I went to a meeting of the Food Diversion Task Force yesterday and left thinking about food banks. A representative from the local food bank told the group how donations are down significantly.
As food prices rise and manufacturers consolidate, there is more emphasis placed on reducing “shrink,” or product that they can’t market. While food […]

Food prices are on the rise domestically (especially for pizza) and even more so in the developing world. While that may prompt home budget adjusting for some, it causes others to go hungry and/or take to the streets.
This weekend in Haiti, unrest caused by inflation brought violence and death. The Prime Minister (but not the President) […]

A reader recently sent me this article about Haitians so poor they’ve resorted to making cookies from mud, salt and vegetable shortening and I’ve been wrestling with whether to pass it along.
While I don’t want to be manipulative and say, ‘See, these kids eat mud cookies, you shouldn’t waste food,’ I sort of do. Now, […]

As we’ve heard lately, times are tough for food banks. Diminished government funding and private donations have left most food banks struggling to meet client demand.
In New York, City Harvest has responded with a Million Pound Pledge to add that much food to its regular collection. Essentially, they’ve asked donors to step up, as described in this radio […]

‘I waste food, so what?’
That’s one reaction I get when I tell people that I’m researching food waste. Countering that argument from a logical perspective can be difficult, as I have a gut reaction against squandering (as do many people).
On that logical path, limiting food waste matters because farming and freight uses oil, water, time and money, pollutes the air […]

Wasted food wouldn’t be as significant of a problem if there weren’t people without enough to eat. But there are and probably always will be. Throughout human history, hunger has persisted. Even today, when the U.S. has the means to marginalize it–imagine if we spent as much on ending hunger as we did on our defense budget–we don’t.
In […]

It’d be silly to blog on food waste without talking about helping the hungry. To wit: Stamp Out Hunger. Thanks to this neat idea now in its 15th year you don’t even have to leave your house to help those less fortunate. Just leave non-perishable food items in a bag beside your mailbox this Saturday and your letter […]