Interesting take. I am pro-garnish, or pro-presentation might be a better description. We eat with our eyes first, beautiful food tastes better. The rant against both inedible garnishes (a pineapple leaf? Really? It would just be waste if not a garnish) and edible (for unbalancing a drink - but isn’t balance in the eye of the drinker? I don’t squeeze lime into a perfect drink). I’m not sure how much waste there is in commercial kitchens, but probably less than in a home kitchen because waste is cost. In my home kitchen, spent citrus is used to make syrup, pineapple peels to make tepache, other peels often to make kvass, other food waste into the compost if it’s not good for broth or kvass.

I don’t always garnish but do appreciate them, they add beauty and that’s not a waste.