Presto: Pesto!

When life gets cold…make pesto.

With the night air approaching freezing in North Carolina, my backyard basil recently began browning. I picked all remaining leaves with some two-year-old help.

Of course–much to my chagrin–I was a little too late for some of the basil…

After harvesting our year’s pine nut crop procuring plenty of pine nuts, the entire process was utterly simple. A little measuring and Cuisinart pulsing later, I had a nice supply of pesto, whose insistence on browning immediately did not endear it to this photographer. But as I say–‘taste trumps appearance.’

While this process is second nature for many of you, it was my first experience turning my end-of-garden basil into a usable product. And it underscores the beauty of those old foodways like end-of-garden cooking and canning. While eating food picked that day is fabulous, why let the changing season halt garden-grown eating.

November 2, 2011 | Posted in Garden, Household, Personal | Comments closed

NPR Wasted Food Weekend

This weekend was a wasted food feast over on NPR. First, The Splendid Table quiz asked: What is a Saudi restaurateur doing to reduce food waste? Head to the 32:00 mark for the question and answer.

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And over on A Praire Home Companion, Stephanie Davis sang the only gleaning song I’ve ever heard. “Give a Little Back” discusses the more traditional form of gleaning–leaving some of your crop in the field for those who need it. Music to my ears…

October 31, 2011 | Posted in Farm, Food Recovery, Restaurant | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

There’s a new app to help New Yorkers find and patronize restaurants that donate unused food to City Harvest. Perfect!

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Food deserts present a real problem these days. This piece addresses the different solutions, from Walmart to urban agriculture to food recovery.

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You want tips on how to avoid waste and (save money)? I’ve got plenty.

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The stats are a bit old, but this video nicely summarizes the food waste problem:

October 28, 2011 | Posted in Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, Personal, Technology | Comments closed

Go Halfsies!

“Clean your plate, there are children starving [somewhere].”

That saying is problematic, partly because it guilts us into overeating. But a burgeoning non-profit called Halfsies has a better idea. At participating restaurants, customers can select a Halfsies version of a dish, giving them less food and ensuring that the value of the unserved half goes to hungry.

It will take a little bit to get ramped up, but Halfsies has the potential to reduce food waste, feed the hungry and keep us from overeating (protecting us from both massive portions and ourselves, when we keep eating even though we’re full.) You can hit three birds with one word.

As you can see in the PDF explaining the idea, I’m a big fan. But I can definitely see Halfsies succeeding. It’s catchy enough to imagine “I’ll go halfsies on that” entering the lexicon. And it’s high time someone tackled restaurant portion size.

Now all we need is one savvy and/or benevolent restaurant chain to be the first to sign up. Any takers??

October 26, 2011 | Posted in General | Comments closed

Go Gleaning (Please)

Six years ago, I went gleaning for the first time, gathering sweet potatoes in rural North Carolina.

A year ago, I went through a brief training so as to coordinate future gleaning outings.

Yesterday, I got to supervise one such outing–gleaning sweet potatoes, of course (it is North Carolina). The volunteers were mostly a troupe of girl scouts, who got a valuable lesson in where their food comes from and how much of it is regularly wasted.

The arithmetic looked like this: 20 people + 2 hours = 600 lbs. of sweet potatoes recovered (as pictured). While we worked for a little more than two hours, we could have gleaned that field for two weeks and still found more sweet potatoes.

I highly recommend volunteering with a gleaning operation (SOSA is a large one). In my mind, there’s no better way to honor the spirit of Food Day than by rescuing food that would otherwise be plowed under and get it to those in need.

October 24, 2011 | Posted in Food Recovery, Personal | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

USA! USA! Oh, wait–first place is bad here.

Not surprisingly, the United States owns ‘most wasteful nation’ status with food.  (Although I am confused by the data source…)

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In case you were curious, here’s what curbside composting looks like in Portland, with their tasteful brown kitchen caddies…

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Sticking in Oregon, here’s a heartening fruit tree gleaning tale, complete with some awesome images.

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It’s always great to hear about casinos composting what is sure to be a massive amount of wasted food. Delaware’s Dover Downs is the latest.

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On the down side, cost is a real barrier to composting in Illinois, despite a 2009 bill aimed at making the practice easier.

October 21, 2011 | Posted in Casino, Composting, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Gulf Coast Sustainable Food Plan Addresses Waste

In the wake of recent disasters, the Mississippi Gulf Coast communities came together to create a plan for sustainability. One aspect of the plan centers on food and one particular document provides a Recipe for a Sustainable Coast.

That study, much to my delight, lists the amount of wasted food as a major obstacle to sustainability. The report notes the juxtaposition of “a significant amount of edible food waste that is sent to landfills” with 17% of citizens being food insecure.

To address that incongruity, the report recommends creating a Food Waste Task Force to push diversion. That term includes promoting food recovery and composting to recover food’s nutrients, among other things.

The report also pushes for school gardens to teach children where their food comes from. And then there’s the suggestion of building regional meat and seafood processing plants, both of which could create energy from the waste byproducts they create.

The report is definitely worth a read, if for no other reason than to see how beneficial a regional food system can be. And when that plan incorporates food waste diversion, it’s all the more heartening.

October 19, 2011 | Posted in Composting, Energy, Environment, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Using What We Have

In case you missed it, there was a fabulous op-ed in Friday’s Times. Its two authors looked at global food waste and characterized it as an opportunity to feed the 925 million undernourished people on this earth.

The authors do a nice job conveying the scale of our waste. But it also gets beyond the numbers, illustrating many of the reasons behind the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted worldwide.

We often discuss the reasons behind waste in the developed world–much of it comes down to consumer behavior and cheap food. On the other hand…

The issue is different in the developing world. Some 35 to 45 percent of the food produced is also lost there every year, but typically well before the supplies even reach buyers….India, the world’s second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables, loses about 40 percent of that production because of mismanagement, inadequate infrastructure and storage, poor transportation, shoddy supply-chain logistics, and underdeveloped markets.

The op-ed is a well-written call for action that will no doubt raise awareness on food waste. Give it a read and pass it on!

October 17, 2011 | Posted in Hunger, International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

California, not content with having achieved the goal set in 1989 of recycling 50 percent of its waste stream, just passed a bill requiring the state to keep 75 percent of its trash out of the landfill. Way to set the bar high, Cali!

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The Occupy Wall Street gang gets plenty of donated food. But their supporters also include “people that know where the good Dumpsters are.”

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Leave No Leftover Behind. Love, love, love it.

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It’s neat that someone calculated that restaurants in greater Taipei (in Taiwan) squander $60 million per year in food waste. But also–that’s not cool.

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Finally, here are some ideas on how you can help your supermarket stop wasting food.

October 14, 2011 | Posted in Friday Buffet, Household, International, Supermarket, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Tortilla Tossing

Thanks to this editorial, I just learned about the practice of celebrating UCSB soccer goals and wins by tossing tortillas on the field. To wit:

Here’s an opposing editorial on why tortilla tossing is great, which includes this gem:

Tortillas represent the Argentinian Cowboys, the Gauchos. It’s a feeling of who the Gauchos are, and that’s who we always try to be.

Ah yes, now I remember hearing tales of grizzled Argentine cowboys roaming the pampas, casting aside tortillas left and right, as tradition dictated.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a suspicion that tortillas aren’t even common in Argentina. (A suspicion upheld by some two-bit web research)

What’s your take on this practice? Innocent fun? Worthless waste? Something in between?

October 12, 2011 | Posted in General | Comments closed