1828 Souper Solution

My mom always used to say, "Waste not want not" a good phrase she learned in the real depression. It's interesting to note that not many people are paying attention to that homely maxim. Or is that maximized homily?
A recent news article put waste in America at about 40%. And that's waste of the most essential of all household items, food. The Natural Resources Defense Council, (I'm not sure if they defend non-natural fast food too) says that the average family of four wastes $2,275 of food each year.
That works out to 20 pounds per person per month.
Hmmm. Yet we still manage to have the largest percentage of obese people in the world.
It appears what we don't waste we are cramming in. But still, and this is obviously a very large but, maybe we just need to get smarter about how we cook our meals. Not throw away those outer leaves of romaine when we're making the salad perhaps.
Or we could just make more soup with the leftovers. Which is actually harder than it sounds. We Americans are a diverse bunch cooking-wise, moving from Thai fish one night to Italian spaghetti the next to Mexican tacos the night after that and Hungarian goulash at the end of the week. I'm not ready for Thai fish-aghetti taco goulash soup.
Then again, maybe it's fast food we are a wastin'. Maybe it's those last few limp fries or the dry final bite of a super-value menu disappointment. Or the 47 extra ketchup packets they gave us when we asked for two...
I know, we could make ketchup soup.
Catch-up on all our leftovers, a waste not want not solution that's truly American.
A melting pot we can be proud of.
America, ya gotta love it.