Tale of the Pizza Sale

I’ve been somewhat critical of Whole Foods on certain topics, so here’s an opportunity to give credit where credit’s due.

The other night I went there for a few slices of pizza, mostly because it was on sale for half-price during September. I hadn’t realized it, but it was pretty late.

I became aware of that fact when the server told preventing pizza waste one slice at a time...me that slices were two-for-one after 9 p.m. But he made my waste sensor even happier when he said another option was one slice for half-price (75 cents). Given the pizza sale, this meant that it’d be one-fourth of the usual (pricey) cost.

I’m praising Whole Foods is because they provide that choice. It’d be easy for them to stick with the buy one, get one offer because they’re looking to sell off their product by the end of the night. There’s no yesterday’s pizza for sale at Whole Foods or anywhere I’ve seen (even thought I’d be psyched if there was).

That’s why I’m even more appreciate that they offer the one slice, half-price option, as it doesn’t encourage overeating or waste. Of course, I plowed through two and considered a third, but that’s another story.

October 1, 2009 | Posted in Personal, Supermarket | Comments closed

Another Kind of Waste

I had such high hopes for the Chicago Tribune piece “Schools Promote Waste-Free Lunches.” When I read that headline, I thought of food waste, not packaging. As you can guess, the article is almost solely about the latter.

Yes, keeping food packaging from the landfill is a noble cause. But, I would argue, not as noble as preventing its contents from the same fate.

The piece discusses composting a bit, including an impressive level of separation (worm-friendly vs. hog-centric foods) in Duluth, Minn. But there’s no talk of reducing the amount of food wasted.

photo by ndanger via creative commonsWhy is that? My sense is that composting is an easy change. It doesn’t ask much of us, other than an extra step or two at the bin. Reducing waste can be a bit harder. What’s your take?

As an example, the article covers the composting of empty milk cartons lining the trash, but doesn’t talk about the full ones mixed into the bin.

And there’s almost always milk wasted. The USDA requires that all kids on the National School Lunch Program take a milk–even if kids say they’re not going to drink it. Oh, and the same policy exists for the entree, too.

September 29, 2009 | Posted in Composting, School, Vermiculture | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

I was excited to see that Washington & Lee is recovering food at a Walmart! Nice to have some of those giant stores onboard. If they can do that nationwide, we’d really be getting somewhere.

While we’re at it, how cool is the Campus Kitchen at W & L?!

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Your meat scraps, please! Photo by Alaskan Dude via creative commons

Talk about a local answer for food waste: The Univ. of Alaska–Fairbanks sends excess proteins to dog mushers.
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Turns out it wasn’t such a great idea to kill all the Egyptian pigs that used to consume Cairo’s organic waste. Shocking.

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An article on San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium’s greening efforts included one encouraging line on food:

They also are looking at ways to reduce wasted food in the kitchens.

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Just up the road, L.A. is trying to divert leftovers from the Convention Center and other city-owned venues to the hungry. Why we wouldn’t do that?

September 25, 2009 | Posted in College, Events, Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Supermarket Stretching

Great news from Maine: In her Diner’s Journal blog, Julia Moskin wrote about a local grocer that finds a way to use up most of what it stocks. Oh, those frugal Mainers!

Moskin’s reported details on Rosemont Markets, a kind of outtake from her piece on Portland’s food scene, seem so obvious in hindsight:

When the local concord grapes on the shelf are past their prime, they go into the commissary kitchen and come out as Zippy Grape Jam. Bananas turning brown? They are peeled, dipped in chocolate, and sold frozen — and local kids eat them up.photo by christaface via creative commons

Quite a few supermarkets do some repurposing. Many places–even Costco!–turn rotisserie chicken into chicken salad. But I’ve not seen any store do it as creatively as Rosemont (and I’d love to hear about some of their other tricks).

There are many, many opportunities for supermarkets to use goods they won’t sell. For instance, stuff that’s reached its “sell-by” date. With more and more grocers making prepared foods, hopefully this trend will flourish. It would seem to be in a market’s bottom line interests to stretch their foods. 

Yet, repurposing does require time from one or more of the store’s workers. The three other barriers that prevent most places from doing so (and must be overcome): 

1. Lack of imagination

2. Lack of time/effort

3. The fear of anything not perfectly fresh and the subsequent banishment to the trash. 

(Hat Tip: Serious Eats and Diana Foss)

September 23, 2009 | Posted in Repurposing, Supermarket | Comments closed

Goodness Gracious, Gazpacho!

This Friday I made gazpacho, or the cold soup of Spain, as it’s known in my house (from a favorite menu description). The soup served as the final destination for many of my end-of-season garden tomatoes.

I think the soup will enter our regular rotation next summer, as it’s easy, tasty and a nice way to use up slightly past-their-prime foods. To wit: the recipe upon which I loosely based my soup calls for bread. The last two slices of a fairly old loaf, which had been destined for the crouton heap, became a nice thickener for the gazpacho.

In addition, I could imagine adding some other vegetable odds and ends you’re looking to use up. Not to mention the fresh tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers that are entering the September of their years.

Come to think of it, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. Those were basically the three crops that came through for us this summer!I’m sure you all have your ‘tried and true’ uses for the end-of-summer tomato backlog, but I’d definitely recommend the gazpach. Five or six ‘beauts’ is a small price to pay for a flavorful, summery soup.

September 21, 2009 | Posted in Garden, Household, Personal | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

There’s much ado about kitchen bins in Britain, where there’s talk of a landfill food waste ban. I like seeing the different angles, from diverting food from the waste stream and its environmental benefits to Big Brother/fines. (Can you guess which way my bias slants?)

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photo by jorg weingrill via creative commonsThe Telegraph brings us this slide show of produce oddities–all of which I’d happily eat. Even the ‘R-rated’ carrot (you’ll know it when you see it).

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Not food waste, but waste: The NY Times‘ looks at how dairies’ spreading of manure is polluting groundwater. Because many operations are so large, they’ve turned a solution into a problem.

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How would you feel if someone went through your trash to tally food waste? What if they didn’t tell you? And what if they were public employees?

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Here’s a scandalous clip of Top Chef contestants destroying produce. OK, maybe it’s not quite scandalous. How about foolish? 

September 18, 2009 | Posted in Farm, Friday Buffet, International, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Now Serving: More Donations

The other NRA, the National Restaurant Association, is getting more serious about food donation. The restaurant group announced a new partnership with the Food Donation Connection, a kind of food recovery matchmaker.

This is great news, as many restaurants are hesitant to donate their excess food. Unfounded fears of liability and inertia/laziness are two major barriers to donation. That’s why I’m hoping some inter-industry leadership will coax more eateries into donating.

Photo by llabocaj via creative commonsMy other reaction: It’s about time! Also, there’s some room for concern over how healthy these new donations will be, given the partner restaurants listed on the FDC site. But that’s more of general restaurant industry issue and a conversation for another day.

Food Donation Connection, based in Knoxville, Tenn., takes some of the guesswork out of donations for restaurants. They have extensive experience setting up restaurants with local food relief groups and have helpful tax and liability info on their site, but don’t do any recovering themselves. They’re middlemen in the best possible connotation.

Bill Reighard, President of FDC, is excited, and so am I. And so are the hunger-relief agencies, said Reighard:

“The agencies are excited that the Association has stepped up in a significant way to fight against hunger. We look forward to expanded participation by the restaurant industry.”

September 15, 2009 | Posted in Food Recovery, Restaurant | Comments closed

Getting My Fill

I write plenty about keeping food out of landfills to prevent greenhouse gas emissions. So it was high time I visited a landfill specifically to see what a few methane handling systems look like.

Friday, I went to Orange (County, N.C.) Regional Landfill where my trash used to go, before I moved to the next town. My current home, Durham, N.C., trucks its waste one state north–and you thought Virginia was for lovers?!

methane vent in Orange County, NCAnyway, it was a twofer. The older part of the landfill, which is now closed, has “passive vents,” as pictured to the right. Essentially, that means engineers have dug holes and inserted pipes to facilitate the harmful methane’s escape into the atmosphere. Not exactly a progressive idea. It prevents landfill fires from gas buildup, but does nothing to address the environmental issues.

The active section of the landfill is “flaring” its methane. That means a collection system captures the methane and sends it to a series of flares, where the methane is burned into carbon dioxide.

methane flare in Orange County, NCWhile that sounds terrible, it’s actually an improvement because methane is so much more harmful (21x) than carbon dioxide. Plus, it doesn’t produce new carbon because it already existed (in the food). Still, it’s not all that progressive, because it lets a potential energy source escape and the collection systems miss a sizable amount of methane.

The real answer (in addition to sending less food waste to the landfill!) is to harness that methane to create energy–either electricity or liquified natural gas. That could be in Orange County’s future and it should be based on the trend of increasing food waste. Fingers crossed.

September 14, 2009 | Posted in Environment, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Here’s a little drilling down on the cultural barriers to asking for doggy bags in the UK.

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Green Seal restaurant standards just received a nice boost in the form of national recognition (from ANSI). Not that I have a clue about design, photo by Ollie T. via creative commonsbut I’m still not wild about the Green Seal logo–it seems more blue than green and isn’t that a check, not a seal? Who’d argue with a green-colored seal (the animal)?

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Another tree gleaning article must mean that the heart of the harvest season has arrived. And if that means a glut of tomatoes for you, here are 30 ideas on how to use them.

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You’ll find some good composting basics in this piece–“The Garden State”–in the Jersey section of the NYT.

September 11, 2009 | Posted in Composting, Household, International, Tree Gleaning | Comments closed

Doggy Days of Summer

Happy Zero Waste Week! Well, at least that is being celebrated in the UK. Here in the States, it’s the post-holiday ‘Wait, What Day is Today?’ Week.

Back to the UK, though, I came across this piece on the recent surge in doggy bag use there. I hadn’t realized the practice of taking home restaurant leftovers was/is seen as so uncouth. A campaign involving celebrity chefs is under way in an attempt to remove the stigma surrounding doggy bags.  

While the article may be exaggerating Britons’ reluctance to take food home, I find it humorous that the practice is associated with Americans (in addition to stingy nanas).

Rebecca Hargrave believes her “unease of doggy bags” has been ingrained too deeply by her Nana’s insistence of leaving with a plastic bag often containing a “morsel of food”, ever to be overcome, especially not by a couple of celebrity chefs. Miss Hargrave said: “The British will never loose their inhibitions regarding asking for a doggy bag the way Americans do. It is not in our nature. Except of course if you are my Nana!”

image by bpw via creative commonsIf that is in fact, the widely held view, fine. I’m proud that the majority of Americans don’t need a celebrity chef to prompt them to take home food for which they’ve paid.

I also find it a tad ironic that a fancy French restaurant in London is named after the little street “urchin” from Les Miserables, Gavroche. Then again, this culinary institution is helping spur doggy bagging by “dressing up” its take-home boxes. Still, I bet if petit Gavroche heard that this gussying up was needed, he’d probably Look Down.

September 9, 2009 | Posted in International, Restaurant | Comments closed