Comments on: Friday Buffet

by: Jonathan

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:25:38 +0000

Kathleen, I didn’t applaud the Belarusian President, just reported his food waste-related policy. After reading a bit more about him, I can agree that he sounds like a guy who doesn’t deserve much praise.

Kristen, I’m with you. I use whatever plastic container I happen to have lying around. Often it’s something I’m going to recycle, so I can take the compost and recycling out at the same time.

Bernie, dream on. I’d love to see it happen, but I can’t imagine Kohler has composters in mind when they make something like that sink.

Brenda, that’s one of the real shames of food waste–when things in perfect shape are thrown away because they won’t make it to their (far away) destination in time. That’s the perfect situation for food recovery groups. Also, it makes me want to eat local foods.

by: Brenda Lotito

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:26:32 +0000

I just returned from a food waste forum in New Jersy. There was a representative from a food bank. He brought up something that I hadn’t thought of previously. It seems that in states that have port cities, the amount of food waste can be insurmountable. For instance, a load of bananna’s (meaning a whole shipping container full)could get to the port in a semi ripened stage. If this particular shipment needed to get to California, lets say, and the docking point was somewhere on the East Coast, the bananna’s could be sent directly to the landfill! Why? Apparently, the mindset is that the bananna’s would not reach the West Coast in time and could be ripe or over-ripe on delivery, which is a chance most companies who ship from other parts would rather not take.
Some of the larger food banks which deliver edibles to other banks are now trying to tap into this wasted food. Kudos!

by: bernie

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:54:47 +0000

It struck me that the big problem with the gorgeous Kohler sink is that the food goes into the waste water system. It would be lovely to have nicely pureed “disposal grounds” to add to the composter. All it would take is to add a bucket to the system. It would look just the same way it does now and when you were done doing your prep, you would take the pail out from under the sink and dump the puree into the outdoor composter. It would even compost faster. Think Kohler would make that modification?

by: Kristen a.k.a. The Frugal Girl

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 13:39:23 +0000

My composter is, um, a $5 Rubbermaid bin. It’s not pretty, and it does need to be kept outside, but the price can’t be beat! lol

by: Kathleen

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:58:41 +0000

“But don’t think too hard; it is Friday.” I can only assume this logic applies to your applause for Lukashenko–a dictator, not a democratically elected president–as well. While minimizing food waste is obviously optimal, this policy is frightening, especially coming from him.

by: Kerry

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:33:56 +0000

That disposal is a crazy waste of both money and compost material; very pretty, but still crazy.

The compost pail is also ridiculously expensive. This one is great: http://www.goodcommonsense.net/makicobu.html and only ten bucks and works great.

We have sink strainers similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FKKHQW?smid=A1JNDUC22R5J14&tag=yahoo-kitchen-20&linkCode=asn and then put anything that ends up in it into the compost bucket.

Love the mock up flyer.

by: Shorty

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:10:45 +0000

The flyer mock up is interesting…
just last weekend, i went into a small fruit/veg market looking for rhubarb. I asked the lady at the cash if there was any. She said they had one bunch left “but it doesn’t look very good”. “Can i see it?”, i asked…she brought it out. I’m not sure why it wasn’t up to selling par to be honest. there was one slightly broken piece. it was firm, looked fine. So i bought it.

so the foods in the mock up are super rotten, what about the semi-bruised, probably slightly imperfect foods that get tossed? how much of the total is that i wonder?