MANILA, Philippines - When my wife first came to the United States to take part in a J1 training program, one of the things that immediately caught her attention was how much food get wasted in the Land of Plenty.  Coming from a third-world country, she felt uncomfortable with how the natives seemed to throw away their leftovers without a care.

Sometimes, plates of dishes and courses that were hardly touched or tasted went directly and fast from the table to the garbage bin. In many cases, describing those soon-to-be-wasted food items as “leftovers” would be sacrilegious, the height of culinary blasphemy. Unfortunately (fortunately for manufacturers), American consumers’ “wastefulness” extends to other consumer goods including electronic gadgets and devices, such as mobile phones and computers.

Unlike previous generations of Americans, especially those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II years, today’s children of Benjamin Franklin find nothing objectionable in replacing cars, clothes, and laptops months and even years before these products’ “expiration dates.”

But the economic slowdown that started in 2008 seems to have encouraged some American consumers to hold on to stuff longer than they used to.

Data from market researchers shows slower consumption and product life cycles. But analysts are looking with interest at how consumer attitudes might change once economic recovery goes full blast and easy credit returns.

Google for Chefs

Internet search giant Google has added a Recipe View to its market-leading search engine. Seeking for ways to repulse Bing, Microsoft’s emerging search platform, the online search and marketing giant has added a button to its search results. Users can click this button to gain access to results that can help them learn how to prepare meals and other culinary creations.

Google said it deals with about 10 million recipe-related search queries. This encouraged the company to add this culinary button to its online search tool.

Removing Nonsense

It might have come belatedly, but it is welcome nevertheless.

I’m referring to Google’s move to reduce the claptrap from its search results. This move by Google is tantamount to an admission that lately its results have been hijacked by content farms – those Web sites that publish nonsensical articles and stories designed to push up their sites’ search-results rankings.

Google has to really improve its search results. After all, a study by analytics firm Hitwise shows that the search giant has a 66-percent search success rate. Microsoft’s Bing has 82 percent.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.