There is growing global concern over food waste and its impacts on resources, environmental issues and food security, especially in developing countries. However, knowledge of food waste, in particular, the food wasted by consumers in restaurants, is entirely inadequate in China. Here, based on media reports and documents about food waste we provide an overview of food wasted by consumers in restaurants in China. We roughly estimated total food waste in order to uncover the seriousness of this large issue. We collected international literature referring to food waste and provided a detailed explanation of the resources and environmental costs associated with food waste. Ultimately we propose a conceptual diagram on research into catering food waste by consumers to evaluate resources and environmental costs based on life cycle assessment in China. This work will stimulate interdisciplinary research in this field.