Food Waste Challenge

Hello, you few and faithful followers. In my last few blog posts, I had addresses how I would begin to challenge myself to generate no food waste for the duration of my Summer semester. During the entire stint, I would record what I ate, how long it took, what went to waste (if anything) as well as notes on said waste. One issue I ran into rather quickly was "what can be considered "food waste?" After eating a banana, could the peel be considered "waste"? Or what about the packaging? Residual sauce left on the sides of bowls and pans?

I found it beneficial to seek out further clarification from other measures of food waste. Feeding America had reported that, as it pertains to food waste, 25 to 40% of food grown, processed, and transported in the United States will never be consumed. It is this same food, that when disposed of in a landfill to rot, produces large amounts of the methane gas that we find ravaging the atmosphere. This means a total of about 70 billion pounds of food, perfectly good, edible food in America goes not to our plates, but rather, to the dumps. 

Now, there are all sorts of consequences involved with this. For one, as I'd briefly mentioned, there is a detrimental impact on our clean air, and atmosphere, having a long-reaching effect on human health. Additionally, as it pertains to household food in the US, it is estimated that "27% of all the food produced each year is lost at the retail, consumer, and food service level. This equates to nearly 1.5 tons of food per year for every man, woman, and child in the US who faces hunger." And this is merely among the estimated 40 million Americans who struggle daily to have enough to eat. And it is within this concern where much of the driving force behind the food challenge was taken up.

As a child I remember being told "finish your plate, there are starving children in Africa." And as I had begun to mature in thought a little, I remember thinking how my consumption of the food on my plate will not change who is and is not starving in Africa. What is left is waste, and it will surely go to the dump. And in many regards, I suppose I'm correct in thinking that.

And while I had been told of the hungry in Africa, I had not been told of the hungry in America. 40 million people, potentially going hungry on a daily basis. And while clearing what was on my plate might not do anything to benefit anyone, a later state in life allows for me a different sort of impact.

One of the things I had learned most significantly was that this idea of "clear your plate" as the adult, consumer, radically changes the way we do our shopping. Almost as though this were some sort of game, there are rules, restrictions, and parameters that change what "the best choice" or "the best use for X,Y, and Z" might be. As a result, I'd begun to invest much more heavily in non-perishables, so as to avoid any waste, and yet acknowledging that the nutritional gain from fresh produce is not easy to match. So produce became radically sparse, meat commonly frozen, and grains frequently used. To hope to achieve to meet the mark of zero food waste, I found myself having to become much more comfortable with the fact that perhaps I might go hungry myself at various points, so as to avoid allowing certain odds and ends to go to waste.

As a result of trying to find longer-lasting foods, I found that unsurprisingly my diet had changed. In the past 9 months, I had not purchased any potatoes, frozen vegetables, etc. And in many ways, I had no idea how to cook with potatoes, flour, etc. Luckily, with the help of the internet, I conquered. And overall, quite enjoyed the changes. 

But I am challenged by what remains unchanged. While in some sense I have gained perspective. I've gone hungry, I've had to re-think food, and in some ways, I would like to imagine that the decisions I made at the grocery store would be similar to the decisions of those impoverished browsing the grocery stores... But I also realize that I am an educated man, who lives in a decent dwelling, and has ready access to high-speed internet, and therefore, despite the fact that I quite literally live below the poverty line, I am quite advantaged over the other "poor". Furthermore, I can only hope that my single-effort at zero food waste could have really benefited any of the 40 million Americans who regularly go without, unless there is some well thought out system in place at Winco to make a good use of past sell-by-date foods, in which case I may have helped result in an extra few apples and other produce somewhere or another. In fact, the only true result I can say I have been able to visibly observe is that of the food donations we are a part of at Starbucks. But this goes little further than to evidence the fact that perhaps one man's decision to stay his hand when he sees an almond croissant, can indeed result in a direct link to an almond croissant ending up in the hands of one of the local poor.

I would be interested to see what systems can be, and are in place on the super-market level to help convert some of that 70 billion pounds of food waste into the nutritional/caloric gain of those who would otherwise go hungry. And while my impact may have had minimal direct impact in my community and among America's poorest, I would like to imagine that in small ways, perhaps an impact was made, if not on the community, then at the very least, my own life. And indeed, it remains possible still that the decisions I became forced to make at the grocery store, may have begun to have a sort of behind the scenes impact far larger than I could imagine.