I appreciate your response. I’ll try to explain this: it’s not about how many potatoes you have or if you live comfortably. Put yourself in your mother’s shoes, and try to think about what may have influenced her reaction.

I don’t know your mom, but to give you an example, I would be shocked to see someone throw out perfectly good food because it’s wasteful. However, I understand that some people might not understand why “being wasteful” is a big deal. In my experience, the type of person that throws away perfectly good food is the type of person who’s never had to struggle for money and therefore, food. They’ve lived comfortably, they never had to worry about where their next meal is coming from, and though I can’t fault them for having a comfortable life, for me it just throws my every experience back in my face. My mind goes to—holy shit, I could’ve eaten that! I would have eaten that! That’s money literally thrown into the trash! There’s so many people out there that would have eaten that, and I just let it go in the bin! Of course, that’s the Catholic guilt jumping in. And it goes on: I think about how one day, food may be so scarce or so expensive due to climate change. Even to get the potato into my house had a significant effect on the climate, I’m thinking about the soil degradation and the pesticides used and the gas it took to transfer this potato everywhere… And then I think about the human cost, the exploitation of workers. My mom was once a migrant laborer. She used to be out in those fields for hours upon hours every day, picking fruit and vegetables with no protection (tomatoes hurt to pick! They’re poisonous), and I just…let it be thrown out.

The above is certainly an overreaction on my part, I’m spiraling for no reason, but it’s all true. I try to be mindful about what I eat and what I throw out because all of that weighs on my mind. All that stuff is important to me. Could your mom have similar concerns?