The food waste challenge

Did you know that Americans waste at least 40% of their food, from field to fridge?

Call me crazy, but I see 3 loaves of banana bread...

This statistic disturbed me and my friend, Krystal, so we have tackled food waste in our own lives and kitchens and decided to tell our stories at the recent Just Food Conference held in NYC. We were two among dozens of presenters who discussed and struggled with issues of food justice, food sovereignty, farming and food education.


We both intersect the waste stream, preventing food from filling our landfills. We use all of the food parts, re-purpose leftovers into delicious meals, never waste abundance, compost, have animals to feed scraps to, and on Longhaul farm, we collect neighbors' and local businesses' compost all year round.

At the end of our presentation, we issued a food waste challenge. Here's the blurb from our facebook page, which you should check out:

"How much food do you waste? We challenge you to separate out your food waste for a week to see how much you're wasting. We want to hear from you, so post pictures or tell us what you are doing to reduce food waste in your kitchen! Get your family and friends to take the challenge!"

Consider the food insecure, our broken ecological system, the money wasted and the packed landfills the next time you toss a potato with a few eyes or those aromatic parsley stems or last week's leftovers from your favorite restaurant. Once I learned about the ins-and-outs of food waste in our country and the world, it was impossible to go back to my previous ways.