On a Final Note

For my last post (or at least my last required post) I wanted to talk about where I stand, and have stood on the issue of food waste.

Last year I stood here, on the picky side of things. On the serve-myself-a-huge-helping-I-won't-eat side.

I didn't grow up being conscious of food waste, or at least not that conscious. Sure, my mom would often tell me that I should eat what was on my plate without complaint because there were those less fortunate and going without. Most parents often do that, though. What she didn't tell me was this: The amount of food wasted every year could easily feed the 1 billion malnourished around the world. (Food waste facts) But I don't really expect her to have told me that. The issue of food waste isn't talked about nearly as much as it should be, and maybe this is because many don't realize how large of a problem it is becoming.

In the past you might have seen me serving myself a large plate of salad, although I wasn't such a fan, and throwing half of it in the garbage. A couple things have changed since then. Sure, I like salad better, but more importantly, we started composting.

Even the composting wasn't necessarily about the food waste. It was about the garden, the soil.

So what happened?

Well, I started living on campus. Yes, I have a meal plan. But it's not enough. I miss a lot of the meals so I had to start making use of the fridge. I had to start buying my own food with my own money. That's where I noticed.

I couldn't eat the amount of spinach I had bought, or the amount of baby carrots. I didn't finish the milk. These things added up, and I started to look at the food like it was money and money I was carelessly tossing into the trash bin. It wasn't just that, though. I started to look at it in terms of the effort that was taken to get the food onto my plate.

When I began to notice the amount of food I was tossing out, our class, almost on queue, called us to look at our impact on the planet. The object was to find a part of sustainability that we cared about, or at least could care about, and write about it. In this process of writing what we cared about, hopefully we would improve our writing.

That's where the change really kicked into gear. I realized it wasn't just the money I should worry about when I was tossing the spinach and baby carrots away. I should worry that to grow some types of vegetables, it takes 100+ gallons of water a pound. I should worry that the chemical that food waste produces when it rots is 21 times more powerful than CO2. I should worry about that one billion.

Use Food to the Fullest

Hopefully by now we're on the same page: something needs to be done about the food waste problem. But what?

Something needs to be done globally. This will take time. You cannot force other people to live a certain way, but there are things that you can start doing now to decrease your food waste footprint for the future.

Many who are concerned with this issue, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have great ideas of  things you can do at home to reduce your food wastage. Some things that the EPA suggest:

• Finish what is in your fridge before you go out shopping
• Plan what you will eat this week before you go shopping
• Buy only what you know you will use for sure

A lot of this boils down into the idea of being conscious of what you eat and when you eat. If you don't really eat broccoli, don't buy a ton of it. It sounds like something that's very simple, but  it's easy to buy more than you need if you are worried about having enough. If you only go shopping when you need food, and plan it out correctly, quite a bit can be eliminated from what you waste. Perhaps you can even save a little money in the process.

An article on the website Civil Eats offers these tips: 

• Keep your kitchen organized so you know what you have available
• Stock ingredients that can go with a variety of foods
• Eat leftovers
• Keep food fresh
• Freeze food 
• Understand that if an item is past its expiration date it isn't necessarily bad

I've struggled myself with some of these, and they prove to be good ideas. I've had a messy fridge that led to spoiled food because I forgot about the items. Lately, I have been buying less food at a time and putting the foods that spoil faster towards the front of the fridge. You can do these easily, as well!

The Kitchn suggests keeping a diary of food waste. If you keep track of what you waste, you may waste less because you are realizing when you are wasting. I know that I have probably tossed something into the trash without thinking, but if I was more aware of it in the moment, I might have saved it, or maybe even eaten it. 

These are helpful ideas about how to prevent food from being wasted, but what about if you just know that you, or anyone else in your house is not going to eat it? 

Composting is one idea.

Earth911 takes it a step further. In their article, 10 Foods You Can Grow from Scraps,  they explain that the things in our food scraps (fruits and vegetables) can sometimes be used to grow more. The example they give is the green onion. The white end of a green onion can be placed in a cup of water and its green parts will grow back. The same is said for celery.


Earth911 isn't the only one using this practice. Veggietorial's youtube channel features a video tutorial on how to do this as well. If you're interested, click around the article or take a look at this video:

You're Getting Warmer...

Food waste is a problem. I feel as if I have made this pretty clear on a number of levels by now in each of the blogs I have posted. Yes, it may be a problem because we don't have unlimited resources and at some point with the rate we're going we may see those resources speedily dwindling. However, there are other reasons it's a problem, other reasons that seem more immediate and definite. These reasons are more threatening than the guilt of waste itself.

Food waste has an impact on climate change.

This article, on Treehugger.com, puts food waste and the amount that is wasted into context, but it also mentions something that's kind of scary. The methane that food waste produces as it rots is much more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas; 25 times more potent, to be exact. Each ton of food wasted is equal to 4.2 tons of CO2. When we toss our leftover food into the trash, it ends up in a landfill. It's not just that there's smelly food taking up room there. It's the harmful amounts of the chemical it produces when it rots.

There are many other factors contributing to climate change, but food waste is a big one, especially being that about half of the food that is produced is wasted anyway (Just think about all that methane).

Graph of the rising temperatures, from EPA.gov

The consequences of climate change aren't just the world getting a little warmer, though, which I have to say I wouldn't mind all that much during these biting New England winters.  It's a lot more serious than that.

The impacts of climate change vary for each area. I found a website, here, that details the impact climate change would have for us, here in the Northeast. The impacts include:

• Worsened air pollution due to very hot days leading to situations of compromised health

• Elevated levels of rain that increase the risk of waterborne illnesses

• The rise in sea level that would lead to flooding

• The increase in the population of mosquitoes 

• The ruin of fertile land to grow certain crops, like apples or, my favorite: cranberries

• Reduction of milk yields and meat production

• A compromise to tree health

Climate change would also negatively impact winter recreation, but I'm sure you'd consider it more important to maintain the growth of healthy and stable crops than Ski. 

This article talks about how much food waste impacts the environment. 34% of all methane emissions come from landfills. A lot of this is rotting food. In fact, The University of Arizona says that if we cut our food waste by 50% percent that we will reduce our impact on the environment by 25%. That's quite a large cut.

This article also talks about The Uk's Waste and Resources Action program. WRAP thinks that if we ceased the disposal of perfectly edible food, that it would be the equivalent to taking 1 in 5 cars off the road.

Knowing all this makes me wonder: what can I do?

The quirky ways a select few have gotten around waste in the food business

Finish Everything, or Else 

Could you imagine dining in a restaurant that fined you for the food you did not finish? In Sydney, Australia, there is a restaurant that does this very thing. They do everything they can to make sure you finish the food that is on your plate. Customers who finish everything on their plate get a 30% discount on their meals, but customers who don't are expected to pay a fine and not come back again to dine at the restaurant. On the menu what they think finishing a meal consists of gets very specific: “'Finishing your meal requires that everything is eaten except lemon slices, gari (sushi ginger) and wasabi," followed by—"Please also note that vegetables and salad on the side are NOT decorations; they are part of the meal too.'" The main chef at this particular restaurant is very concerned with sustainability and the growing food waste epidemic. Read more. 

Is This Necessary? 

Do we need to go to these extremes? At the rate we're going... maybe. Since the 1970's, food waste has increased by 50 percent, according to this article, and according to this article, 15 percent of that comes from food wasted at restaurants. And it makes sense when you think about it. There are too many circumstances in restaurants that it is very easy to waste food in. There are food scraps left over from cooking. There are those customers who are particular about their meals and send them back. There are many restaurants who serve giant portions, and giant portions of food that aren't good re-heated. (Have you ever tried to take fries home from a restaurant? I have. Yuck.) Sure, it doesn't excuse that so much food is wasted, but it does make sense. We all know that part of solving a problem is figuring out what has caused the problem in the first place. 

The Savory Taste of Expired Food 

If you think the restaurant in Sydney is a little strange, the Former president of Trader Joe's is trying to create a new type of restaurant: one that uses expired ingredients. You may be a little disgusted at this point, but he's not planning on using spoiled milk or anything. He says that when we buy things at the store, the expiration dates don't necessarily mean the food is bad to eat. They are suggestions. He plans on using produce that would otherwise be thrown away although it would be still good. More. 

Where Do All The Ugly Vegetables Go? 

 If you think the idea for an expired food restaurant isn't the most appealing, here is one that sounds more doable: A catering business in Berlin, Germany, called the Culinary Misfits buy and use all of the "ugly" vegetables. The ones that people don't buy, that are scuffed, bruised, or strangely shaped. The Culinary Misfits are concerned that half of the crop ends up wasted. They shop at farmer's markets and they shop seasonally. The vegetables may start out looking pretty funny, but the end product looks delicious. I encourage you to click around and look at the pictures of this, here, but it is in German so unless you use the translation tool you may not be able to do much with it other then view the images. 

At Least It's a Start 

There are a lot of really interesting ways to combat food waste. It may be a little over-the-top to fine a customer for not finishing their food, but it's not so over-the-top to consider putting the “ugly” vegetables to good use, especially if the only thing wrong with them may be their appearance, something that probably won't matter once it's cooked. It's also a good idea to be more conscious of what a date on the package really means. Just because the packaging says it's “Best By” a certain date, doesn't mean it instantly becomes inedible on that day. It's not the solution, but it is a step in the right direction.

It's not just the food being wasted

I read an interesting article today from the Murdoch University website. According to the Biosecurity and Food security chair there, Dr. Shashi Sharma, a lot of the food wasted has to do with us being ignorant of the extensive process that has to be taken to get a lot of the foods we eat. 

He's not talking about refined foods, either. Yes, it is true that a lot of effort is probably put into making certain packaged foods or foods that are easily preservable. But he's not talking about this. He's talking about real food. Food that is grown. Food that starts out as living and breathing animals. Do you know how much water is used in the production of these things?

Let's not even think about the labor put into this. Let's put that aside for momentarily. Let's just think in terms of water.

To produce 1lb of potatoes, 119 gallons of water is needed. If you think that's a scary number, you probably don't want to know how much goes into producing 1lb of beef. I'm going to tell you anyways: 1,799 gallons. Almost 2,000 gallons goes into producing only 1lb of beef. Although chicken and pork weigh in at less, (468 gallons and 576 gallons) it's still a lot. This is how it is with meat. It takes more water to produce because the animals the meat comes from require more care than a tomato plant might. Read more

1lb of potatoes and beef, 1 gallon of water

Let's think about this in terms of use. How far does a pound of beef, or meat, usually go? Not very far. Maybe a family meal if you have a small family.

We happen to be a nation of meat enthusiasts, as well. The United States consumes more meat than any other country in the entire world. On a brighter note, this website says although this is true, the amount of consumption has gone down, at least a little bit, but ultimately, things aren't looking too good for us at this point. In 2011, 26.3 billion pounds of beef were produced. More

But there's something that doesn't add up here: how can I buy a pound of beef at the grocery store for $4.00 or so? I'm not sure how much money that much water would cost, but I know it's not less than $4.00. I'm not sure how much money would go to paying the laborers who work in these areas, either. Some farm hands make more than $12.00 an hour. I'm certainly not suggesting that they get payed less, but I am wondering how this all adds up. I can't imagine how this works, but I know this sounds like a waste. 

The food itself before it is wasted already has baggage. It has a long trail of waste following it even before it's thrown out, and it is thrown out. Endhunger.org says we throw away about 263 million pounds of food a day. I already mentioned how much water goes into producing a lot of our favorite foods. Now factor in our daily amount of waste. That's not a very nice number, is it?

My Battle

My  name is Katie and I waste food all the time. I don't try to, but I'm not sure anyone tries to. I'm sure there are those rare cases, but that's besides the point. 

There's a lot of food I don't like. If I serve myself a plate of the foods I don't like in hopes of making a healthy choice, am I really going to eat any of it, or at least eat most of it? Probably not. I'm not encouraging eating poorly, but I am encouraging eating realistically.

Why choose a food or an amount of food I may have to force myself to eat, or something I'll probably just end up throwing away? I can't really think of any good reasons, and when I can't think of good reasons to do something, I don't do it. I can think of reasons not to do it. One of them being that I don't want to waste my money on food I'm not going to eat, and I really don't want to waste my money on contributing to something that does absolutely no good for me, or others.

But it's hard. It's especially hard to live on campus and not waste food. Particularly when you think you like something but it turns out it's been sitting there for a while and it doesn't taste like you imagined. I thought I loved cantaloupe. I don't love this cantaloupe. 

Accordingto UNEP, “In the United States 30% of all food, worth US$48.3 billion (€32.5 billion), is thrown away each year. It is estimated that about half of the water used to produce this food also goes to waste, since agriculture is the largest human use of water. (Jones, 2004 cited in Lundqvist et al., 2008)”

I don't want to be part of this problem. Neither do you.

Yes, there's composting. I can compost at home, but that brings me back to my problem of eating at school. I can't compost at school. At least, right now I can't. Maybe that will change. Maybe I can change that.

Even so, composting doesn't answer everything. What about the things that can't be composted?

I shouldn't have to force myself to eat too-ripe cantaloupe, particularly when I've already tried to choose the foods I do eat and will finish. And this brings me to a question I'd like to work on answering for myself, and maybe for others. How can we lessen the food that's wasted and how can we do it easily – or lessen the food we waste without gulping down food we don't like?

Why is this even important? If you think I'm going to say because it's important to preserve the resources we have here on earth... I'm not going to say just that. I'm going to say It's important to preserve the resources we have on earth because I want to live on it, comfortably. I don't want to have to worry about not having food. Of the two worries, I think it's much easier to worry about wasting food rather than worry about not having it.