Wasted Food

People often e-mail to ask how they can reduce their household food waste. One of the easiest ways is to save leftovers. Now, this only cuts waste if you actually eat those leftovers.
I love leftovers, especially as the next day’s lunch, but many folks don’t. For you non-leftover lovers, ensuring that they’re consumed means […]

There’s news from Britain today about hospital food and it isn’t good. Numerous hospitals in the England are throwing away as much as half of their meals.
As anyone who’s stayed in or visited a hospital would guess, gross unsatisfying food is responsible for much of this waste. Insert your own English cuisine joke here.
Nutritionists […]

Bless those Seattlites. From where I stand, they’re way ahead of the curve:
They recycle household food waste, or at least they will starting in 2009.
They provide great advice on food waste, quoting excellent experts (scroll to the end).
They recycle food at Mariners games.
They recycle food at hospitals.
About 30 miles down the road in Everett, […]

For your listening pleasure, check out this discussion of food waste on BBC/Radio 4’s The Food Programme.
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If college food waste is caused partly by students not liking the choices, will a student menu rating Web site help? Middlebury College will see.
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This Subaru plant in Indiana is a “zero-waste” facility. Among other green practices, […]

I recently received this comment from Brett, a student at Allegheny College, on his school’s dining practices:
the reasoning I get for the overpreparation is so they don’t run out of any item. The rationale is you are supposed to be able to come at the last minute of the meal (9:59 for breakfast, 1:29 for lunch, […]

I’ve often come across waste studies that estimate how much food isn’t eaten in a city or state. Since researchers aren’t sorting and weighing food waste at every home and restaurant, I often wonder how they come up with the estimates.
Now I have an answer. Page five of this 2002 Massachusetts food waste study lists […]

The Chicago Tribune tells us that an average-sized hotel purchases more products in a week than 100 families will in a year. That heavy purchasing, much of which is food, leads to great waste.
The California Integrated Waste Management Board says that the lodging industry in California generates 112,000 tons of food waste, 2 percent of the […]

The Federal government is finally dipping its sizable toe into the food waste waters. Last week, Missouri congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson introduced legislation that could become The Federal Food Donation Act of 2007 (HR 4220).
If it passes, the bill would “encourage” most federal agencies to donate “excess, apparently wholesome food” to the hungry via non-profit groups. Jeffrey Connor, an Emerson […]

In case you haven’t read it, check out this incredibly sensible Michael Pollan op-ed on the farm bill. He argues that the long-standing federal farm policy subsidizes fats and sugars, increasing obesity rates and making processed foods cheaper.
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An employee at Panera Bread blogged about sandwich shop food waste. OK, so maybe I requested she […]

Sticking with the college theme (I guess this has become college week) students at Loyola University Chicago have launched a food waste committee to investigate the issue after a student study found 1,100 pounds of plate waste–what diners take but don’t eat–per day at the school of 15,000.
According to this article, two thirds of Loyolans think campus food waste is […]