Monthly Archives: September 2011

Friday Buffet

What’s not to love about making beer from the otherwise-wasted abundance around us all? Fullsteam (brewery) makes me proud to live in Durham. — — Also in my city–there’s now a program that encourages people to leave food on their porch for raccoons volunteers to collect. Believe it or not, it works well! — — If […]

September 30, 2011 | Posted in Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, Hunger, International | Comments closed

Wednesday Trivia

Quick quiz: What are you looking at?? Leave your answer as a comment. First correct answer gets a make-believe handshake. And a Twitter shout out. Hint: The picture illustrates that fresh food doesn’t have to look uniform to taste great.

September 28, 2011 | Posted in Farmers' Market | Comments closed

A Step Closer to the Mr. Fusion

In Back to the Future, we were treated to the site of Doc Brown using a Mr. Fusion to power up his flying DeLorean with food waste. In real life, we’re inching closer to that possibility. While it wouldn’t be as seamless a process as the Mr. Fusion, Waste Management is close to creating fuel from […]

September 26, 2011 | Posted in General | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The BBC caught wind of the study profiled here on Wednesday and interviewed the researcher and a TV chef, posing the slightly sensationalistic question: Do Celebrity Chefs Cause More Waste? — — “Were you eating this apple” he asked a moment later. Yup, he was pointing to my apple. I nodded. “Come on down, pick […]

September 23, 2011 | Posted in Friday Buffet, Household, International | Comments closed

Great Expectations

Everybody loves having their theories confirmed. This bit of qualitative research from the University of Manchester did that for yours truly. I’ve long believed this formula to be true: Heightened expectations for cooking homemade meals + Busy lifestyles = More waste. Now I have some sociological support for that theory, along with some interviews that […]

September 21, 2011 | Posted in Household, International | Comments closed

Date Labels Dissected in the UK

Late last week, the UK Government scrapped “sell-by” dates. Food items will no longer be allowed to carry that date label that’s aimed at retailers but confusing for consumers. At the same time, the Government, in the guise of the Dept. of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), offered authoritative guidance to distinguish between “use-by” and “best-before” labels. In […]

September 19, 2011 | Posted in Household, International, Supermarket | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Hot off the press: New data on retail and home produce waste from our friends at the USDA’s Economic Research Service. I’ll break this down further in a future post, but in the meantime, take a gander. — — Exciting News: The NY Times Online reports that The Grocery Manufacturers Association is planning a three-year initiative to […]

September 16, 2011 | Posted in Composting, Energy, Friday Buffet, Household, Personal, Supermarket | Comments closed

Giving Composting the Old College Try

Forget football, the real news coming out of State College, Penn., this fall could be composting touching down. The borough is considering a move to the two bin system: compostable organics and other trash. State College will host a public hearing to gauge opinion on the proposal in early October. In addition to keeping organics […]

September 14, 2011 | Posted in Composting, Freegan | Comments closed

Germany to Waste: Halt!

On Friday, Germany’s Minister of Food Agriculture and Consumer Protection announced it will conduct a study on food waste. In other words, they aim to find out how much waste can be halted. The move came in conjunction with Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini’s visit to Germany. Slow Food is increasingly emphasizing waste reduction, in […]

September 12, 2011 | Posted in Food Recovery, International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

In a UK survey, 82 percent of those surveyed believed it was important to reduce restaurant food waste. And about that same amount said they’d even do something about it! 80 percent said they’d opt to not receive items they knew they wouldn’t eat. There are some other interesting findings in the report, which Unilever […]

September 9, 2011 | Posted in College, Friday Buffet, International, Restaurant | Comments closed