Creative ways of cutting down on food waste
Shuggie’s chef tells NPR: Making a Way to Fight Food Waste: Making food out of ‘trash’
3 cups great northern beans, soaked, cooked in a flavorful vegetable stock. If you want to make your own sub, chopped garlic, chopped tomatoes, chopped Spanish anchovies, chopped herb stems and tired greens are all possible.
There are a number of ways to use leftover food. NPR asked Shuggie’s chef Murphy to give some ideas to help you start. Three of his simple recipes make use of leftover items.
Many more restaurants will have to do this work as well as a cultural change among customers to make a difference in the food waste problem. That’s true both for eating out and eating at home. And if that shift happens, it could mean less food waste in landfills and less planet-warming pollution, which makes reducing food waste a huge climate solution.
“To look at the ugly food or the imperfect food, that it doesn’t have to be the best of everything, is a relatively new way for people to look at their food,” said Jordan Bow, the founder of the distributor Royal Hawaiian Seafood, and Shuggie’s main seafood source for oft-discarded fish parts like halibut cheeks and various types of bycatch. The chefs are supposed to be creative and not just do what everybody else does.
Like a few other sustainability-focused restaurants and chains in the U.S. (e.g. Emmer & Rye Hospitality Group in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, and Lighthouse in Brooklyn, New York) Shuggie’s sources food that local producers cannot sell because there’s a surplus, it looks irregular, or it’s past its prime.
Source: One restaurant has a way to fight food waste: Making food out of ‘trash’
Food Independence Gardens: A Food Driven Walk Through a Crowded, High-Energy, Multi-Purpose Neighborhood
The restaurant industry is responsible for 10 million tons of leftover food, according to data from ReFED, and research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that people spend more on eating out in this country than at home.
Carbon dioxide causes global warming because it traps more heat than methane. An estimated 60% of methane emissions are human-caused and come largely from agriculture, fossil fuels and food waste decomposing in landfills.
But if everyone ate fare that might otherwise be thrown out — say, weird animal parts or milk that’s close to its sell-by date — we’d significantly reduce the impacts of human-caused climate change.
Climate change is affecting our food, as well as the climate. NPR is dedicating a week to stories and conversations about the search for solutions.
There are dozens of sites across the city called Food Independence Gardens, or FIGs. To date, the organization has given away tons of food to people and families throughout Pierce County.
David Thompson is a farmer in the city of Tacoma, Washington who is trying to improve his area’s food accessibility by connecting people to fresh food.
Communities Reuse Food Waste: A Community-Wide Approach in a Case Study of a North Hollywood, New Hampshire, Fermilab Farm
“There are people who do this every single day for their livelihood,” said Paula Moran of the United Way of Greater Nashua. If you volunteer one day per year, you get to appreciate how hard people work.
Volunteers gathered at a New Hampshire-Massachusetts border fruit farm to get fresh fruit after a wet and unpredictable growing season. Picking leftover food to share with people in need is part of the process.
Where that compost ends up can also have a powerful impact. Food waste from homes in the city is being used for almond orchards outside the city.
Thanks to California’s law, staff at the school could have used the city’s green bin for food waste.
The K-8 students at The Wesley School in North Hollywood adorned a series of 5-foot containers with a giant banner that reads: “5,220 lbs of food waste saved from landfills.”
There are several solutions to the latter. Lots of changes can start at home, but sometimes the scales of the problem benefit from community-wide approaches.
Source: Creative ways communities are reducing food waste
Oyster Reefs in the Gulf of Alabama: Where do they come from? How oysters have grown and what they can do
Oyster reefs on Alabama’s coast, like many others in the Gulf South, have taken a beating from climate change. More oysters grow in their place when the shells are returned to the water. They help with the quality of water, give a home to crabs, fish, and other animals, and protect the shoreline.
A restaurant in the US is making a way to fight food waste by using leftover food, reports said. The restaurant, Shuggie’s, uses fish parts like halibut cheeks and various forms of bycatch. “To look at the ugly food or the imperfect food, that it doesn’t have to be the best of everything, is a…new way for people to look at their food,” its chef said.