If t’is the season for you to be jolly–Merry Christmas! Just a quick reminder: Try to divvy up that Christmas goose or whatever you’re currently roasting. Sending guests home with leftovers ensures that the season of giving keeps giving (and that you don’t end up giving food to your trash). 
If, like some lucky folks I […]

Here’s some food for thought when you’re out shopping for your Christmas meal or New Year’s bash: UK food waste increases by 80 percent during the Christmas and New Year’s period.
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This article provides some all-purpose green tips for the red and green season. The food-related advice is similar to that given on Thanksgiving–send guests […]

According to the BBC, this man dressed as a waiter has been visiting “iconic” Surrey sights with a silver tray of food meant to represent how much the average Surrey household wastes in a week. That would be 57 pounds.
It’s a worthy way to bring attention to a topic that, outside of this site, doesn’t get tons of attention. […]

Many Americans grew up with the ‘clean your plate, there are starving children in Africa’ admonishment.  Apparently, some African immigrants use a similar expression today. Good to know!
I think this post by “Ms. KB,” a Liberian woman now living in Pennsylvania, has an interesting and unusual perspective on food waste. Plus, she spins a good yarn.
Wasting […]

Happy Hanukkah! (or Chanukah, if you prefer)
In the spirit of “The Festival of Light,” I thought I’d illuminate the Orthodox Jewish practice of Shmita/Shemittah. This biblical law holds that the land of Israel must lay fallow every seventh year. No planting or pruning of crops–it’s like a sabbath for the land.
Practical Talmudic scholars, though, have found dogmatically-acceptable ways […]

Happy Turkey Day! After re-reading my Culinate article, I thought, ’Man, I sound like a curmudgeon.’ Then a friend jokingly asked if I’d be fasting on Thanksgiving.
So, I’ll be clear: I love Thanksgiving. I enjoy both eating great food and spending time with my family. Please pass the stuffing, Grandma.
I just hope that on Thanksgiving, with its food focus, we all […]

Canadian writers Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon went a year eating only food produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver apartment. Hence the 100 Mile Diet, an idea and a book (although the U.S. version, oddly, has a different title–Plenty).  
The two locavores are on a book tour, and MacKinnon posted a blog entry from the road providing […]

I’m not much for cooking shows. I can’t stomach all those wasted ingredients as they switch from the mixing bowl to the version finishing in the oven. Plus, they make me hungry.
But I wanted to give credit where it’s due to an obscure host named Rachael Ray. You may have seen her on your box of Wheat Thins or […]

Wow, cookbooks sure have changed!
This 1916 beauty is actually a freebie distributed by Fred Scott Coal. Can you imagine anything like it today? And it’s not like Scott had any vested interest in people not wasting.
More to the point, World War I was raging and while the U.S. hadn’t yet entered, Americans were encouraged to […]

Most Mondays, I offer advice on how to avoid waste. Today, listening to this NPR piece on the Japanese idea of Mottainai will be more helpful than any of my specific recommendations.
Mottainai means, roughly, ‘don’t waste.’ The concept is part of Japan’s cultural DNA, but it had recently been losing out to consumerism (sound familiar, my fellow […]