A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across this movie. Just watching the trailer gave me goosebumps and disgusted me. It isn't the food that is disgusting - it is the food industry and the way that society has been brainwashed to think about food. Several days later when I picked up my husband from school, he walked out of the building with two big catering food containers. There had been a catered pasta and salad lunch at one of his business school events that day. It wasn't anything great, just white pasta with sauce and out of season salad, definitely not organic anything, but it was food in perfectly good condition. My husband just happened to be standing by the food table when he saw somebody start to throw it away. It had only been sitting there for about 30 minutes and had been fine for everybody to consume then, but now it was just trash. So my husband shrugged off the strange looks and brought it home to feed his family. The pasta filled three 9 x 13 baking pans - three of them! I put two in the freezer as we worked our way through the first one. We only ate the salad at one meal and then gave the rest to the chickens, since iceberg lettuce isn't really even worth eating.
There were three types of sauce - alfredo, vodka, and marinara. The first night we ate the alfredo, which I doctored up with some olive oil, parmesan, and oregano. One night I added homemade ricotta cheese to the red sauce pasta, another night I threw in chunks of whole milk mozzarella with basil. If we had served it to someone, they would never have thought that it was unwanted leftovers. And what is wrong with "leftovers" anyway? If it was good enough to eat the first time, then it should be good enough to eat a second time. When we eat in restaurants, I am amazed and dismayed at the amount of food that people do not eat and which I know will end up in the trash. I really don't understand that - you just paid for it. Why not just drop a couple of dollar bills on the ground while you're at it?
I know I'm ranting on my soapbox now, so I'll step down. It wasn't the single individual's fault who wanted to throw it away. In a perfect world, the university would have a composting program in place that is easily accessible (because no one wants to be inconvenienced while doing the right thing.)
This Is Rubbish is a group based in the UK that aims to communicate about preventable food waste.
Food Waste News has a ton of current interesting information about food waste.
And if you have a chance to watch the Food Wast Movie, definitely check it out.
Shared On The Home Front for the HomeAcre Hop.
