I found the following a while ago and thought it a very interesting talk that relates to food waste and eating better.
Posts Tagged ‘food waste’
Mark Bittman and cow farts
December 7th, 2009Donating time to the food bank is being green
November 27th, 2009On Monday, Ashley and I spent some time at the Fargodome helping to move cans for a local food drive event called Fill the Dome. This event is put on by all of the High School kids in the area and supported by the college students in Fargo, various businesses and members of the public. The basic goal of the program is to fill the entire floor of the Fargodome (80,000 sq ft) with donated food. The kids accomplished this for the 3rd year in a row!
Since this was put on by High School kids, you may wonder what we did to help. Well, after all 97.1 TONS of the 2009 Fill the Dome booty is splayed across the Fargodome floor, somebody needs to pack it up and help get it to the Food Bank over at Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota. That is where the kids needed help and made a call out to the community. So, instead of going to the gym that day, we decided to go pack and move boxes.
I was really impressed with these kids and all that they have done for our community. They raised 97.1 tons of food and $96,000 to help those who need it in this area. What a great thing these kids have accomplished this year and I hope the program continues.
Even though the kids had a challenge, I also have a challenge to meet this week. My goal is to give back in an environmental manner. I think helping out with Fill the Dome helps accomplish this. Not only does it help with a local charitable initiative, it also helps promote food recovery and prevent food waste. As indicated in a previous week’s challenge, over 96 BILLION pounds of good food is tossed away every year. An important part of reducing this waste is to get potentially wasted food to those who need it! Mission accomplished and I got a workout at the same time.
This is only a win-win-win-win situation. The people who get the food win, the kids who put on Fill the Dome win, the community wins and I win! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and if you have any comments or suggestions, please leave them in the space below.
Looking back at the first month of going green
November 22nd, 2009I am in the fifth week of this project and thought today would be a good day to do a recap of what I have already done and any updates on what I have done since. Here is an overview:
Week 1: Online Knowledge
During the first week, I found all sorts of awesome sites like My Zero Waste and Franke James. Since then, I have slowly been adding to my green site repertoire and have found some really neat websites like Little Homestead in the City and Tap It. I am continuing my progress and every week I find new sites about every topic. This week I even found a site completely devoted to shutting NASCAR down. Let me know if you have any great sites for me to follow!
Week 2: Stop Junk Mail
During the second week, my task was to learn about junk mail and do my best to get them to stop sending it. I learned that 100 million trees are cut down every year just for junk mail and over 40% of that goes straight into the garbage. I have taken steps to remove myself from the lists, but I think this is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint. I have used the template I created several times. I think the junk mail is slowing and I am continuing to follow up with companies, but the effects might take a while. The part that REALLY torked me off was that I removed myself from receiving phone books, the respective companies contacted me and told me I was off of their list, then within 2 weeks I received 2 phone books from the very same companies. I have followed up with them further, wrote a letter to our local paper (has not been published yet), sent this topic to a local radio personality that I hope he will cover and been generally ornery on the topic.
Week 3: Saving Water
I learned this week that I would needlessly waste well over 100,000 gallons of water in my life if I continued what I was doing. I learned some super easy ways to save 54 gallons of water on any given day. So far, I think this challenge has caused the most dramatic daily change I have made so far. I used to take 2 baths every day. Now I only shower or bathe once a day.
Week 4: Food Waste
I learned quite a bit last week. I learned that food waste creates a large amount of methane, which is far worse than CO2 as far as greenhouse gases go. We can help reduce the greenhouse gases by better using or planning food/meals, donate what we not use, or compost food waste. I also was exposed to Freeganism, which still
Food Bank with Marcia Paulson
fascinates me. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak with our local Solid Waste Utility Manager and he schooled me on the awesome things Fargo is doing to reduce waste and reuse energy.
I also learned about the food bank and what is happening locally to help recover and redistribute food that would otherwise go to waste. Ashley and I were fortunate enough to take a tour of the Lutheran Social Services Food Bank headquarters which is shown in the pictures. Marcia Paulson, Director of Marketing and Development, showed us around the warehouse and helped show us the great things they are doing for the people of our state and area (in addition to helping with the environment). Paulson pointed out that they work with over 50 restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, colleges, and bakeries to help recover food. One chain of grocery stores alone, Hornbacher’s, provided over 100,000 pounds of food last year PER STORE. Although the Food Bank is doing some really great things, Paulson indicated that there is always ways to improve.
Visit to the Food Bank and the huge shelves of food
Not only have Ashley and I become more aware of our food waste, I think we have become more aware of the process and what is going on in our community. We just volunteered to help out at the food bank and will update you all when that happens. In this case, going green has other implications.
Summary
It has been a really cool month and I appreciate everybody that has stopped by to take a look. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions… leave them in the comments area below.
