Back to School Waste

As many of you are gearing up for another school year, it’s worth considering that complicated topic–school food waste.

School lunch produces its share of waste, from the untouched apples to milk cartons lining the trash. But school breakfast isn’t much different. In fact, it can be worse.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, with a little effort. To wit, here’s a school food waste tale with a happy ending.

This tale, from the well-done blog The Lunch Tray, brought a few things to mind:

  • It’s amazing what a little research and/or pro-activity will do!
  • The tactic of  “offer vs. serve” (OVS) is so much better than the alternative–forcing kids to take everything, even if they don’t want some items.
  • The only reason I can think of why all school districts don’t use OVS is because it’s slower. And given how short lunch periods are today…that’s a concern. But all the more reason to make lunch periods longer. A 4th grade teacher I spoke with recently told me that her kids get 15 minutes (and that includes the time in line).
  • Improving the actual quality of food that students eat would go a long way toward producing both healthier kids and less waste. A good place to start would be fresh produce instead of canned. When food tastes good, more will be eaten. Simple.
September 7, 2010 | Posted in School | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Love it! The U.S. Open is composting this year. The tennis tournament has bins throughout its grounds.

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Well then–a big food fight in Nevada. Because what’s more authentic than La Tomatina in…Reno? The tomato-tossing war cost $10 to enter, which went to cancer research. That’s hard to argue with.

But…there are many ways to fundraise. Santiago Gurule from Tables of Hope tipped me off to the event and his words on it were poetic: “You hope the majority of people would find more lasting satisfaction in supporting two important causes (finding a cure for cancer and helping to end hunger) with one tomato.”

Plus, it’s not like the town’s called Rena.

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By next year, the Minnesota State Fair could be partially powered by food waste (and manure). U. of Minnesota scientists are testing how effective it would be to convert Fair food waste and manure to energy. No word yet on whether there are plans to deep fry the waste first.

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San Jose’s Greenwaste collects a bunch of food waste from Bay Area cities (10,000 tons from Palo Alto businesses last year) and has a nice looking site to boot!

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Successful food waste collection by smaller companies like Greenwaste is no doubt behind the decision by industry biggie Waste Management to increase its organics recycling services.

September 3, 2010 | Posted in Anaerobic Digestion, Composting, Events, International | Comments closed

Book Time: Empires of Food

A mutual friend put me in touch with Evan Fraser, co-author of Empires of Food, and I’m really glad that she did. Fraser sent a copy of the recently published book and I’ve been steadily enjoying it. And I’m not alone there.

To be honest, when I saw the subtitle “Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations,” I was a bit nervous that the book would be a bit dry. But this tale of agricultural fragility is quite approachable. I was sucked in by the first line of the intro–“The two authors of this book have never gone hungry”–and pulled along from there.

The authors chose the adventures of 16th Century Italian trader Francesco Carletti as the narrative string, and his travel leads readers through chapter topics as diverse as water, dirt and ice. And to be sure, it’s a real accomplishment for authors to make dirt (or soil) interesting.

The chapter of most interest from a waste perspective is “Ice: Preserve Us.” In it, the authors detailed how food rots and historical ways to slow that process:

Bacteria brew in damp organic matter, so the goal of food preservation has always been to reduce the water in food, robbing the bacteria of a home…

An alternative to getting rid of the water is to perform a sort of molecular jujitsu with fermentation, using the bacteria for good. It’s not the path of least resistance in food processing, since it requires work, but it’s historically the most enjoyable.

We learn a fair amount about the role of ice in preservation, including the daring entrepreneur who shipped pond ice from New England to India–and got rich doing it.

From there, the chapter meanders into a discussion of how animals came to be consumed weeks after its slaughter. And how, amazingly, the accepted practice for 19th Century California growers was to ship their produce via train to East Coast markets where payment was based on the goods’ condition.

I wouldn’t advise reading Empires of Food specifically to learn about preservation or food waste in different civilizations. But I would recommend reading it.

And you might get to do so soon, as I’m giving away the book to anyone who’s a liker of the Wasted Food Facebook page by high noon on Friday.

September 1, 2010 | Posted in History and Culture | Comments closed

Old Edamame

We did a little fridge cleaning this weekend. And I unearthed this bag of frozen edamame that have been in our freezer since the Bush administration. Probably the son.

Not surprisingly, they looked bad.

Really bad.

A few had freezer burn, many were shriveled. I reluctantly made peace with putting them out to pasture (in the compost pile), but decided to do a little experiment before I did. I wanted to see just how bad they looked after cooking.

What began as more of a curiosity with a sliver of hope ended as another example of that age-old maxim: don’t judge a food by its appearance.

The (soy) beans inside looked great! I ate a whole bunch and they tasted the exact same as any other bag of frozen edamame I’ve ever had (i.e. fine, but not amazing).

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P.S. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Japanese word ‘edamame’ literally means “twig beans,” which I love.

August 30, 2010 | Posted in Household, Personal | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Iowa State’s University Extension urges students to reduce waste as part of its Spend Smart, Eat Smart campaign. It includes a useful run-down on expiration date definitions.

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I am in no way surprised that a Portland culinary school teaches students to be smart about waste. I am a bit surprised that the Art Institute of Portland has a culinary school, though. (But I’m sure it’s a great one.)

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There’s a TV show on food waste in Britain? Why am I not surprised? Here’s a little recap of Great British Waste Menu. Hopefully there’ll be an American remake of this

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London’s Heathrow airport will turn its food waste into fertilizer? Well, basically, they’ll compost it. A few airports in the States already compost food scraps, but none as massive as Heathrow.

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Finally, a sad day for composting, as neighbors’ complaints will mean Las Vegas’ A1 Organics will soon lose its lease. I have no idea if they were doing things right, but if properly managed, composting plants shouldn’t smell.

August 27, 2010 | Posted in Airline, Composting, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Judging by its cover…

Last month, I linked to the Amazon page for my book. And I did the same on Facebook, where I gave a little disclaimer that the cover would change a bit. And so it has!

Folks, here’s the final final version:

And because I’m trying to bolster my Facebook “likers,” you can visit my page to participate in a jaunty little poll about the cover. Or feel free to leave a comment here on how awesome it looks. (Keep in mind that I had nothing to do with the cover’s creation.)

August 25, 2010 | Posted in Personal | Comments closed

Taking the Temperature

It’s happened again. Our British friends at WRAP released another food waste study, this time on Reducing Waste Through the Chill Chain. (Here’s the abbreviated version.)

While their “chill chain” may be our cold one, the study is quite useful on either side of the Atlantic. It found that many folks’ refrigerator temperatures are often too warm (above the ideal 0 to 5 degrees C). In fact, the mean temperature was 7 degrees. That’s important, as a warm fridge will curtail a food’s shelf (and half-) life.

The study’s authors hope to prompt behavior change for the general public on this topic (via Love Food, Hate Waste). For instance, making individuals aware of the importance of keeping fridges at the right temperature. And encouraging them to use a cooler bag/box to bring items home on warm days.

The authors also hope to inspire fridge manufacturers to make temperature readings and controls more obvious for consumers. And they’d like these makers of “white goods,” along with grocers, to help spread the word on the ideal temperature (roughly 32 to 40 degrees F).

In addition, they’ve given you 95 pages of food temperature info to peruse the next time you’re just, you know, chillin.

August 23, 2010 | Posted in Food Safety, Household, International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

More fallout from Monday’s topic of energy lost in food waste. In her Discover blog, Sheril Kirshenbaum asks ‘how do we change attitudes and behavior on waste?’ Well, I hope it starts with a book.

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Not that you’d ever think of wasting peanut butter, but just in case…here are 10 other uses for it.

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Nutritionists won’t like it, but Snickers’ link with Feeding America will donate a good chunk of food to those in need. The candy bar company will donate 2.5 million meals and as many as 1 million more when consumers enter a code from their wrapper online.

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A look at cruise ships’ environmental impact isn’t all that heartening. And that’s without even considering the food waste.

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Chico State’s student reycling is ramping up its longtime composting. In the process, they’ve come up with a sticker that’s pretty funny, but a bit ‘dirty.’ (It’s at the bottom of the article.)

August 20, 2010 | Posted in College, Environment, Friday Buffet, Hunger | Comments closed

Who Needs Morning Edition…

…when there’s NPR’s Intern Edition?? The end-of-summer web collection of  intern-produced radio content produced some excellent segments.

To wit: I tweeted about this piece last week, but I’m embedding the audio slide show because it’s just that good. The photos alone tell a story about food recovery and food waste. And the (intern) journalist Alexandria Neason really ties the threads together. Well worth 4 minutes of your day.

August 18, 2010 | Posted in Food Recovery | Comments closed

Wasted Energy

What if I told you our food waste represents 2 percent of our national energy use? And then what if I told you that figure was based on the prehistoric (OK, mid 90s) figure that we waste 27 percent of our food? Is that something that might interest you?

The above tidbits come from a recent study out of the Univ. of Texas, which found that the American food chain squanders about 2030 trillion BTU  through its wasted food. I linked to “Wasted Food, Wasted Energy” earlier, but it’s worth further consideration.

And Popular Mechanics does just that in writing about the study. The piece saves us some of the inevitable brain pain that results from reading Amanda Cuellar and Michael Webber’s (strong, but complicated) work.

Still, no pain, no gain. A few thoughts from the study:

  • The good news here is that there’s much room for improvement. Reduced waste can mean reduced energy consumption. By a lot. Trimming waste by 25 percent would mean 507.5 trillion BTU saved.
  • I like how they break down wastage by food type. For example, meat is the most energy draining food product, but people don’t waste it as freely as some other items. Hence, it’s not the top energy drain, a title belonging to dairy.
  • The amount of energy that comes from transportation is a real selling point for the local food movement. Somewhat surprisingly, vegetables required the most energy to transport (and process).
  • Given the above, it wasn’t so surprising that vegetables had the second highest amount of energy embedded in their waste.
  • Hooray for beans, peas and lentils! These legumes took the prize for being the least wasted and least energy-intensive foods.
August 16, 2010 | Posted in Energy, General | Comments closed