Monthly Archives: September 2007

Friday Buffet

No doubt taking a cue from my vociferous stance, an Inuit leader told the Canadian Navy not to dump food waste (and sewage) in arctic waters. — — Here’s an interesting CNN video report on food waste in Hong Kong. A whopping one third of their waste stream is food, compared to 17 percent in […]

September 28, 2007 | Posted in Friday Buffet, International, Restaurant | Comments closed

Ramadan Waste

The articles on Ramadan food waste continue to roll in here at Wasted Food Headquarters. This article in Qatar’s Gulf-Times provides an Upstairs, Downstairs-like, behind-the-scenes insight on how breaking the Ramadan fast leads to food waste: Contrary to the essence and spirit of fasting, which is meant to incorporate piety and kindheartedness in those observing them, people […]

September 27, 2007 | Posted in History and Culture, International | Comments closed

Buffet sans tray

In addition to aiding obesity, college cafeterias’ all-you-can-waste-eat plans cause great amounts of food waste. I’ve written on this before and even highlighted one interesting peer pressure solution. Stuart Leckie, general manager of dining at Maine’s tiny St. Joseph’s College, invented a more practical way to cut waste and waists: eliminate trays. I spoke with Leckie yesterday and he’s […]

September 26, 2007 | Posted in Institutional, School | Comments closed

Extra! Extra!

Food waste awareness is gaining steam thanks to this CNN article that ran yesterday. Plus, they want your opinion on the topic. I’m not sure why the article is classified as a ‘World’ story instead of a ‘U.S.’ one, but it’s encouraging nonetheless.

September 25, 2007 | Posted in General | Comments closed

Talk about waste!

Last night I spoke to a local group of young professionals about food waste. As much as I like blogging to you discerning readers, the talk was a nice opportunity to converse with an audience that could and did ask questions and challenge some assumptions.  Some attendees were curious about the statistic that we don’t eat a quarter of the […]

September 25, 2007 | Posted in History and Culture, Household, Personal | Comments closed

The Weekly Waste Word: What by?

At the beginning of each week, I try to give readers one tip on how to avoid food waste. This week’s advice: know the difference between sell-by and use-by dates. Use-by and best-by dates are decent guides for when an item shouldn’t be consumed. Sell-by dates, on the other hand, tell a store how long it […]

September 24, 2007 | Posted in Supermarket, The Weekly Waste Word | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

For the person who needs more kitchen junk: To avoid waste transferring items from cutting board to saute pan, this board folds to form a funnel. Or you can wash the things that fall on the floor. Or adhere to the five-second rule. — — Hosts of the new Kiwi TV show WA$TED! dig through people’s trash and provide […]

September 21, 2007 | Posted in Friday Buffet | Comments closed

Farm Aid Food Rescue

In addition to funding family farmers, this month’s Farm Aid also helped the hungry. How? The good people at City Harvest held a food drive and, more germane to this site, recovered food from the backstage caterers. While the canned food drive collected 2,000 pounds, City Harvest gathered an additional 5,000 pounds of primo food, the same […]

September 20, 2007 | Posted in Farm, Food Recovery | Comments closed

Digester Digest

Last week I got to visit the demonstration anaerobic digester in Davis, Calif., run by Onsite Power Systems. As discussed earlier, this process creates energy from food waste. It’s just across the tracks from U.C. Davis, housed at the university’s Waste Water Treatment Facility, which, nestled between the stables of the Center for Equine Health, has to […]

September 19, 2007 | Posted in Energy, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Ag (Against) Waste

Last week I visited Ag Against Hunger, a food recovery operation in Salinas, Calif. What makes their operation unique is that it receives donations primarily from the large-scale farms. In Salinas, known as “Salad Bowl of America,” most of the big farms are packers and shippers, too. The majority of the donations Ag Against Hunger receives […]

September 18, 2007 | Posted in Farm, Food Recovery | Comments closed