Tag Archives: food waste

Dumpster Diving for Dinner: A Mission to Save $165 Billion Worth of Edible Food

DUMPSTER-DIVING

Why would the owner of a marketing company be dumpster diving for food? You could find Rob Greenfield behind your local grocery with his bike propped against the dumpster while he looks for food. He has now completed two rides across America eating primarily from dumpsters. This isn’t a case of extreme cheapskates; Rob’s goal with these rides is to draw attention to how much food is wasted in America.

On his website, he lists these statistics:

  • We throw away 165 billion dollars worth of food per year in America. That’s more than the budgets for America’s national parks, public libraries, federal prisons, veteran’s health care, the FBI, and the FDA combined.
  • About 50 million of our 317 million Americans are food insecure yet we produce enough food to feed over 500 million Americans.
  • Just to create just the amount of food that ends up in the landfills we waste enough water to meet the domestic water needs of every American citizen.

With as many as one in every seven American households being reported as food insecure and one in four children living in food insecure homes, the fact that we waste so much food on a daily basis is concerning. Charity Sub reports that 96 billion pounds of food are thrown away each year by restaurants, retailers, farmers, and individual households. In each major city that he visited on his ride, Greenfield created a demonstration with food collected from local dumpsters. He states that in a single night, he can collect from dumpsters enough food to feed hundreds of people in any given city. (more…)

Posted on November 3, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

The Daily Table Wants to Sell You Old and Ugly Food

Would you buy expired or ugly food? That’s the question being posed by the former president of Trader Joe’s, Doug Rauch.

imperfect vegetables

The food in his new store wouldn’t actually be expired, but instead would be food that is past its “sell-by” date, making it unusable for sale in traditional grocery stores.

His store, The Daily Table, is set to open in Dorchester, Massachusetts in May and will be part grocery store and part cafe. It will specialize in making healthy, inexpensive food available to those who might not otherwise have access.

“When I run down to meetings in the city in Boston,” Rauch told Salon. “I’d say most families know that their kids need to eat better. Most families know that they’re not giving their kids the nutrition they need. But they just can’t afford it, they don’t have an option.”

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Posted on February 10, 2024 by Elizabeth

Food Waste Equals Money Gone and Weight Gained

You either have it or you don’t: that animal instinct that causes your insides to die little when you waste a bite of food.

I have it. Blame it on my family. Growing up in a home that heartily encouraged a happy plate, I’ve been programmed to take only what I can eat and finish it all – licking my plate when necessary.

Clearly, it hasn’t worn off. Today as an adult, I still can’t stand to throw away food. It’s so wasteful. I will likely forever view it as money gone in the trash. But you know what? That’s not such a bad thing because it makes me more conscious of the money I spend on food and how I can avoid waste.

Another reason not to waste food? It can be healthier for your waistline. Here’s how.

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Posted on June 11, 2024 by Dana