Food Truck!

I am impressed by the amount of food that ends up in the trash. I recall somewhere that as much as 40% of the food produced in the U.S. is thrown out. So I looked it up:

In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This estimate, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. This amount of waste has far-reaching impacts on food security, resource conservation and climate change:

• Wholesome food that could have helped feed families in need is sent to landfills. 
• The land, water, labor, energy and other inputs used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of discarded food are pulled away from uses that may have been more beneficial to society – and generate impacts on the environment that may endanger the long-run health of the planet.
• Food waste, which is the single largest component going into municipal landfills, quickly generates methane, helping to make landfills the third largest source of methane in the United States. 

This is according to the USDA, which has also set a goal for food loss and waste reduction:

On September 16, 2015, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator Stan Meiburg announced the United States’ first-ever national food loss and waste goal, calling for a 50-percent reduction by 2030. USDA and EPA will work in partnership with charitable organizations, faith organizations, the private sector, and local, state and tribal governments to reduce food loss and waste in order to improve overall food security and conserve our nation’s natural resources.

What I do not see specifically mentioned in this strategy is the impact garbage haulers could have on the problem. As the last point of contact with much food waste, we can make a difference. And we do. Consider:

Unopened and rescued. Charlie was grateful for a reprieve from sugarless peanut butter. And this:

Unopened, but perhaps a bit dicey. We decided not to eat it. Probably enough sodium to kill any bacteria. Holiday Gas Stations really know how to make a sandwich! And this (Eat local, Eat Spam!):

Speaking of canned meat, how about canned squid?

Canned "meat" always a good bet. Charlie would have none of it, but...

 Waste not, want not.

Let's just wash those canned squid down with these discarded micro-brewskis! Mmm. Didn't forget to wash the tops before opening.

The best kept secret among trash-foodies is the abundance of raspberry bushes in the alleys of St. Paul. We harvest the neglected bushes and make ourselves sick. I will also say that one or two potentially award winning apple trees are in the alleys, picked only by us.

So yes, we haulers are recovering food heading for waste.Yet our current approach is sporadic and unorganized. To make a lasting change in our country, we need to come together. That is why International Haulers United to Reduce Loss of Food, or IHURLFood, is being launched, to rescue food otherwise headed for the landfill.

You are skeptical.
"Sure," you say, "but how much of what is thrown away is safe to eat?" Fair point. A very small percentage of what we find is in unopened containers with a shelf-life of forever. And yes, in the warmer weather there are maggots involved.

There is, thankfully, a well established and culturally accepted solution. In meat processing, it is called Advanced Meat Recovery, or more commonly known as mechanically separated chicken, beef or pork. This is what is also known as "scrapings off the meat plant floor" by people who shop at Whole Foods. Those of us who shop at Coopers call it hot dogs. The "scrapings--floor" myth is an exaggeration.

What they do is this: A machine scrapes (not the floor, but) the bones. Just like my dog, Toivo would do--so I guess it's natural. Then those natural scrapings are rinsed with ammonia to kill bad germs, just like we do to our bathrooms. So it's safe. Then it looks like this:




Then of course it is dyed to get rid of the ishy pink color that would make people think of what is in it.

With this technology and experience in place, there is no reason why even the most disgusting food from a garbage truck

cannot be reclaimed and made into a Happy Meal... for the good of us all.

And thank you for your support for IHURLFood.

Refused

Words are telling...

Take "trash," for example. All language is built on images and metaphors, and "trash" is probably from Old Norse: tros--fallen leaves or twigs. At the dump there is a separate place to dump fallen leaves and twigs--apart from the "trash." They call it "yard waste." The old Norskies called a fenced enclosure a "gardr", which I guess yielded both "garden" and "yard" in English. One time I was hauling "yard waste" and somebody set out a bin entirely full of black dirt. It was so heavy, the hydraulic lift on the truck could not lift it off the ground. I had to call a buddy to help lift it. This is not "yard waste," this is "yard." But I guess it needed to go. "Insane," but more on that word later.

I do not understand some people and their "yards." Or their "waste"...

"Waste" evolved from words for "desert," or desolate places. But not until the 19th century was there a "waste basket."

What does this:

Have to do with:

But I digress.


In English, "trash" referred to people before it became household refuse. Shakespeare used the word in 1604 regarding persons of ill-breeding. These would certainly have been white people, being that it was 17th century England. Thus all "white trash" should own the term as given them by the most sublime of poets in the English language. Not until the 20th century did we "take out the trash."

Now "sanitation" comes from the Latin for "health" and "sanity." Sanitation workers are therefore, by definition, sane.

"Garbage" is from Old English (and apparently Old French-ish) for the discarded bits of animals headed for the dinner plate. Which reminds me of one of my first posts about picking up a deer carcass. Now that was "garbage!"

"Refuse," though, is a most telling word: What has been refused, rejected. Our "waste" practices betray an illusion of unlimited resources. That we can make stuff and throw it away, ad infinitum. The deeper meaning of "refuse" could be the refusal to see that this is not working. We are not looking 7 generations ahead, much 70 times 7. And maybe this is the connection our language betrays... the desolation of waste-full-ness. From T.S. Eliot's poem The Wasteland:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 

Have a nice day!