Quantifying School Lunch Loss

There’s a reason adults tell kids to eat their vegetables–because they don’t!

The 2010 changes to the National School Lunch Program (prompted by Michelle Obama’s push) that added more fruits, vegetables and whole grains to kids meals. But that comes at a cost–more wasted food and taxpayer dollars when school food is discarded.

Virginia Tech junior Lindsey Kummer set out to examine and quantify how the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids initiative impacted nutrition, the amount of food wasted and the economics. She studied loss at a nearby elementary school. 

Kummer found that the average student threw away about half of his or her school lunch. That meant an average of 72 cents of food wasted from each meal. And that’s from a total reimbursed cost of about $3 per meal.

So in addition to filling school trash cans and landfills, that means the nutritional goals aren’t being reached. Supposedly, kids must be exposed to a food 10 times before they’ll accept or eat it. Hopefully, that’s part of the explanation here.

But a better solution would be school gardens (if possible) and increased education to get kids accustomed to/interested in fruits and vegetables. That way, hopefully, they’ll want to eat more of them. And we also need more composting programs to handle the inevitable excess, keeping it out of the landfill. 

July 24, 2013 | Posted in School, Stats | Comments closed

Ramadan Waste = Pigswill??

Seldom do you see Ramadan and hogs in the same sentence, but they’ve both been in the ‘food waste news’ recently.

On the former, here’s a thought-provoking editorial lamenting the increased food waste during Ramadan in the United Arab Emirates. A common cooking tactic during the holy month of daylight fasting is to overprepare to ensure that there’s enough food for each night’s meal.

While that trend occurs throughout much of the Muslim world, food waste rises about 35 percent during Ramadan in the UAE. And so during that month, food comprises 55 percent of the UAE’s waste stream!

That would be slightly less of an ethical, environmental and economic catastrophe if that waste were fed to livestock instead of sent to a landfill. And hogs would be a great way to convert that food waste to edible protein, if not for that minor barrier of cultural inappropriateness.

Contrastingly, Britain has few barriers to eating pork. Unfortunately, there are legal ones–post mad cow disease and foot and mouth outbreaks–to feeding them our scraps. But this Guardian editorial wonders aloud of the BSE-induced ban on feeding our leftovers to hogs is outdated. Meanwhile, The Pig Idea campaign is pushing people in that same direction, and there are plenty of Britons who want to Bring Back Pigswill.

If the swill-to-livestock laws are loosened and there was an sustainable way to ship all that Ramadan food waste to British hog farms, that’d be one possible solution (but not a fabulous one). In the absence of both, it’s even more vital to waste less, as the UAE group Saving Grace and the UK’s Fare Share are busy advocating.

July 16, 2013 | Posted in History and Culture, International, Legislation, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Details Emerge on Massachusetts’ Ban on Dumping Organics

The news:

In May, the Massachusetts DEP indicated that the state would ban landfilling or incineration of commercial food waste. Yesterday, more details emerged as the Patrick Administration announced the plan.

Mind you, the proposed plan is just that. It’s in draft mode, and there will be public hearings seeking comments. There’s also a draft guidance memo anticipating the questions the MassDEP may receive from restaurants, supermarkets, hotels, schools, hospitals and others. Entertainingly, this memo gets pretty detailed: “Is pet food included in the definition of commercial organic materials?” Yes.

My take:

-The one-ton-per-week minimum is too high. Viewed another way, Massachusetts is saying ‘We’re okay with you dumping 1,999 pounds of food weekly into landfills.’ The idea is admirable–protecting small businesses from onerous food waste removal expenses, but I think they’ve gone too far. Their guideline for one ton per week is a restaurant or supermarket that employs 35 or more employees.

I’d prefer to see the state make it compulsory across the board, and then prompt competition between haulers and composters to keep food scrap collection prices down. Also, we should ensure that businesses are paying less for regular trash collection after removing the wet, heavy food waste, through “pay as you throw” schemes.

-On the other hand, if the cost of food waste removal is prohibitive, it will prompt waste reduction. I can imagine restaurants and supermarkets with a double economic motivation (original food cost + disposal cost) really trying to cut their waste to get under that one ton threshold.

-It’s great to see attention given to the often-ignored feeding food scraps to animals. Given the EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy, that should take priority over composting and anaerobic digestion (AD). I hope it doesn’t become an afterthought in the MassDEP plan.

-It’s encouraging to see some grant money and low-interest loans attached to the program. Anaerobic digestion facilities aren’t cheap, so that will definitely help (as will creating a stream of separated food waste).

-Overall, MassDEP’s commercial food waste ban is quite positive. But…if the state wants to meet its goals of reducing its waste stream by 30 percent by 2020 and 80(!) percent by 2050, it will have to expand the ban to households. I’m guessing that comes next.

July 11, 2013 | Posted in Anaerobic Digestion, Composting, Waste Ban, Waste Stream | Comments closed

When Life Gives You Pineapple Rinds…

This past weekend I cut up a whole pineapple with a regular knife. As you can imagine, I literally and figuratively try to cut it as close to the rind as possible when I’m carving up a pineapple. I’m aiming for maximum fruit with minimum objections from kids.

Still, just like the previous time, I was frustrated to see how ‘meaty’ the rinds were–there was more fruit there than I’d hoped. This time, I decided to do something about it. But what?

Using a paring knife did bear a little…fruit, but was tedious. Trading teeth for knife only brought the need to floss. So I switched gears.

I decided that rather than getting more fruit, I should be making juice. This should have been my first instinct, as pineapple is among the finer juices.

Using a simple lemon press (technically a ‘squeezer’) and a little elbow grease, I transformed a pineapple’s worth of ‘meaty’ rinds into about 8 ounces of pineapple juice. Just be sure to cut the rind into small enough pieces or fold it into the squeezer. Also, don’t forget to enjoy this refreshing, virtuous juice–frugality never tasted so exotic!

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And if you don’t love pineapple juice, you make an adulterated version by boiling rinds with some spices.

July 9, 2013 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

Declare Your Independence from Food Waste!

While we’re celebrating declaring independence from the British Crown, it’s worth remembering to declare your independence from food waste.

How does one do that? Here’s one way: Whether you’re planning a cookout, a picnic or a regular old meal, plan ahead! Think about how many people will be eating and the amount folks are likely to eat and prepare roughly that amount.

And/or love your leftovers! If you know that you or your crew enjoys leftovers, then there’s less pressure to prepare just the right amount. Nothing says Happy 5th of July like a reheated hot dog or hamburger! (or whatever it may be).

As you revel in all things American, let’s not forget the words of Founding Father and Declaration of Indpendence signer Benjamin Franklin:

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Oh wait, not that one. Try this:

Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do, and with them everything.

July 4, 2013 | Posted in General, History and Culture, Household | Comments closed

Damn, That Looks Fun!

This Saturday, the Feeding the 5,000 bandwagon rolled into Amsterdam for the aptly-named Damn Food Waste event. The day included plenty of groovy music, a dancing carrot person and, most importantly, feeding 5,000 Amsterdammers (or Mokummers) with food that otherwise would have been thrown out.

Have a look:

Can’t wait for the New York event now in the works for September!

July 1, 2013 | Posted in International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

This NPR piece takes us inside a New York City hi-rise apartment building that’s now composting as part of a pilot program. Making hi-rise composting work will be a key to New York’s composting future, given New York’s urban landscape.

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Here’s the first peep I’ve seen from Britain suggesting a national ban on landfilling food waste (as a way to meet stingent 2025 greenhouse gas targets).

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The European food industry, in the guise of FoodDrinkEurope, has pledged to meet the EU’s plan to halve waste by 2020. Every Crumb Counts is the industry group’s neat name for their waste reduction campaign.

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Finally, count me in on this Half4theHungry contest entry. Sure, it’s the same idea as Halfsies, but there’s room for some healthy competition here to jumpstart things in the name of hunger relief.

June 28, 2013 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, General, International, Waste Stream | Comments closed

US Food Manufacturers, Retailers Tackling Food Waste

The Food Waste Reduction Alliance, an industry group of food manufacturers, retailers and restaurants studying waste, recently announced their preliminary findings. Here’s the press release and here’s the entire study, done by BSR.

Three thoughts:

1. It’s encouraging! The report is a sign that the US food industry is finally paying attention to food waste. The report is a very useful tool, as it provides a benchmark for the amounts of surplus food donated, composted and landfilled.

2. The numbers don’t represent the mainstream American food industry–only 13 food producers and 13 supermarkets completed the survey.* The participating companies are among the select few who have taken on food waste and, as a result, have pretty solid waste diversion numbers. Also, the data is all self-reported, so it must be taken with a grain of salt.

3. There’s plenty of room for improvement–even among these 26 elite companies. And they know that. Here’s Michael Hewitt, Publix’ director of environmental and sustainability programs: “The findings uncovered by BSR are encouraging, but it’s clear we can and must do better when it comes to reducing food waste.”

The best hope for diverting more food from landfills comes from the ‘Barriers to Donating Food’ question. Among supermarkets, ‘liability concerns’ are the largest perceived barrier to donating. That’s great news, because that barrier can be overcome with this information: The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act protects donors from liability when they donate food that they deem to be in good condition (and I have yet to hear of a lawsuit testing that liability).

Bonus fourth thought: Onwards!

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*The NRA was late to the FWRA party, so this study didn’t address restaurant waste.

 

June 26, 2013 | Posted in Restaurant, Stats, Supermarket | Comments closed

Curved Cuke

By this point, you know that I love nothing more than unique produce. Whether it’s ugly fruit, knotty carrots or letter-shaped veggies.

This curved cuke–bought at the farmers’ market–fits that category quite well. And it also doubles as a nice toy gun (if you’re into that kind of thing).

Best of all, this cucumber tasted as good as any “regular-looking” ones grown locally. Can you believe that the mainstream food chain has no use for such “imperfects?”

June 24, 2013 | Posted in Alphabet Produce, Farm, Farmers' Market | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

File under ‘rising tide of food waste coverage:’ National Geographic ran this neat piece on how cities manage to compost their abundant food waste.

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Three Hawaiian universities have signed on to fight food waste. Hawaiian food waste takes on a heightened importance, as that food has probably been imported and it’ll likely be exported, too.

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Daily Kos has a modest proposal for making the SNAP program more affordable: feed the poor through food that’s now wasted. Hmm…

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The Swiss National FAO Committee are taking on food waste, with these infographics and a neat contest called Our Common Food. By the way, feel free to use this killer contest name idea: It’s Waste In Any Language. (What with their four official languages and all…)

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As Ramadan approaches, so do the articles on how much food is wasted during the Muslim holy month. The awareness is encouraging.

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Finally, a New Mexico magnet school is testing out a superfast composter. You had me at  ‘superfast’

June 21, 2013 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, History and Culture, School | Comments closed