Food waste awareness is gaining steam thanks to this CNN article that ran yesterday. Plus, they want your opinion on the topic.
I’m not sure why the article is classified as a ‘World’ story instead of a ‘U.S.’ one, but it’s encouraging nonetheless.

Greetings from sunny California!
I’ve seen so much food recovery in the last 48 hours that I’m under the impression there’s no food waste in the Golden State. I know I sure didn’t waste anything I ordered at In-N-Out Burger.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of volunteering with Senior Gleaners, Inc., of Sacramento. I went out with […]

As a (relatively) young man, I’m following that storied piece of advice by going West. I’ll be in California for the rest of the week doing wasted food research.
There, I’ll meet the Davis scientist who developed the anaerobic digester that produces electricity from food waste. I’ll also get to see that digester up close. In addition, I’ll tour Salinas Valley […]

I’ll be on vacation this week and won’t be posting. The beach rental where I’ll be staying doesn’t have Web access–a blessing and a curse–so I suppose I’ll have get some sun.
Just know that I’ll be doing my best to finish off others’ hamburgers and hot dogs. Anything in the name of avoiding food waste.  
Before I go, I was […]

With graduation in the air (colleges, at least), I thought I’d share this school-related story.
I recently corresponded with a ninth grader named Kristin on the topic of food waste. She was writing a social studies paper on hunger and waste, and she contacted me after finding this site. This was the second time a high schooler had written me on the […]

All you would-be Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bressons and Peter Parkers, this post’s for you. To include more interaction on the site, I’m asking you to send in photos of food waste. They could be from your personal experiences or things you’ve seen out there in the world.
Please e-mail pics of whatever you think falls under the food […]

We recently discussed storage times for Meals Ready to Eat in the aftermath of FEMA throwing away $43 million of food improperly stored.
On a related note, I just visited the Natick (Mass.) Army labs, where they develop MREs and all of the U.S. Armed Forces’ food. There, I met separately with Dr. Herbert Meiselman and Gerald Darsch, director of the Combat […]

In a shocking bit of front-page food waste news, Washington Post reported today that FEMA wasted $43 million of prepared food last summer because it ran out of warehouse space. Truckloads of MRE-like meals–6 million of them–spoiled as they sat outside in the Alabama heat. 
This situation makes an easy meal for politicians playing the public watchdog role. Enter […]

This past week marked the beginning of a new venture: the first meeting of the tentatively-named North Carolina Food Waste Task Force. The group stemmed from a food waste seminar organized by some folks at the N.C. Dept of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance and the Carolina Composting Council.
We met last Tuesday at the Inter-Faith Food […]

Before this blog delves too far into specifics, we should talk about general guidelines on what to do with existing food waste. The EPA has set a nice standard with its Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy. As seen in the snazzy pyramid graphic below, here’s how they propose handling excess food (in order of preference):
Source Reduction – Reduce the […]