--- title: Buying Food in Bulk Is a Waste of Money description: We should stop buying in bulk. Also, powering desalination with the sun, how we got wage stagnation wrong and more. canonical: https://time.com/3949290/how-buying-food-in-bulk-is-a-waste-of-money/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-08T16:01:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:36.544Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Stop Buying Food In Bulk og:description: These are today's best ideas. og:url: https://time.com/3949290/how-buying-food-in-bulk-is-a-waste-of-money/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Stop Buying Food In Bulk twitter:description: These are today's best ideas. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Buying Food in Bulk Is a Waste of Money by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jul 8, 2015 4:01 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jul 8, 2015 4:01 PM CUT **1\.** [**Stop buying food in bulk.**](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/06/bulk%5Fshopping%5Fcreates%5Ffood%5Fwaste%5Fshop%5Fmore%5Foften%5Finstead.html "undefined") By Eric Holthaus in Slate **2\.** [**In rural India, delivering clean drinking water requires lots of power. Enter the solar desalinator.**](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/student-profile-natasha-wright-0622 "undefined") By Julia Sklar at MIT News **3\.** [**Find out why we might be wrong about America’s stagnant wages.**](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/07/06/just-how-stagnant-are-wages-anyway/?mod=WSJBlog "undefined") By Josh Zumbrun in the Wall Street Journal **4\.** [**We’re overprescribing antipsychotic drugs for our kids.**](http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/01/418935734/antipsychotics-too-often-prescribed-for-aggression-in-children "undefined") By Nancy Shute at NPR **5\.** [**When robots make work obsolete, will humanities education make a comeback?**](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122248/robots-might-save-humanities "undefined") By Jonathan Malesic in the New Republic  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3949290/how-buying-food-in-bulk-is-a-waste-of-money/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3949290/how-buying-food-in-bulk-is-a-waste-of-money/"},"headline":"Buying Food in Bulk Is a Waste of Money","datePublished":"2015-07-08T16:01:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:36.544Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/3949290/how-buying-food-in-bulk-is-a-waste-of-money/","keywords":["Innovation","Costco","India","robots","ADHD","Wages"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3949290/how-buying-food-in-bulk-is-a-waste-of-money/","name":"Buying Food in Bulk Is a Waste of Money"}}]}] ```