Boy, we're pretty bent out of shape about our food. Before we can legitimately ask ourselves 'how can we waste less food', we first need to ask 'What is food for?'
The simple answer is that food provides us with the energy and nutrition we need to survive; but of course, if you take a look around it's pretty obvious we dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy to eating that extends well beyond basic sustenance. We have all sorts of complicated but erroneous aesthetic and cultural reasons for eating, which, in a first world country extends several levels of abstraction beyond merely serving basic needs.
I mean, if optimizing only for sustenance was the goal, we'd all be munching hamster pellets or choking down some Soylent like hydrated paste. We certainly wouldn't be interested paying premiums to have exotic, perishable fruits (which are mostly water) shipped in from other continents only to throw half that in the garbage.
Food waste is a huge problem in Africa (no joke). Seasonal food such as banana is not harvested fast enough:
> [There’s] $4 billion (USD) equivalent of food losses in a year in the continent and if you can conceptualize what four billion can do to alleviate poverty in our various countries, then you can understand the waste and the economic deprivation that food loss is causing the continent,
Paying more for scraps than for fresh food? Absolutely ridiculous. Leave it to SF hipsters to be into this kind of thing, especially while talking about how "green" and "eco-friendly" they are.
What I do in addition to freezing food that I can't finish is preserving them in mason jars, either by jamming them with sugars, or curing them with salt. You end up with completely different food products with different flavor profiles.
My 4yo son and I enjoy the book Two Little Gardeners* about a brother and sister who prepare ground, grow food, eat some and store the rest. They preserve/pickle a variety of things in jars, store pumpkins and potatoes, hang onions and garlic, and keep their carrots in a tub of slightly dampened sand (a technique I hadn't heard of previously). It's a great little book if you have children, they're interested in gardening as mine are, and you want to introduce them to the stages involved in the whole process.
There's a CSA I just signed up called Imperfect Produce. They deliver boxes of produce that doesn't meet the aesthetic requirements for grocery stores. Sounds like a more economical version of this.
I have gotten flyers for Imperfect Produce in my mail, but their advertised 40-50% savings off of supermarket prices seem completely false. I like the concept, but I can buy "aesthetically pleasing" fruits and vegetables for cheaper at the store.
This is anecdotal but I was just in France recently and the portion sizes were comparable to most urban areas in the US that I have eaten at (obviously it is not comparable to the rural areas engorging Golden Corral).
The big difference is Europe seems to eat a lot less meat. The meat portions were much smaller but replaced with carbs and alcohol.
As an American I felt embarrassed that I could not finish half the Michelin star meals because they were so rich (albeit incredibly good).
IMO when it comes to food waste meat is the real culprit.
One problem is that restaurants have no incentive to serve modestly sized, affordable meals. No one raves about a restaurant because it served "just enough to fill me up". No restaurant would ever advertise "reasonably sized plates".
Restaurants with small servings are focusing on quality and charging accordingly, or pushing 5+ courses.
Even if a restaurant charged two-thirds the price for appropriately sized meals, they still have the same transactional costs (staffing, equipment, production, etc).
I always thought it would be great to start a restaurant chain where you had smaller portions for a slightly smaller price, and if you wanted seconds of something, it'd be a reasonable add on fee. $2-3 maybe.
I'd probably call it "Seconds" too, and this is why I'm not in the restaurant business probably. :)
In many countries they have smaller servings - but it's typical to eat 2-3 servings. In the US we often have larger servings (equivalent to 2-3 servings) but only eat the one.
Having traveled quite a bit, the largest discrepancy in serving sizes I've noticed is that the US really likes drinks. Especially sodas and especially 60oz sodas. Everywhere I go gives me a "kids sized" cup of water to down with my meal...
Gotta love the morons who think it is possible to avoid wasting food completely. Reliability is only achieved through redundancy. If we only ever had just enough of everything, we would always be on the brink of a famine if something went wrong.
Reminds me of the local cafeteria at my uni that reduced food waste, so when I went there at 1PM to avoid the crowds (they served until 1:30PM) there was just no food left. Good job, so helpful.
There are two sides to this though. There should be a sane middle ground. At a college, maybe the thing to do is have a fire sale on (or give away) things that are about to expire.
I remember that my college food service had a policy that food that was considered waste had to be thrown in the dumpster, and not doing so was grounds for being fired. A friend had to throw out around 20 pounds of fresh fruit every Friday because the venue that they were at wasn't open over the weekend.
And after all, "Winter is coming." I'm kidding, but really, it would also mean that a country without such a precarious balance could conquer you without military force.
I would prefer not to be at the mercy of some crop dusters with paraquat.
[+] [-] Fricken|9 years ago|reply
The simple answer is that food provides us with the energy and nutrition we need to survive; but of course, if you take a look around it's pretty obvious we dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy to eating that extends well beyond basic sustenance. We have all sorts of complicated but erroneous aesthetic and cultural reasons for eating, which, in a first world country extends several levels of abstraction beyond merely serving basic needs.
I mean, if optimizing only for sustenance was the goal, we'd all be munching hamster pellets or choking down some Soylent like hydrated paste. We certainly wouldn't be interested paying premiums to have exotic, perishable fruits (which are mostly water) shipped in from other continents only to throw half that in the garbage.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jkot|9 years ago|reply
> [There’s] $4 billion (USD) equivalent of food losses in a year in the continent and if you can conceptualize what four billion can do to alleviate poverty in our various countries, then you can understand the waste and the economic deprivation that food loss is causing the continent,
https://fsrn.org/2016/05/african-farmers-seek-creative-solut...
[+] [-] TylerE|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scaddison|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brian-armstrong|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigethan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkstar999|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eastbayjake|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ihaveahadron|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jasonjei|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|9 years ago|reply
* https://www.amazon.com/Two-Little-Gardeners-Golden-Book/dp/0...
[+] [-] jtokoph|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdergosits|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2xlbuds|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] city41|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eloisant|9 years ago|reply
Really, the size of servings in US is ridiculous, who is supposed to finish that?
[+] [-] agentgt|9 years ago|reply
The big difference is Europe seems to eat a lot less meat. The meat portions were much smaller but replaced with carbs and alcohol.
As an American I felt embarrassed that I could not finish half the Michelin star meals because they were so rich (albeit incredibly good).
IMO when it comes to food waste meat is the real culprit.
[+] [-] lifeformed|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|9 years ago|reply
Restaurants with small servings are focusing on quality and charging accordingly, or pushing 5+ courses.
Even if a restaurant charged two-thirds the price for appropriately sized meals, they still have the same transactional costs (staffing, equipment, production, etc).
[+] [-] jrnichols|9 years ago|reply
I'd probably call it "Seconds" too, and this is why I'm not in the restaurant business probably. :)
[+] [-] Nadya|9 years ago|reply
In many countries they have smaller servings - but it's typical to eat 2-3 servings. In the US we often have larger servings (equivalent to 2-3 servings) but only eat the one.
Having traveled quite a bit, the largest discrepancy in serving sizes I've noticed is that the US really likes drinks. Especially sodas and especially 60oz sodas. Everywhere I go gives me a "kids sized" cup of water to down with my meal...
[+] [-] ksenzee|9 years ago|reply
Nope. Nope nope nope.
[+] [-] Chos89|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ihaveahadron|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
Reminds me of the local cafeteria at my uni that reduced food waste, so when I went there at 1PM to avoid the crowds (they served until 1:30PM) there was just no food left. Good job, so helpful.
[+] [-] jeffasinger|9 years ago|reply
I remember that my college food service had a policy that food that was considered waste had to be thrown in the dumpster, and not doing so was grounds for being fired. A friend had to throw out around 20 pounds of fresh fruit every Friday because the venue that they were at wasn't open over the weekend.
[+] [-] Aelinsaar|9 years ago|reply
I would prefer not to be at the mercy of some crop dusters with paraquat.