Reusing our food (Choice 2)

28% out of the 46% of Organic waste is food!

There are two paths that as a world we can choose to follow when it comes to feeding our looming estimated population of 9 billion. Choice 1: Finding alternate food sources, like the ones I mentioned in my previous post. Or choice 2: Finding ways to reuse leftover unexpired food. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, food waste makes up about 28% of our landfills. 28%! That's more than 1 out of 4 pieces of pie! 

I already talked about different alternate food sources so now we will discuss choice 2. The other day I found this excellent advertisement from an organization called Food Recovery Network. Here is an except from their website:

"Food Recovery Network unites students on college campuses to fight waste and feed people by donating the surplus unsold food from their colleges and donating it to hungry Americans. Founded in 2011, FRN has grown to include chapters at more than 90 colleges and universities in 25 states, DC and Puerto Rico that have recovered over 340,000 pounds of food. Each chapter works with on-campus dining halls and other, off-campus eateries to divert food from the landfill to community members in need, while also raising awareness on issues of food waste and hunger in America. By May 2015, Food Recovery Network aims to be on 150 campuses and to have donated 610,000 pounds of food."

Who, do you ask, benefits from these donations? Exactly the people who deserve to: the homeless, people who cannot afford to buy food, and many more. 

This is a very smart way to approach our potential famine problem and we should all support this organization and other ones like it.

More,
Gourmanda

The Future of Food

Hi all!

I came across two intriguing stories this week. One was an article and one was a video. They both talked about the future of our food culture and how we, the world, are going to support our exponentially enlarging population with a limited food supply. Both stories offered inspired approaches to this serious problem. 

The article I read appeared in The New Yorker and was entitled "The End of Food." It made the novel suggestion of blending all the most basic components of our diet to make a liquified version of an ideal meal. It's called Soylent and it might be change the way we think about "food" forever. The shake is chock full of protein and other nutrients (find the full list of ingredients here) and to taste testers, has a distinct doughy flavor.

It seems obvious and simple to turn to the purest forms of essential nutrients that our bodies need. In Wall-E the 2008 Disney Pixar movie that depicted the earth's environmental demise also showed the obese people of the starship living off of "Lunch in a cup!" The alternate food source the people consumed sounds very much like Soylent. 

Bitty Logo

I've recently become addicted to TED Talks. And when I came across this talk, I was completely enraptured by the speaker's concept. This other solution to our future famine is one that could be a bit controversial with Entomophobiacs/Insectophobes. It is the brainchild of Megan Miller, a former employee of the USDA and founder of Bitty. Bitty is a company that sells baked goods, but here's the twist: all of their foods are made with cricket flour. What is cricket flour? It is essentially dead crickets that have been ground up into a flour that has been described as "nutty" and "wholesome." The genius behind this idea is it's incredible sustainability. Crickets are in abundance and incredibly cheap to farm. Also, cricket flour is very healthy and nutrient-rich as well and would be a much cheaper alternate to buying big brand refined white flour. 

So how do these alternate food sources help? I think the end goal of both companies is to take a large slice, if not the whole pie, away from the pizza of world hunger by sending their products to impoverished nations. Soylent could be used as a filling form of nourishment and become a staple in poorer county's food support system, while cricket flour can be substituted for other flours in foods such as bread, muffins, or even cookies!

So which would you prefer to be the future of our food? Both? Neither? I'd definitely like to try both!

More,

Amanda