Photo from Flickr/superk8nyc. Creative Commons.
The Green Lantern, a regular column at Slate.com that answers environmental questions, takes on the topic of food waste: How much food do Americans waste everyday? One cited report makes the astounding assertion that 40 percent of all food in the U.S. is lost somewhere along the supply chain–damaged in transportation, rots on the shelves, etc. The amount of food thrown away in U.S. homes is closer to 14 percent, according to another researcher. The Green Lantern is asking its readers how they prevent food waste, so I pose the same question to you: How do you avoid wasting food in your home?
Food waste on an individual level isn't the problem – it's on the commercial level that things get serious. I worked at a small cafe-style restaurant for a while, and I took a lot of closing shifts. Where do all those fresh daily pastries and breads go? That's right – the garbage. If people didn't buy it, we couldn't keep it because we had to use fresh stuff the next day. Twice a week we had food kitchen people come in for the leftovers, but other than that & what a handful of workers could take home, it got tossed. Bags and bags full of bagels… I still have nightmares.
I started a web service so that anything I buy and don't like, or if I go on vacation and don't want to waste, I can post an ad and see if anyone local wants to take it for free. Also, my neighbor just moved, and she had a freezer full of food she didn't want to toss, so simple things like being willing to "share" with neighbors are all we really need to be doing.
I work for a catering company and it's terrible how much food goes to waste. We all try to take as much as we can home because we cannot donate it to food shelters
I ask each person how much they think they can eat for that meal and prepare based on that. If we have any leftovers its usually only enough for one person to take for lunch the next day. Then there is no waste at all.
I live alone and on a limited income so nothing is wasted. I hardly ever eat meat so even bones in my gargbage are rare. Veggie trimmings go into my compost pile. I recycle 80-90% of my packaging too. That's all of my food waste story.
This is Jaman, the writer of the original post. Thanks for everybody's comments.
I agree with the first commenter who made the distinction between individual and commercial food waste. I used to work at a grocery store, so I, too, have seen the amount of waste at the industrial level. Other commenters have offered up good solutions for reining in individual food waste–sharing with neighbors, limiting how much food you prepare, etc.
So now let me rephrase the question: How can we lessen industrial food waste? What can we do with food that may be too old to sell or slightly damaged but still perfectly edible? Any ideas?
I think restaurants could be more proactive in searching for options for industrial-sized waste. Food and pastries that are still fresh could be donated to food banks, school-lunch programs or nursing homes. Inedible kitchen waste can be offered to community gardens or small farmers to use as compost. I think only good press could come from a restaurant that advertises its efforts to cut back on waste and possibly even write off some of the loss as charity donations.
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