“Reuse Things”: 30 Things Poor Countries Do So Much Better Than Rich Ones

Americans use to do this just a couple generations ago. I'm lucky I learned to do sewing repairs, cooking with what I had to work with and doing things like taking my shoes to a cobbler for repair instead of throwing them out when the shoes are still in great shape.

To be fair In the USA it usually depends on the neighborhood

Sadly, ‘reusing’ means it gets placed in a role that that thing was never meant to fill, and this brings the quality down so much

People that don't "do leftovers" concern me. So what, you just throw it out?

One of the big points on The War on Waste tv series was how many families throw out food, before it even goes bad. It's not something I've ever understood. My mum always made sure to use every bit of a vegetable, for example, and we would eat leftovers until they were done. She does have a problem with food going off before she can use it, because she is an impulse buyer and buys a lot on clearance, which is not something I can do. I will only buy things if they are on my weekly menu. I also make a lot of veg and chicken stock to freeze, and have so many containers of aqua faba in my freezer!

We were in Korea last year, and they serve huge amounts of food. We were told not to ask for to-go boxes, and ended up leaving obscene amounts of delicious food behind. Made me sad.

This is one thing I loved growing up on a small farm. All the farmers would take turns going to each others fields to all help do jobs that required multiple people. Harvesting certain crops, bailing hay and preparing meat from slaughtered animals are all examples. Everyone pitched in to help each other and shared the bounty of their harvest if someone else had a lean year.

I think possibly part of the reason is the work/life balance in the west has got so out of whack people don't have the time to make good wholesome meals from scratch with fresh ingredients, as much as they'd like to. I'm not saying it's the only reason but speaking from personal experience, it's hard to always find enough time. I mean who wants to spend so much time cooking that when you finally get to eat it, it's just before bedtime - not good for the digestion.

Food brings community together, this is what is missing in western countries..

I went on holiday to Anerica ,all their was fast food ,couldn't wait to get home and have some greens

Healthcare in allegedly rich countries focuses on profits, not compassion. My dentist recently charged $493 USD to pull one tooth. How's that for cornering the pain-relief market?

In my high school Spanish class the unit on hospitals discussed how many Latin American countries have excellent healthcare at a much cheaper price, and some countries have free healthcare. I’ve heard of US doctors going to Mexico for residency.

In my country, my dental gets covered by my health insurance.

Hmmmm not necessarily. You'd still want to be very careful where you choose to go out you might just get what you pay for - with some infection and/or trauma thrown in. Source: my boss's dental debacle in India.

The best neighbors are the ones you don't see and don't hear. That's why I live in the country.

I've heard from older people "air conditioning ruined our society", and to all extent they are right. Without air conditioning, your windows and doors would be open, you'd have a front porch and actually use it, and so would everyone else. Of course, global warming has made AC essential for survival in a lot of the world

Debateable if this is better or not

I think this might be more for Western countries. Japan has some excellent street markets. I ate well in Japan lol.

This one is absolutely false. Many people in the western world have strong family ties, and no, they are not all, or even most, toxic families.

The value of close family ties seems to be disappearing in western society, so sad.

The US is too toxic of a culture for this to become a norm again. It is already shifting due to economics.

I don't think this one should be here. Firstly, it's in no way universal trait of poor communities (as others already pointed out in the comments). And secondly, what might look like taking care of, for example, elderly or disabled out of love and compassion, often in reality is out of having no means to care for them otherwise. In many countries burden of taking care of those who can't take care of themselves & earn their living is pushed on their family members, mostly women. So they end up overburden with earning for extra person, having no social or financial assistance and facing neglect charges if they fail to do so. It's systemic crippling of whole families and perpetuates poverty.

Check out malaysian story about white flag during covid time.. really warms up your heart.

This! I used to work in small companies and we achieved so much with so little! If you don't have the specific software to do something, to can reach the same result by a combination of free tools. Yes, it takes longer, investigating what the workaround could be, learning by doing. But it's so fulfilling! That creative spark is a force of nature and an incredible asset. I always joke that in the same way Nepalese people can climb mountains without extra oxygen, decades of economic crisis have modified our DNA to survive by being creative 😊

Typhoid

This is true. I have seen it so many times small things, that people are use to they will go crazy without them. Like cell phones. That a big one. And there is like tons of things that could go the list. Like some people in there mind they think that it is a necessity. And when in fact. Food,water,sleep and oxygen. And in the cold warmth and in heat shad or extra. It about what you need to survive not what you need to make you happy. And it kinda sad. Because it can actually break some people. Like having a roof over your head I feel like is pretty important but you can live in cave. And stay cool in the summer. And extra. Like if you lived hard don't forget all the key points and sometimes people often do sometimes. But when you are reminded life is so much simpler and easier.

It's interesting that in the US and UK, obesity is now more of a disease of the poor than the rich.

They walk more and there l the food they buy isn't loaded with hidden sugars. I'm American and tried to cut out sugar from my diet, and it's in EVERYTHING, even things you wouldn't think should have it! As a single person, cooking meals with fresh ingredients for one is hard when recipes are created for a minimum of 4 people, but buying anything frozen or canned or boxed has sugar in it! It's awful!

"They want less" is such a western way of putting things 🫤 They want more! They just know they can't have any. It's not a trait to praise, it's a problem to fix.

Laws now make it so difficult to pass an older car. When I first started driving I was able to pick up a really cheap fixer upper and it lasted a few years. Now these types if cars don't exist anymore 😒 I know the laws were for safety measures but they've gone from 1 extreme to the other.