India, July 3 -- When reading about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park, I learned that while wolves spend quite a lot of time goofing around, their lives are brutal.

For every meal, they risk bodily harm and court death.

Which makes me truly grateful for the modern food system that lets us eat without risking loss of limb. But in our quest for convenience, we may have gone too far. Food delivery is stripping the choice and consequence out of how we eat - and that is hurting us, as we saw in the last column; and hurting the planet, as we shall see in this one.

Let's start with wasted food.

A MOUNTAIN OF FRIED RICE

In 2019, researchers in Wuhan, China, weighed leftovers (including by rummaging through garbage c...