Let’s have a brief moment of silence for our fallen French fried friends. (moment)
There. This post uniquely captures some of the feelings I often have at restaurants. Then its author goes a bit far, but in a fun way.
If someone possessed the foresight to construct a potato cemetery for all these fallen soldiers, there would surely be ten Vietnam Memorials for one day in Manhattan restaurants alone.
It was a timely post for me, because there’s a Styrofoam container of doomed fries in my fridge right now. They’ve received a stay of execution, but it won’t be for long. I reheated a few of them two days ago and they were so-so. On second reheating, they were awful. Now it’s just a matter of bringing myself to chuck ’em.
My wife ordered a sandwich and received said fries, an unpleasant surprise since she doesn’t like them. Naturally, there were tons of them (that picture was after restaurant nibbling and round two at home). She often substitutes, but was in a conversation and wasn’t focusing on what came with her sandwich. In our fries-happy land, that mistake will ultimately mean an extra pound of food in our town’s waste stream.
Since they’re terrible for our health and terrible reheated, how about a common sense resolution: the fries’ weight shouldn’t exceed that of the sandwich.Â
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7 responses to “French Fry Waste”
Over our holiday break, our college dining hall was redesigned, and one of the new ways to minimize waste is the way in which fries are distributed.
For years, our “Grill” station, which contains cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, hot dogs, etc automatically would dump a handful of fries in the basket with the main item. So, if you wanted a second hot dog, you automatically got a second order of fries. And many times you didn’t want fries anyway, which sent lots of them to the dumpster.
Now, the grill specials come out on their own and the fries are in a seperate serving container with tongs, so you may take as many or as few as you would like. And, it is truly amazing how many people (including myself) are taking none! All those saved fries!
Ah, it warms the heart!
So was this “Grill” station not manned by a human? I’m wondering how it worked before the redesign and how common this automatic fry dumping might be. Anyone else have this problem at their school?
The way the Grill works is that the baskets containing the burgers/hot dogs/grilled cheese, etc and previously a side of fries were pre-prepared back in the kitchen, and then slid down into the small window for an easy self-serve, we just take the basket. It’s nice because they prepare a few at a time and then replenish them as they are taken. It still works exactly the same, except there is one large serving pan filled with fries with the self serve tongs.
Much of the re-design seems to have been done to help reduce food waste. Many items that were once self-service (the deli bar, fruit, etc) are now served to you by an employee. Also, there are now several smaller food stations to help reduce lines to make smaller portions and getting up for seconds more appealing. Color me impressed!
There’s a saying here in the UK… “Cheap as chips”. [Of course chips is what are french fries, in case you or readers don’t know.] Anyway, it’s the full plate factor, isn’t it? Fries are very cheap for a restaurant and so they fill up your plate with them so you’re getting a bargain, but the landfill and your clogged arteries don’t agree!
So right, Shannon. Some bargain!
And thanks for passing along that saying. With the 2008 Election rolling along and a business-as-usual Farm Bill likely to pass, here’s my message to politicians: Talk is Cheap as Chips.
I don’t understand why your fries were going into the town waste stream. I thought to myself, hasn’t this man ever heard of composting? Then I checked your past posts and saw that, indeed, you have several posts on composting.
Why then, the trash for the fries?
I am the baker at a small bakery/ retail outlet. Daily, I bring home the egg shells, and the ‘ends’ of the loaves. (Seems that no one wants a sandwich made of crusts, have you discussed that? I’m sure this is true of any restaurant/sandwich shop using bread. So when sliced, all the crusts were removed and were tossed. I feed them to my chickens. I don’t eat the bread because, though organic flour, they are made with sugar and margarine–this is not my operation.)
I also save my apple cores, banana peels, squash skins, etc from my lunch as well as the coffee grounds from the employee coffee machine. I bring them all home and put them in my compost pile. Even on days when I ride my motorcycle into work. It’s just not that big a deal.
If your place is too urban for a compost pile, do vermicomposting. Anyone can do that.
I compost just about everything in my life. I can’t say that I do it particularly well, but I try. I chose not to compost the fries because I didn’t want to attract any rodents to my open-air bin.
If you can, send me a photo of the bread end castoffs–that’s an interesting waste angle that, as you say, is quite common.