According to a study by the University of Arizona between forty and fifty percent of all of the food in America goes to waste. We look into our overstuffed refrigerators and, finding that it lacks the steaming plate of food that we desire at that moment, go to a restaurant or fire up the microwave. The research was conducted under a grant by the USDA by anthropologist Timothy Jones. He measured loss accrued by growers, transportation, wholesalers, retailers and finally consumers to discover that we throw away nearly half of all of the food that we grow and buy.
Food waste is part of the reason Kristin and I decided to try the one-hundred mile diet. We wanted to limit our exposure to the hidden costs of food waste. It is simple for every family to make an impact on the amount of waste. One of the biggest lessons is to know how to cook with what you got. Learn the fundamentals of food preparation. Like baking bread, using unprocessed foods as ingredients, and growing your own ingredients. Sometimes it takes creativity to figure out what to make out of what is available.
Today Kristin looked into the fridge and complained, "we don't have anything to eat." She closed the fridge and walked somberly back upstairs in defeat. I got up and took stock of what was available. We had not planned very well for company the night before and while we all enjoyed a wonderful meal then, today our pickings were slim.
I opened the fridge to discover eggs, a bag of spinach, part of an onion and milk. We also had organic flour from Daisy Organic. I paused a moment to think of what meals contained those ingredients. Quiche and soufflé came to mind.
We have stacks of cookbooks and yet I continue to scavenge the internet for recipes. I found one that did not appear to fancy and went to work. One hour and a half later a delicious smell filled the kitchen as I removed the souffle. Kristin seemed more optimistic about dinner at this point. I reheated some gravy from the previous night and Kristin started some toast. We both agreed that the meal was delicious.
It is important to invest in cooking skills if we are going to prevent food waste. Food requires preparation. It is boring, impractical and expensive to expect someone else to cook for you. Examine the labels on the food you are about to buy. If you see an ingredient that you can not buy on its own than do not buy that product. Examples include, sodium nitrate, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, potassium sorbate, oligofructose. As I type these words the computer assumes they are spelling errors. What are they and how did they get into our food?
To further explore that topic look up Michael Pollan, journalist, author and food activist. He has a lot of easy to understand information about how food gets from the plant to our table. For more information on food waste look up Tristram Stuart author of Waste. His information is literally shocking but easy to grasp. For many of you it may not be necessary to tread through the mirky waters of food industry and economics.
It is easy to effect change without bearing the burden of all that info. The steps to eradicating food waste are as follows; buy local food from a farmer, cook it yourself and enjoy. You will become part of the food-waste solution. You will also get to experience wonderful things like Spinach Souffle.
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