My father told me once that, during the depression (my Dad was nearing forty when I was born, and remembers the Great Depression years well) my grandmother always had a big soup stock pot on the back of the wood stove. She would scrape the plates from dinner into that pot, and it was constantly kept simmering. Every meal started out with a bowl of soup from that pot . Occasionally, she'd fish out the bones from previous meals that were all but mush (they then went to the dog), or add a jug of water.
When she canned something and had a few spoonfuls extra, or trimmed something to cook, or picked some over-ripe vegetable from the garden, the leftover bits went in the pot. If she had an extra egg, it went in the pot. If she cleaned a chicken, the trim (wing tips, skinned feet and organs) went in the pot. If she snipped a few herbs from the garden of a morning, they went in the pot.
Sometimes, when there was nothing for dinner, they only had soup. But that soup pot was always on the back of the stove, and according to my Dad, the best soup in the world. To this day, he loves soup.
I agree, times are about to change, and priorities will change right along with it. I just hope that people really learn this time that over-consumption is going to ruin us if it keeps up. It might be worth it to go through a severe economic crisis if it teaches people to be a little less wasteful. I think it's already beginning, so hopefully, in this case, change will be for the good.