I love to eat out and trying new foods is so exciting for me that I often end up with leftovers because I order so much. But this leaves me with a pretty big energy-use dilemma. I can't waste the food, but I also don't want to contribute to the waste stream if I can help it. After all, recycling uses plenty of energy and so many restaurants still use Stryofoam (amazingly) that taking home the leftovers seems almost as bad as leaving food behind sometimes.

So what do I do with that left-over food?

One night, shortly after moving into my present apartment, a trick for finding answers I learned in Peru helped answer that question. While staying in Ollantaytambo, I repeated the town's name over and over in my head, like a mantra. I liked the sound of it and it's rhythm just matched the pace of life in that small, dirt poor town perched at the base of a magnificent Incan temple. It also brought me some clarity and let me find some answers I'd been needing.

So the night I moved in, after I'd finally cleared a path through the boxes, I realized that two mantras had been repeating themselves in my head for the past few hours: a craving for pad thai and "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."

(It sounds cheesy, but it's true. Those three words actually have a nice rhythm to them as well. I often hear them in my head.)

Accompanied by the beat of the day's mantra, I headed down to the Thai restaurant around the corner to get some spicy noodles, lemongrass soup, spring rolls and anything else that caught my eye. But when I walked into the place late that Sunday night, I was faced with a stack of Styrofoam containers reaching almost to the ceiling.

Exhausted as I was at that moment, I seriously considered turning around and walking out, but I couldn't. It was late enough that nothing else would be open within walking distance and the thought of putting more effort into the process of eating was more than I could handle.

Then the repeating sounds in the back of my head resolved themselves out of background noise and into three meaningful words. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Bing! It hit me. We'd just packed and moved all those little plastic salsa and cream cheese tubs. Why not bring my own container? It would save the energy of making and then disposing of more Stryofoam.

Needless to say, after ordering, leaving and then coming back, I got a slightly funny look from the guys behind the counter when I asked them to fill my plastic tubs rather than use one of their white boxes of evil. But they did it.

I've since become kind of a regular there. The folks are no longer surprised when I come in with a couple of plates (why even bother with the plastic container? It's just one more thing to wash). In fact, last time I went in and ordered some soup, the guy behind the counter worried that I'd spill it on the way home because my bowl was too shallow. He sent me home with one of the restaurant's own bowls.

Now I'm trying to get into the habit of keeping a few re-usable containers in my car and in my bike bag for using when I eat in a restaurant further away from home. It's a hard habit to get into, but like we've all decided about reusable shopping bags, it's one that I think is worth doing.