Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Food waste in your home
Food waste--how much food do you throw out of your refrigerator each week? NYT covers an interesting book by Jonathan Bloom American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food." In addition to crops left in the field, spoilage during shipping and supermarket waste, one study found that up to 40% of food waste happens in the home. It appears we are less ambitious when it comes to cooking the food that we enthusiastically purchase. Increasingly people are concerned about food safety and are unwilling to eat less than pristine food. Food in the landfill creates methane, and that green stuff you are throwing away is actually money. Not to be a total scrouge, but we all might want to reevaluate just how festive the groaning holiday spread is.
Because of our picky food coop shoppers, our produce is frequently culled. We have at least one or two large soup kitchen pickups six days a week. And we compost tons and tons of spoiled produce each year in the local community gardens. No dumpster diving here!