The Association between Religious Beliefs and Food Waste: Evidence from Chinese Rural Households

Abstract

This paper investigates the Chinese rural household food waste issue from the unique perspective of religious beliefs based on 1380 samples in 26 provinces in mainland China. By using the count regression approach model, it is found that about 2.30% of the home meal is wasted on average for Chinese rural households. The empirical results reveal that religion has a significantly negative impact on residents’ food wastage, and religious rural households waste less food than their counterparts. Taking into account the possible omission of variables and selection bias, the above conclusion is still valid. Additionally, male household heads, small household size, young families, bad food storage conditions, and the poorer convenience of buying foods are positively related to the higher food waste rate in rural China. Thus, the study provides evidence that religiosity plays a positive role in reducing food waste in rural China. As most of the world’s population is religious to some extent, the finding may also apply to other countries or regions, and it implies that religion and sustainable food consumption are closely related.

1. Introduction

The Food Waste Index Report 2021 released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that about 17% of food produced each year was squandered or spoiled before being consumed [1]. Additionally, it is observed that the cultural positioning of food waste has shifted to include the power of waste to contest the ontological politics of regimes [2], while millions suffer from hunger. As a result, food waste is becoming one of the core causes of hunger [1], in addition to chronic poverty, conflict, and a lack of resources. Although large-scale food is wasted in vain, there are still a large number of people in the world whose food supply is not enough [3]. Nearly 821 million people are suffering from hunger globally [4]. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the pressure on the global food supply, and the food security of low-income countries has deteriorated significantly [5]. Therefore, except for the increase in food production to improve food security, reducing food waste is widely regarded as an alternative to dealing with food insecurity globally [6,7].

Food waste refers to the food quantity or quality decrease resulting from retailers, food service providers, and consumers’ decisions and actions. It is a critical issue in developed countries during the consumption stage [8]. Accordingly, food waste research is mainly carried out in developed countries [9]. Although related research has increased in recent years, studies in developing countries are still sparse [10,11], especially in the emerging economies, such as China. China is the world’s most populous and largest food consumption country. Achieving China’s food security is very important to guarantee global food security. Therefore, reducing food waste in the consumption stage is of special practical significance and has attracted widespread attention from the scholarship and policy formation in China [12,13]. For example, the Chongqing survey team of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) reveals that 50 million tons of food are wasted in China, which can feed 350 million people [14]. Another study shows that around 19% of edible food is wasted in the consumption stage in China [15]. These wasted foods not only mean that lots of resources are wasted in vain but also bring significant negative environmental effects [16]. Taking greenhouse gas emissions as an example, it is estimated that the carbon footprint associated with food waste in China is similar to the total carbon emission of the United Kingdom [17]. Therefore, a good understanding of the factors that drive food waste and proposing corresponding policies are of great importance to safeguard food security and sustainable development in China [18,19].

Food waste among Chinese residents has become increasingly prevalent, accompanying improved living standards [5,13]. Furthermore, it is found that both at-home and away-from-home food consumption are sources of food waste generation [17]. Away-from-home food waste generation is investigated at restaurants [13,20] and some specific places, such as canteens of schools [21] and universities in urban areas [22,23]. However, household food waste generation still accounts for a critical part of total food wastage [24,25], and it is estimated that more than 50% of the total food is wasted at home globally [26]. A recent study on household food waste shows that dietary knowledge significantly affects household food waste, but the effect is heterogeneous between urban and rural residents [12]. However, the probe of Chinese rural households remains indistinct [18,22]. As of 2020, more than 556 million people live in rural areas in China [27], and the food waste of rural residents cannot be ignored. Given China’s large rural population, it is necessary to conduct research based on more representative data [28]. Therefore, this paper focuses on Chinese rural households and attempts to analyse the motivation of rural residents’ food wastage.

Unlike most literature, this paper aims to interpret food waste in rural China from the unique perspective of religious beliefs and explores whether religious beliefs affect food wastage. The motivation to link religious belief with food waste is as follows. First, it is because of the prevalence of religion in rural China and its role in people’s daily lives. Although China is a secular country, the proportion of religious believers is low, but the total number of religious believers is still very large [29]. Several studies confirm that China’s religious population has been increasing in recent years, and it is reported that nearly 200 million people believe in various religions in China, and most are rural residents [30]. Second, previous literature shows that religious beliefs are closely related to individual consumption behaviour [31]. As a social norm, religious beliefs can influence people’s perceptions or attitudes that are closely related to individual consumption behaviour [32]. For example, it is found that religious beliefs relate to food choice in the U.K., India, and Australia [33,34,35], and religiosity helps explain pro-environmental intention and behaviours [36,37]. Food waste is one of the manifestations of the individual’s consumption behaviour [38]; we guess that religious beliefs may also impact personal food wastage. Third, previous studies suggest that religious beliefs are closely related to individual food wastage intention in some religious countries. Most religions in the world advocate reasonable eating and are against waste, and wasting food is regarded as a violation of moral norms, leading to guilt in some religions [36,39]. Therefore, it is usually found that religion affects the individuals’ willingness to waste food significantly [31,40]. For example, an interview with 60 rural families in rural Lebanon discovered that religiosity encourages food waste avoidance [41]. A study in Saudi Arabia also suggested that religious beliefs may influence individual food wastage intention [42]. A similar study from India also confirmed that various religions could reduce individual food waste intention to varying degrees [33]. However, most studies focus on religious beliefs and individual willingness to waste food; the literature testing the relationship between religious beliefs and food wastage through quantitative analysis is rare, especially in a secular country, such as China.

Based on a nationwide field survey of 1380 rural households, this paper examines how religiosity affects food waste in China and makes three contributions. Firstly, this study is among the first attempts to examine the association between religiosity and household food wastage in a secular country, such as China, while most studies focus on religious societies, thus, providing insights into the critical issue from a unique perspective. As most of the world’s population is religious to some extent [43], the finding in this paper may also help understand the association between religions and household food waste and the possible role of religion in promoting sustainable consumer behaviour worldwide [44]. Secondly, it enriches the food waste literature by adding a comprehensive study of Chinese rural households. Most studies focus on urban residents worldwide [9,41], but only a few studies focus on the food waste of rural residents [45], and related studies on emerging countries, such as China, are even rarer. Thirdly, this study is among the first attempts to focus on rural households’ food waste based on a nationwide field survey. Previous studies on food waste of rural residents mostly use small sample data [18] or secondary data [46]. Only the study of Luo et al. [28] was based on a relative large-scale survey in rural China. Therefore, this paper can provide new evidence of food waste among Chinese rural residents based on nationwide food waste survey data.

2. Data, Variables, and Model

2.1. Data

A survey was used to investigate Chinese rural households’ food waste in the consumption stage, considering the regional economic development, population structure, and food culture. The formal survey was carried out from October to December 2016, covering 26 provinces across China (Figure 1), including 4 provinces in central north China, 3 provinces in northeast China, 5 provinces in central south, 5 provinces in east China, 4 provinces in the southwest, and 5 provinces in the northwest. The villages surveyed are the fixed observation points of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and our research team collaborated with the rural survey group of the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) to carry out the survey. Following some representative national surveys in China (i.e., CFPS), and considering the regional economic development level, population structure, diet culture and other factors, this survey uses the implicit stratification method to draw multi-stage probability samples to improve the representativeness of the sample as much as possible. According to the coverage of fixed observation points of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, about 25–150 households were randomly investigated in each province. After excluding samples with incorrect or incomplete information, 1380 valid questionnaires were finally obtained.

The questionnaire has two parts. Part one is background information, including multi-dimensional characteristics, such as population, economy, and society. Part two is the household food waste records. The food varieties investigated in this survey involve nine kinds of foods that are consumed in the daily life of rural households in China, including flour products, rice products, potato products, bean products, pork, beef and mutton, poultry, aquatic products, and egg products, following Wang et al. [20] and Li et al. [18].

2.2. Measuring Food Waste

The food waste definitions vary in different literature sources. This paper adopts the FAO’s definition and defines food waste as avoidable wastage in the consumption stage; that is, food can be saved under existing conditions and consumed by humans [22]. However, some food residues, such as bones, vegetable leaves, eggshells, fish bones, and liquid residues, including cooking oil, milk, and soup, are omitted in the survey [1].

Additionally, how to obtain food waste data is critical. Most literature uses the archaeological method, second-hand data inference method, self-estimation method, photography method, and other indirect methods [17]. However, the data accuracy is problematic [24,47]. Therefore, this paper adopts a direct weighing method to improve data accuracy, following previous research [5]. First, an electronic scale is used to obtain the food weights before and after meals (including breakfast, lunch, and dinner) in the survey. Second, in line with other studies on household food waste, a method of book-entry survey for three days is used to track food wastage, avoiding data deviation [12,46].

The whole research process is divided into several steps. Firstly, each household weighs the various foods prepared for consumption in a day. Secondly, the ingredients of leftovers discarded are weighed after each meal, excluding the inedible parts. Taking into account that there is a certain percentage of food loss during the cooking process, and the weight of ingredients will change after oil and water absorption, the direct weight of cooked food after meals is not very accurate for indicating the weight of food wasted. Therefore, following Wang et al. [16] and Adelodun et al. [48], the raw and cooked conversion coefficients are adopted to convert the amount of wasted cooked food into the corresponding amount of raw food to obtain a more accurate amount of food wastage. Thirdly, the food waste rates indicate food wastage, including the average food waste rate and the waste ratio of different food items, following Qian et al. [5]. Finally, the average food waste rate and the average waste rate of each specific variety of food per meal per household are calculated by using Formula (1).

$$Food–waste–rate=\frac{The weight of discard food}{The total weight of food before the meal} \times 100\%$$

(1)

2.3. Religious Beliefs and Control Variables

Religious belief is one of the core explanatory variables of this study. Since the household head is the primary family decision maker and can influence and regulate other family members’ behaviour, this paper explores whether the household head has a religious belief to indicate religiosity’s impact. Following Yang et al. [29] and Luo et al. [28], if the household head believes in any religion (i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, and Taoism), the value is 1; otherwise, it is 0. The results indicate that 5.3% of surveyed Chinese rural households have a religious belief. As a country influenced by secular moral theories, the result indicates that China has a low proportion of religious believers, as confirmed by other surveys [49].

Following previous studies [12,18], this study also examines other factors at the household level, such as household head characteristics, family economic and social demographic characteristics, and food supply characteristics. Firstly, the household head is defined as the primary decision maker of the family. It is found that individuals of different genders, ages [10], ethnic groups [22], and educational attainments [23,39] have diverse food waste performance. Therefore, the above variables are introduced to the model as control variables. Secondly, family demographics, economic and social characteristics are also related to food waste. It is shown that household sizes determine the food wastage level [9,35], and families in different life cycles generate food waste differently. Additionally, economic conditions affect household food consumption and wastage [13]. Hence, family income [50], Engel coefficient, and income structure are used as control variables. Thirdly, family social capital and food supply characteristics can influence household food wastage [51]. Thus, food storage conditions [52,53], dietary habits [39], and the inconvenience of buying food are introduced as control variables, following Parizeau et al. [40]. The model also includes information about shopping and cooking persons. Moreover, to avoid the possible influence of regional factors, this paper further introduces provincial dummy variables as the control variables. All variables introduced and the corresponding statistical analysis are shown in

Table 1. Variable settings and descriptive analysis.

Variable	Definition	Mean	S.D.
Food waste rate	Total weight of food waste after meal × 100/total weight of food before a meal, (%)	2.30	7.82
Religious beliefs	Does the household head believe in any religion: 1 = yes, 0 = no	0.05	0.22
Gender	The gender of the household head: 1 = male, 0 = female	0.96	0.19
Age	The age of the household head: 2016-year of birth	56.46	10.11
Education	How many years of study at school for the household head:	7.28	2.60
Ethnic group	Is the household head an ethnic minority: 1 = yes, 0 = no	0.12	0.33
Social network	Is there a village cadre at home: 1 = yes, 0 = no	0.08	0.27
Household size	How many people are in the family	3.88	1.68
Family life cycle	The average age of family members (years)	42.76	17.51
Family income	Total household income (CNY, logarithm)	10.45	0.77
Engel coefficient	The proportion of household food expenditure in total consumption expenditure	0.26	0.15
Income structure	1 = mainly non-agricultural income, 0 = mainly agricultural income	0.05	0.22
Food storage conditions	Is there a refrigerator at home: 1 = yes, 0 = no	0.91	0.28
The person in charge of cooking	1 = male is responsible for cooking, 0 = female is responsible for cooking	0.08	0.27
Dietary habits	1 = get used to prepare more food, 0 = prepare enough for this meal	0.23	0.42
The inconvenience of buying food	How long does it take to walk to the nearest food market or supermarket (minutes)	27.58	30.31

.

2.4. Empirical Model

Following Ananda et al. [51], we used a count regression model to examine the rural households’ food waste issue in China because of its suitability for analysing censored data, as the food waste rate of rural residents is non-negative. The Tobit method can also be a choice from the perspective of analysing censored data. However, the survey data show that a higher proportion of rural households have a “0” food waste rate, which causes the explanatory variable to be compressed close to “0”. Since the Tobit model is based on normally distributed error terms, its estimator is not robust enough. Unlike the Tobit estimator, the count regression model is consistent and asymptotically normal for a wide class of error distributions and robust to heteroscedasticity. Consistent with Li et al. [18] as well as Qian et al. [5], the benchmark model of this paper is set as follows:

$$Food–waste–rat{e}_i={\alpha }_0+\theta religio{n}_i+{{\displaystyle \sum }}^{ }{\lambda }_i{X}_i+\beta Z_i+{\epsilon }_i$$

(2)

where Food-waste-rate_i represents the food waste rate of household i, religion_i demonstrates the religious belief of rural resident i. X_i represents a series of influencing factors, including household head characteristics, family population, economic and social characteristics, and food supply characteristics. Z_i represents a regional virtual variable, and ε_i represents the random error term. α₀ is the constant, and λ_i represents the coefficient of each influencing factor.

3. Results

3.1. Religious Beliefs and Food Waste: Comparative Analysis

The comparative analysis of households with and without religious beliefs is shown in

Table 2. Comparative analysis of households with and without a religious belief.

Group	Food Waste Rate (%)	t	df
Households with a religious belief	2.08	−0.51 ***	1380
Households without a religious belief	2.61

Note: *** represents significance levels of 1%.

. It reveals that households without a religious belief had a higher rate of food waste (2.61%), and the food waste rate with a religious belief (2.08%) was lower than the average rate of the whole sample (2.30% in Table 2), and the difference in food waste between the two groups passed the statistical test of 1% significance level. Thus, it provides preliminary evidence that religious beliefs are negatively related to food wastage.

3.2. Benchmark Regression

The results of benchmark regression based on Equation (2) are shown in

Table 3. Religious beliefs and food waste: Benchmark regression.

Variables	Food Waste Rate (%)
Religious beliefs	−2.55 *** (0.40)
Gender	−0.86 *** (0.14)
Age	0.02 (0.00)
Education	0.07 (0.01)
Ethnic group	0.63 (0.06)
Social network	−0.51 (0.09)
Household size	−0.07 ** (0.02)
Family life cycle	−0.02 *** (0.001)
Family income	0.02 ** (0.04)
Engel coefficient	−0.12 (0.18)
Income structure	0.66 (0.09)
Food storage conditions	−0.29 *** (0.07)
The person in charge of cooking	0.08 (0.07)
Dietary habits	0.36 *** (0.05)
The inconvenience of buying food	0.01 ** (0.00)
Province	Controlled
Constant	2.79 *** (0.48)
LR chi2	670.84 ***
Observation	1380

Note: *** and ** represent significance levels of 1% and 5%, respectively. The standard error is shown in brackets.

. It indicates that religious beliefs significantly negatively affect the food waste rate of Chinese rural households if other variables remain the same, in line with the conjecture of Abdelradi [10] and the finding in Saudi Arabia [42] as well as in Poland [31]. This means that the negative association between religion and food waste is not only established in religious societies. For a non-religious country, such as China, religion also has a significant negative impact on residents’ food waste, thus providing relevant evidence from a secular country for the first time. Given a large number of religious people around the world, these results suggest that religion may have a positive role to play in promoting food conservation and sustainable development.

Table 3 shows that the control variables significantly affect the food wastage of rural residents. Specifically, households with female heads generate less food waste than those with male heads, which means female leadership helps reduce wastage [40]. In line with previous studies on household food waste in China [45], households of a large family size have a lower food waste rate than those of a small size. The average age of family members is significantly negatively correlated with food waste, confirming previous studies [6,54]. As the ageing level of rural China continues to increase, it is not difficult to foresee that the ageing of the life cycle of rural households will help reduce food waste in the near future. Family income is positively correlated with food waste, indicating that rural households will waste more food when family economic conditions improve, consistent with prior studies [23,55]. Food storage conditions significantly negatively impact household food waste, implying that improving food storage conditions helps reduce food waste [52,56]. The family’s dietary habits also significantly affect the food waste of rural households [18], signalling that excessive food supply is an important cause of waste [28]. The inconvenience of buying food is positively correlated with household food waste significantly [51].

3.3. Robustness Test I

The benchmark regression shows that religious belief is significantly negatively associated with food waste. However, it is always prudent to avoid the omission of key variables through robust checks. One influencing factor is the dietary structure, since China has a vast geographic area and diversified food cultures [5,48].

The dietary difference between southerners and northerners is one of the distinctive features. As wheat is mainly grown in the north and rice in the south, northerners rely mostly on flour as a staple food and gradually form the “wheat consumer”; similarly, the “rice consumer” is prevalent in the south [57]. Therefore, the control variable of a dietary structure named South (1 = south; 0 = north) is introduced on the basis of the basic model. The results (column (1) in

Table 4. Religious beliefs and food waste: Robustness test I.

Variables	Food Waste Rate (%)
Religious beliefs	−2.50 *** (0.40)	−3.09 *** (0.51)
South	0.25 *** (0.05)	0.20 *** (0.05)
Religious beliefs × South		2.25 *** (0.72)
Control variables	Yes	Yes
LR chi2	697.28 ***	669.32 ***
Observation	1380	1340

Note: *** represents significance levels of 1%. The standard error is shown in brackets.

) show that the dummy variable named South passed the significance test, indicating that the differences in staple food affect rural household food waste. Compared with wheat consumers, rice consumers have a higher food waste rate, which is in line with the finding of Qian et al. [5]. This may be because water-scarce northern China is more susceptible to natural disasters, and global warming has gradually increased the frequency of disasters in the north [15]. Facing the possible loss of agricultural production caused by natural disasters, residents in the north are more likely to have stronger risk aversions, and they cherish food more than southerners. Moreover, when the staple food consumption pattern is controlled, religious beliefs still have a significantly negative impact on rural households’ food waste, indicating that religiosity’s influence is robust.

Are there differences in the impact of religious beliefs on food waste under different dietary cultural backgrounds? In response to this question, the cross-term of religious belief and dietary structure was further introduced (column (2) Table 4), and the results showed that diet culture negatively regulates the influence of religious belief on rural household food wastage. This finding suggests that religious beliefs have a greater impact on rural residents in the north than in the south. The reason for this is probably because the northern rural areas are relatively under-developed, and the clan network is scarcer, and religion is one of the social capitals that farmers rely most upon in the north [58]. Therefore, religious beliefs are more popular in northern rural areas, and the religious beliefs of northern rural residents are also more pious.

3.4. Robustness Test II

Another influencing factor considered is the famine experience. The Great Chinese Famine occurred between 1959 and 1961, causing unnatural deaths, especially in rural areas [59]. Studies have found that the famine experience will significantly affect the individual’s long-term health and other economic and social behaviours, such as saving, investment, and consumption [60]. Moreover, it is found that people with famine experience cherish food and have a set of ways to cope with famine even if there is no threat. In other words, famine experience also needs to be controlled to alleviate the problem of missing variables.

This paper investigates whether the famine experience affects rural household food waste. A dummy variable named Famine experience is introduced to indicate any family member’s experience during the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961 (1 = have experience; 0 = have no experience). The result shows that the famine experience significantly negatively correlates with food wastage in rural households (Column (1) in

Table 5. Religious beliefs and food waste: Robustness test II.

Variables	Food Waste Rate (%)
Religious beliefs	−2.51 *** (0.41)	−3.01 *** (0.83)
Famine	−0.22 *** (0.144)	−0.22 *** (0.05)
Religious beliefs × Famine		0.80 * (0.94)
Control variables	Yes	Yes
LR chi2	684.75 ***	684.82 ***
Observation	1340	1340

Note: *** and * represent significance levels of 1% and 10%, respectively. The standard error is shown in brackets.

). Therefore, it confirms that a particular family member’s famine experience drives the whole family to cherish food. Moreover, religious beliefs still negatively impact rural household food waste when this variable is controlled, indicating its powerful influence.

To identify the influence of religious beliefs on food waste in different famine experience scenarios, the cross-item between religious beliefs and Famine is further introduced (column (2) in Table 5). Compared with rural residents without famine experience, those with famine experience during 1959–1961 will strengthen the influence of religious beliefs on household food waste. The reason for this is probably because the experience of famine will strengthen household religious beliefs and allow believers to abide by religious guidelines more piously.

3.5. Robustness Test III: PSM Model

An implicit assumption of the model is that the sample survey is not biased. However, it needs to be tested whether the systematic differences (i.e., individual/family characteristics and food supply dimension) between rural households in the experimental group (with a religious belief) and rural households in the control group (without a religious belief) exist.

In response to the concern, Rosenbaum and Rubin [61] proposed the propensity score matching (PSM). The idea is to find another individual j in the control group for an individual i in the experimental group through specific methods, so that the characteristics of j can be as similar as possible to i (matching). Natural problems calculate the “pure intervention effect” brought by critical variables to solve the problems caused by sample deviation. The widely used matching methods include the nearest neighbour matching method, radius matching method, and kernel matching method. This paper uses the above three methods, and the results are shown in

Table 6. Religious beliefs and food waste: Robustness test using PSM model.

Matching Method	Average Treatment Effect (ATT)	Standard Error
Nearest neighbour (1:1)	−3.64 ***	0.61
Radius (0.01)	−3.77 ***	0.62
Kernel	−3.69 ***	0.60

Note: *** represents significance levels of 1%.

. The results indicate that when the selection bias is effectively resolved, the religious beliefs still significantly negatively affect the rural household food wastage in China.

4. Discussion

4.1. Food Waste Generation

Table 1 shows that the average rural household food waste rate per meal for rural residents in China is 2.30%, which means that food waste in rural households is not serious; it is in line with the finding of Luo et al. [28] as well as Li et al. [18]. Moreover, Jiang et al. [62] reported that the overall (including rural and urban) waste rate of edible food per capita per meal at home was 3.25%. Accordingly, our finding indicates that urban residents’ food waste rate is higher than that of rural residents in China. Compared with the food waste caused by away-from-home consumption in urban households [13], food wastage in university canteens [22] and primary or secondary school canteens [21], rural households also wasted less food (

Table 7. Food waste in different places in China.

Location	Survey Year	Food Waste Rate	Data Source
Chinese urban and rural households	2009	3.25% (per capita per day)	Jiang et al. [62]
6 primary or secondary school canteens in Beijing	2014	21.00% (per capita per meal)	Liu et al. [21]
170 restaurants in Beijing and Lhasa	2015	17.87% (per table per meal)	Xu et al. [13]
University canteens in 29 provinces	2018	12.13% (per capita per meal)	Qian et al. [22]

).

The food waste ingredients listed in Figure 2 show that potatoes have the highest waste rate among staple foods, reaching 3.92%, followed by rice products, with a waste rate of 3.47%, and a slightly lower waste rate of wheat products at 3.20%. Among meats, poultry’s waste rate was the highest at 2.10%; pork’s waste rate was 1.79%; beef and mutton’s waste rate was the lowest at only 1.34%. The waste rates of aquatic products and soy products were 2.25% and 2.21%, respectively. The egg waste rate was the lowest, at only 1.29%. Thus, the waste rate of staple foods (wheat products, rice products, potatoes) is significantly higher than other food ingredients, confirming other studies that Chinese consumers waste more staple foods in multiple dining places, including restaurants [13,20], primary and secondary school canteens [21], and university canteens [22,23].

Although the food waste rate among rural residents is very low, the absolute scale of food wastage is still huge after considering the size of the rural population in China. As of 2016, more than 589 million people still live in rural areas in China [63]. Therefore, food waste in rural areas cannot be ignored. According to the average food consumption structure of rural residents in 2016 provided by the National Bureau of Statistics of China [63], it is not difficult to calculate the total amount of food waste of China’s rural residents in 2016 reached 273.72 million tons, which means 202.39 million hectares of land was wasted in vain. Therefore, to better guarantee China’s food security and reduce the waste of resources caused by food wastage, it is very urgent to reduce food waste in rural China.

4.2. The Possible Mechanism of Religious Beliefs Impacting Food Waste

This study steadily confirms that religious belief is negatively correlated with food waste in rural households in China. We believe that religion may impact food waste through the three channels below.

Firstly, food has symbolic significance in each religion, and most religions are against food wastage, and saving food is a virtue or a measure of respect. Some religions even suggest that the waste of food is a blasphemy against the rule of God. Thus, the religious provisions on saving food provide codes of consumption that become social norms for the believers. If the believers violate the codes, they usually feel guilty and fail to fulfil their promise to God [39]. Therefore, religious beliefs help reduce food waste.

Secondly, religious beliefs may indirectly affect the followers’ attitude towards food [10], evoking their inherent self-consciousness to reduce food waste. Values and beliefs are the most essential characteristics of religions worldwide. Moreover, it is believed that belief provides a foundation for one’s perception and behaviour [39], and religious beliefs can effectively regulate people’s food consumption behaviour [53,64]. Furthermore, several studies indicate that the perception of food waste is an influential factor of consumers’ food-wasting behaviour [6], and those with religious beliefs have a lower intention to generate food waste [36,39] as well as a higher pro-environmental awareness [17]. Given that religion represents an elemental belief system for its believers [65], and most religions inherently require believers to cherish food, reducing food waste can become a daily food consumption routine.

Thirdly, most religions propose a moderate diet [33,42], which helps reduce food waste. For example, Buddhism promotes a vegetarian diet, and some Buddhists follow the principle of not eating food after midday. Taoism also advocates less eating and vegetarianism and opposes overeating and meaty eating. Therefore, it is reasonable to speculate that religious beliefs help reduce food waste from the source.

Since the focus of this investigation is not the religious beliefs of Chinese rural residents, it is a pity that this paper cannot verify the above three possible mechanisms. Therefore, how religious beliefs reduce the food wastage of rural households in China needs to be verified by follow-up studies.

4.3. Mitigation Strategies for Reducing Food Wastage

This paper finds that religious beliefs affect food waste in Chinese rural households. Compared with discoveries from religious countries, such as Turkey [38], Saudi Arabia [42], Lebanon [41], and Egypt [36], it provides the first empirical evidence of a secular country in this field. Moreover, it is found that religious households waste less food than those without religious beliefs. Though the percentage of religious people in mainland China is not high [66], the quantity is considerable given its population size. A survey shows that around 200 million people with religion live in mainland China, and the proportion of the religious population is higher in rural than that in urban areas [30].

In the post-COVID-19 era, food scarcity is becoming an alarming issue worldwide. Therefore, China is determined to reduce wastage to safeguard its food security [56]. The finding that religiosity helps save food has implications for the ongoing food waste reduction campaigns. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge the positive role that religiosity plays in reducing food waste, given China’s population size. Considering that a religious belief may show its impact by encouraging a moderate diet, helping people form the correct consumption concept, and advocating saving foods as a virtue, those findings still have strong implications. The formation of a religious belief is not a short-term thing for an individual, and the popular religious beliefs are also facing many difficulties in rural China, but the governments and public organizations can actively participate in the food-saving movement and aim to replace the above functions of religious beliefs from the three aspects. Specifically: (1) The food needs to be guided to prepare the food they consume rationally, thereby reducing food waste at the source; (2) The rural families shall be guided to have better food-saving promotions, thereby letting more rural households consciously resist food waste; (3) Those residents who waste food seriously should be punished, or reward those households who generate less wastage, thereby encouraging rural households to save food. The “Anti-food Waste Law” was introduced in April 2021 in China, and there is a subsequent need to accelerate the penetration of legal and law enforcement in rural areas. Since there are many people with religious beliefs worldwide and nearly no religion supports food wastage, such three efforts may also be well received globally [33].

Household size is also found to be significantly related to food waste. The larger the family size, the less food waste [46,55]. Although the Chinese government has recently changed the one-child policy, it cannot improve women’s fertility willingness for a second child in the short run. The official statistics show that China’s birth rate dropped from 21.1‰ in 1990 to 10.48‰ in 2019 [67]. Women’s fertility willingness in rural China has also declined, and the family size has gradually become smaller. Therefore, Chinese rural households’ food waste may increase if no intervention takes place. Additionally, the family life cycle has a significant impact on food waste according to the survey. The older families waste less food than the younger ones. Since China has a rapidly ageing rural population [68], rural household food waste will decrease from this perspective. Moreover, dietary habits are closely related to food waste, and an appropriate food supply can effectively reduce food waste [18]. Therefore, it is recommended to provide rural households with advice on meal preparation to reduce unnecessary food wastage. Given the above influences, the uncertain net effect without intervention highlights the importance of food-saving educational campaigns.

The inconvenient purchasing condition intensifies food wastage in rural households and aligns with the previous literature [11]. Therefore, it is recommended to improve the infrastructure and food purchase conditions in the Chinese rural communities, thereby effectively reducing food waste. Moreover, good food storage conditions can help reduce food waste [28]. Therefore, providing refrigeration equipment purchases to rural households is recommended to improve the storage conditions and reduce food waste [51].

4.4. Limitations

There are still some limitations to this research. Firstly, it is necessary to be cautious about the accuracy of measuring the religious beliefs of residents in rural China. On the one hand, the definition of religious belief is not so precise [66]. On the other hand, as a secular society, religious beliefs are relatively vague in the Chinese context. Therefore, measuring religiosity precisely is very difficult. Therefore, the survey may underestimate the prevalence of various religions in rural China. However, considering the strict identification of religious beliefs in this survey, only those who regularly participate in religious activities can be recognized as having religious beliefs. Additionally, this survey was conducted by the rural survey group of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, an official institution that has been engaged in rural surveys for many years. Therefore, the survey of religious beliefs is relatively reliable. Moreover, other studies can also corroborate the findings of this paper [49], confirming that the religious belief rate of Chinese rural residents is low. Secondly, this paper revealed multiple factors influencing food waste generation; however, some factors were not thoroughly investigated due to time and budget constraints. Factors such as the freshness of the ingredients, the level of rural residents’ understanding of food waste’s environmental impact, pet keeping [18,46], and the local governments’ relevant laws and policies on food waste should be investigated in future research. Thirdly, religious beliefs are diversified. In addition to Buddhism and Taoism, Islam, Christianity, and Catholicism, other religions are also prevalent in rural China [58]. However, this survey did not distinguish differences in religious beliefs, and the follow-up research needs to subdivide the heterogeneous effects of different religious beliefs on food waste behaviour at the household level. Lastly, this survey only involves food waste during the consumption phase of households. Therefore, food waste generated during the meal preparation stage is beyond this paper’s discussion, and the rate of food waste in rural households is undoubtedly underestimated.

5. Conclusions

Food waste is detrimental to food security and brings significant negative environmental burdens, and food consumption is considered a significant driver in the food system transitions. This paper provides a comprehensive investigation of Chinese rural households’ food wastage. It is found that the average rural household food waste rate per meal for rural residents in China is 2.30%, which is a relatively low level. Although the rate of food waste among rural households in China is not high, considering the large rural population in rural China (more than 550 million in 2020), the scale of food waste is still not to be underestimated. The total amount of food waste by China’s rural residents reached 273.72 million tons, which means 202.39 million hectares of farmland were wasted in vain in 2016. The study is also among the first attempts to study the association between religiosity and food waste in China’s context. The finding adds Chinese evidence to the existing literature, confirming that rural families with religious beliefs have a lower rate of food waste than their counterparts in a secular country. As most of the world’s population is religious to some extent, the finding implies that religion may play a positive role in promoting sustainable food consumption globally.