more. The more variety in food bought, the more wasted.
Wang: Very amazing.
Kennedy: There are more examples. You see, regular bread is wasted at about a 10% rate, but specialty breads and rolls are wasted at a 20% rate.
Wang: Why is that?
Kennedy: If people are eating the same thing every day, they learn how to manage it. But if you’re trying to pull something out of the Captain Bochelle cookbook every night, there’s bound to be some waste.
Wang: But aren’t you talking about the middle class or the rich families?
Kennedy: Oh, so long as the lower-income families are concerned, in the Tucson area, they waste less food than middle and upper-income families. And the study found that dog food, which accounts for 8% of a shopping cart, is rarely wasted.
Wang: Ha, dogs know better the value of food!
Kennedy: I have never thought of that!
Wang: This is really an interesting topic to study in. I’ve certainly learned a lot this afternoon. I really want to talk to you more, but I’m afraid I have to be going, for I have another appointment at 5:00.
Kennedy: It’s nice to talk to you. Please come any time you want.
Wang: Thank your very much, Professor Kennedy. Good-bye.
Kennedy: See you later.