Feeding the hungry with thrown-out food
Turns out I didn't need to source a British writer( in yesterday's post), on the subject of outrageous food waste. We have a home-grown expert, Jonathan Bloom, who's tracking the subject for an upcoming book. By his estimate, Americans waste 40% of our food. That's over $100 billion a year, folks!
In a recent post, he writes about a Binghamton, NY food recovery (sounds a lot better than dumpster diving, doesn't it?) group called CHOW. The group has rebuilt a dumpster, making it into a food stand that's using wasted food to provide free meals for the homeless - complete with doggie bags.
At the end of his post, he asks his readers if this is a good idea, or insulting. (I'm not quite sure if he means the whole project, or just the use of the dumpster - which is painted a bright green and looks quite chic).
But either way, it seems to me, if we could learn to take waste seriously as the evil that it is, the question of whether it is insulting to serve thrown-out food to anyone would simply disappear. As would any notion that it's offensive to repurpose a dumpster.
What really is insulting is throwing it all out in the first place.
In a recent post, he writes about a Binghamton, NY food recovery (sounds a lot better than dumpster diving, doesn't it?) group called CHOW. The group has rebuilt a dumpster, making it into a food stand that's using wasted food to provide free meals for the homeless - complete with doggie bags.
At the end of his post, he asks his readers if this is a good idea, or insulting. (I'm not quite sure if he means the whole project, or just the use of the dumpster - which is painted a bright green and looks quite chic).
But either way, it seems to me, if we could learn to take waste seriously as the evil that it is, the question of whether it is insulting to serve thrown-out food to anyone would simply disappear. As would any notion that it's offensive to repurpose a dumpster.
What really is insulting is throwing it all out in the first place.
Labels: CHOW, food waste, Jonathan Bloom
posted by AM at
2:50 PM
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