Wasted Food -- Jonathan Bloom on food waste and how it can be avoided | a look at how America squanders nearly half of its food

Earth Day Replay

What’d you miss on Earth Day? A few things:

The Washington Post‘s A Mighty Appetite has an interview with Cooking Green author Kate Heyhoe. I like the term “cookprint,” although I can’t decide whether I prefer “carbon foodprint.” One thing I’m sure of: I love that our “cookprint” takes into account the waste created in preparing and eating food.

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I dropped by neighborhood university, Duke, for their Last Day of Classes celebration that had an Earth Day theme (due to its date). I was pleased to talk with a student group trying to get the dining services to serve more local foods and had a nice chat with the head of Sustainability @ Duke.

I’d say the emphasis in the partying was slightly more slanted towards classes ending than environmentalism (fair enough). But Duke’s caterers, the fabulous Bon Appetit, did serve a low carbon diet for the day and I saw this awesome poster in the Great Hall.

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And finally, photo courtesy of sodexo Sodexo held Weigh the Waste events at many of its campuses. Illustrating the gap between food taken and eaten is an important step. Sodexo serves 600 schools, and almost 40 percent of them are trayless. Not too shabby!

Note: I’ve updated this last bit based on a previous error and added this photo from an Earth Day Weigh the Waste event at Paul Smith’s College in New York.

April 23, 2009 | Posted in Environment | Comments closed

April 22 is…

soil courtesy of john!!! via creative commons …Earth Day. Weather permitting, I’m going to spend it outside and away from the computer. If I’m lucky, I might even get my hands into some real earth–I need to get my summer seedlings in the ground.

I hope you’re able to do the same! (the outside part, at least)

I’ll be back with a regular post on Thursday…

April 22, 2009 | Posted in Environment, Garden | Comments closed

Taking One for the Team

CNET Asia blogger Michael Tan raises an interesting question, albeit in a confrontational manner: If you care about the environment and not wasting food, should you buy the container of milk closer to its expiration date?

Robin Shreeves from the Mother Nature Network runs with the question, applying it to various supermarket sections. Her main answer is this:

Yes, I think you should, and I do unless itâ€™s so close to its expiration date that I donâ€™t think my family can finish it.

Buying the foods in front is noble idea, provided you know how long it will take you or yo Now this package might give reason for pause. Photo by dahnielson via creative commons ur family to finish said item. In addition, knowing that the sell-by and expiration dates are usually cautious estimates lowers the stakes.

Shreeves’ rationale is part environmentalism, part economics. Items on or near their sell-by date may be discounted. Unfortunately, not all stores mark down items.

I try to avoid food waste in my personal life. But nobody wants to waste money on goods that I won’t be able to use before they go bad. I’m not going to buy a bruised apple when there’s a fresh one next to it. At the same time, if I see some slightly bruised apples on the discount rack, I’d certainly check them out.

Milk provides a truer test. I have to admit that my gut reaction is to find the freshest bottle possible. Maybe it’s survival instinct. For whatever reason, I often have to remind myself that buying milk 10 days before its use-by date isn’t much different than 12 days. Also, whenever I find myself looking at dates on milk bottles, I think of the “milk maids” scene in Clerks.

While buying the older bottle may feel like putting someone else’s interests ahead of your own, you’re basically getting the same stuff. Especially with all the irradiation of milk these days. What about you? What’s your take on the topic?

My real pet peeve is watching the produce guy cull all those fruits and veggies with one bad spot, knowing that he’s just rendered them garbage. But I’d still get plenty of use out of 90 percent of those items (and would probably buy them at a discount). Unless you want to get that produce from the dumpster (and I don’t), that’s not happening.

April 21, 2009 | Posted in Food Safety, Personal, Supermarket | Comments closed

Watching Waste

The report below has some graphic food composting footage. *Spoiler alert:* It might just spoil your appetite.

The clip details the virtuous cycle of an Atlanta hotel turning its food waste into compost, which is then used to grow more food. A progressive process, for sure.

A higher goal, though, is to reduce the amount of edible food being squandered and requiring composting. Along those lines, I found it odd that the video omitted this important detail from the print article:

Excess food, in accordance with the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, is donated to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, which aids in feeding the city’s hungry.

Was that left on the cutting room floor? Did the producers feel that food donation complicate the picture too much? Something else, perhaps?

Also, I couldn’t help noticing a nice platter of pesto pasta being scraped into the compost bin in the first ten seconds. My guess is that it couldn’t be donated because the pasta was on an open buffet (whereas if it was served by staff, health codes would allow donation). Either way, it’s frustrating to see that tip of the food waste iceberg.

April 20, 2009 | Posted in Composting, Environment | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

As you guys know, I’m all for avoiding food waste, but this insider tip does not make me want to eat hospital food. Then again, I do like the baking soda toothpaste…

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While you were enjoying Easter, Australia’s Do Something launched the FoodWise campaign. They’ve set some reasonable goals and even have a manifesto!

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More and more hungry peopleÂ + excess food = huh?

I thought this was a thought-provoking piece.

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Here are some handy composting tips, courtesy of my local CBS station.

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Finally…Boooooooooooo.

April 17, 2009 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, Hunger, Institutional, International | Comments closed

East Bay Energy

Here’s a nice recap of Oakland’s uber-progressive food-waste-to-energy plant. East Bay Municipal Utility District (East Bay MUD) has an anaerobic digestion plant that converts Oakland’s food waste to energy, which it then use to power the West Oakland sewage treatment plant.

photo by mattdork via creative commons Cool!

I think anaerobic digestion is a sound destination for that inedible food waste that’s always going to occur. It’s not on the EPA’s food waste recovery hierarchy, but I’d put it right above composting.

There are just two things I’m not sure about from the article. One, does the East Bay MUD plant really produce a carbon dioxide byproduct? When I worked at an anaerobic digestion company, there was no talk of a CO2, just an organic sludge that could be turned into a soil amendment.

The other bone to pick: When food is composted, if done properly, it does not release methane. As long as the pile or row is turned often enough so that all parts receive oxygen (and don’t go anaerobic), there won’t be any methane emissions.Anyway, I hope more municipalities follow MUD’s path.

April 16, 2009 | Posted in Composting, Energy | Comments closed

Eat me!

I’m not linking to this post out of vanity (honest!) and what follows is not vulgar (get your mind out of the gutter!).

In addition to finding The Compact (of not buying anything new except food for a year) admirable, I really enjoyed Angela Barton’s idea of having a section near the front of your fridge for expiring goods. It’s kind of like having a sale rack in your own refrigerator. Plus, Barton’s area has that fun name. photo courtesy of Angela Barton

The practice of moving all the soon-to-be expired food up to the front of the fridge is reminiscent of the way grocery stores stock their shelves. The new stuff is put in the back so the older goods are actually sold. Why prompt waste in your home by putting recent purchases at the front of the fridge?

While I don’t have a designated spot in my fridge for elderly food, I try to have a rough idea in my head of what’s going bad first. This usually helps me answer that nagging question ‘What’s for dinner?’

Anyway, what’s on your sale rack? And do you have any tips or strategies for keeping that category to a minimum?

April 15, 2009 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

Web-prevented Waste

A Scottish entrepreneur just launched a site that will enable grocers to sell goods approaching their ‘best by’ date to bargain hunting consumers.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what the site is called. That’s because this article–in a stunning feat of journalistic incompetence–doesn’t provide the name or URL. While I’m complaining, a second source (on this new site’s prospects) wouldn’t hurt the article, either.

The piece does mention Approved Food, a similar site with a niche in nearly out-of-code items. I found their About Us page encouraging, and it even has a dash of humor:

We specialise in selling short-dated or out-of-date “Best Before” dry food products as well as fully coded clearance stock. We do not however sell chilled or frozen “Use By” products.

Some people believe consuming food & drink that has passed its “best before” dates is unacceptable and these people might be better of shopping at www.tesco.com [a high end British grocer].

Our customers have a more educated view on best before dates and what these actually mean. And for these people, Approved Food can offer fantastic value that no supermarket can ever compete with on price.

I’m curious, would you ever buy goods past their “best-by” date? What about their “sell-by” date? And if either one is a ‘yes,’ would you do so over the Web?

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Update: the previously unnamed site is Nearly Out of Date.

April 14, 2009 | Posted in International, Supermarket, Technology | Comments closed

Buffet By Request

Sometimes reducing food waste requires a bit of sacrifice. Perhaps it’s planning out your meals before grocery shopping or simply taking stock of the food you throw out (including the stuff that goes down the garbage disposal).

For customers at Stevi B’s, an Atlanta-based chain of all-you-can-eat pizza buffets, it means not having the B.L.T. and taco pizzas on the buffet. A waste-reducing initiative at that chain determined that those particular items don’t hold up well under the warming lights. Taco-pizza-loving customers must now request it.

taco pizza by ginnerobot via creative commons The chain also curbs loss by making fewer pizzas during slow hours and even making some half-and-half pies. They’ve studied their losses by counting wasted pizzas, entering them into a database and making changes based on the findings. Easy as pie, says Stevi B’s Seth Salzman:

â€œAnytime you have something printed in black and white, it makes it a little more undeniable,â€ he says. â€œYou can say, ‘Wow, in a week’s time, we threw away 25 entire pizzas.’â€

As for those two reducd specialty pizzas, I can see both sides here. It’d be a bummer for B.L.T. or taco pizza lovers. But then again, does the world really need taco pizza? And you could always just call ahead and request one. Which is exactly what I’ll be doing with the B.L.T. pie the next time I’m in Georgia.

April 13, 2009 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Bon Appetit Management Company, primarily a college food service company, have already reached their year-end carbon reduction goals, including some admirable food waste reduction milestones. Kudos, guys.

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Two opposing Ivy League op-eds: one from the Yale Daily News that’s against wasteÂ and one from The Daily Princetonian that only occasionally makes sense.

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photo by natecardozo via creative commons Here are a few tips, especially for those living alone, which does present its food waste challenges (I’m looking right at you, Trader Joe’s, with your abundance of packaged produce).

And here are a some more universal tips.

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An unfortunate storm-induced groundwater violation may shut down a long-time Maine composting operation. Here’s an interesting look at the Maine commercial composting scene, complete with this great quote: