
Wasted in San Francisco - sergeant3
http://ediblesanfrancisco.ediblefeast.com/wasted
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Fricken
Boy, we're pretty bent out of shape about our food. Before we can legitimately
ask ourselves 'how can we waste less food', we first need to ask 'What is food
for?'

The simple answer is that food provides us with the energy and nutrition we
need to survive; but of course, if you take a look around it's pretty obvious
we dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy to eating that extends well
beyond basic sustenance. We have all sorts of complicated but erroneous
aesthetic and cultural reasons for eating, which, in a first world country
extends several levels of abstraction beyond merely serving basic needs.

I mean, if optimizing only for sustenance was the goal, we'd all be munching
hamster pellets or choking down some Soylent like hydrated paste. We certainly
wouldn't be interested paying premiums to have exotic, perishable fruits
(which are mostly water) shipped in from other continents only to throw half
that in the garbage.

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jkot
Food waste is a huge problem in Africa (no joke). Seasonal food such as banana
is not harvested fast enough:

> _[There’s] $4 billion (USD) equivalent of food losses in a year in the
> continent and if you can conceptualize what four billion can do to alleviate
> poverty in our various countries, then you can understand the waste and the
> economic deprivation that food loss is causing the continent,_

[https://fsrn.org/2016/05/african-farmers-seek-creative-
solut...](https://fsrn.org/2016/05/african-farmers-seek-creative-solutions-to-
cut-back-on-food-waste/)

~~~
TylerE
I can't really. Africa has a population of 1.1B. That's not even $4/head.

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scaddison
Paying more for scraps than for fresh food? Absolutely ridiculous. Leave it to
SF hipsters to be into this kind of thing, especially while talking about how
"green" and "eco-friendly" they are.

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brian-armstrong
What's the definition of a hipster? Someone you disagree with?

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khedoros
As an overly broad definition: Someone who is not only counterculture, but who
wants you to know exactly _how_ counterculture they are.

It's a fuzzy word with a fuzzy definition, and it doesn't mean quite the same
thing to everyone. I think you know that, though.

~~~
brian-armstrong
Your definition sounds like it could be inspired more by pop culture or
caricatures rather than by actual human beings.

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khedoros
Exaggeration is a valid rhetorical device. Why, what does "hipster" mean to
you? What are the characteristics you think of when you hear it?

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brian-armstrong
It doesn't mean anything to me. The word has been abused and stretched so far
beyond whatever context it originally came from that it seems completely
meaningless.

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b6
Let's please try to use language more precisely. Are you really suggesting
"hipster" is "completely meaningless"? I mean, it's not completely meaningless
when a baby gurgles. Do a Google Images search and let your mind do its magic.

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eastbayjake
Yet another case of life in San Francisco imitating Portlandia:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuD1oDth6es](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuD1oDth6es)

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davidw
Italy just passed a law regarding food waste: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-36965671](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36965671) \- I wonder
how that compares to the rules in place in the US? It seems fairly sensible.

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jasonjei
What I do in addition to freezing food that I can't finish is preserving them
in mason jars, either by jamming them with sugars, or curing them with salt.
You end up with completely different food products with different flavor
profiles.

~~~
prawn
My 4yo son and I enjoy the book Two Little Gardeners* about a brother and
sister who prepare ground, grow food, eat some and store the rest. They
preserve/pickle a variety of things in jars, store pumpkins and potatoes, hang
onions and garlic, and keep their carrots in a tub of slightly dampened sand
(a technique I hadn't heard of previously). It's a great little book if you
have children, they're interested in gardening as mine are, and you want to
introduce them to the stages involved in the whole process.

* [https://www.amazon.com/Two-Little-Gardeners-Golden-Book/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Two-Little-Gardeners-Golden-Book/dp/0375835296)

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jtokoph
Cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fediblesanfrancisco.ediblefeast.com%2Fwasted&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fediblesanfrancisco.ediblefeast.com%2Fwasted&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

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mdergosits
There's a CSA I just signed up called Imperfect Produce. They deliver boxes of
produce that doesn't meet the aesthetic requirements for grocery stores.
Sounds like a more economical version of this.

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2xlbuds
I have gotten flyers for Imperfect Produce in my mail, but their advertised
40-50% savings off of supermarket prices seem completely false. I like the
concept, but I can buy "aesthetically pleasing" fruits and vegetables for
cheaper at the store.

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eloisant
Just start by giving smaller servings.

Really, the size of servings in US is ridiculous, who is supposed to finish
that?

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prawn
One problem is that restaurants have no incentive to serve modestly sized,
affordable meals. No one raves about a restaurant because it served "just
enough to fill me up". No restaurant would ever advertise "reasonably sized
plates".

Restaurants with small servings are focusing on quality and charging
accordingly, or pushing 5+ courses.

Even if a restaurant charged two-thirds the price for appropriately sized
meals, they still have the same transactional costs (staffing, equipment,
production, etc).

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foobarian
I would love to find a restaurant with "reasonably sized plates." Most places
serve ridiculous two-person portions, and out of some Catholic guilt-laden
upbringing (kids are starving in Africa etc.) I feel compelled to not leave
anything on the plate and have a bad time as a result. I would rave about a
place that kept portion sizes down.

Another bonus is it would be more practical to also have dessert after the
main course. In practice I usually just end up ordering an appetizer as the
main course at the cost of some awkwardness with the server.

~~~
prawn
Another idea is that you order your meal and one option is to have 3/5ths on
the plate and 2/5ths packaged to takeaway. No awkward "can I have a doggy
bag?" for a container of the scraps you favoured least.

Even though many desserts are made ahead of time, in Australia they're often
very expensive ($15-18) and so something I almost never order.

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ksenzee
> aquafaba, the viscous canned chickpea liquid most of us dump down the drain,
> ...works as a whipped cream substitute on top of a banana split

Nope. Nope nope nope.

~~~
Chos89
Did you try it?

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Kenji
Gotta love the morons who think it is possible to avoid wasting food
completely. Reliability is only achieved through redundancy. If we only ever
had _just enough_ of everything, we would always be on the brink of a famine
if something went wrong.

Reminds me of the local cafeteria at my uni that reduced food waste, so when I
went there at 1PM to avoid the crowds (they served until 1:30PM) there was
just no food left. Good job, so helpful.

~~~
jeffasinger
There are two sides to this though. There should be a sane middle ground. At a
college, maybe the thing to do is have a fire sale on (or give away) things
that are about to expire.

I remember that my college food service had a policy that food that was
considered waste had to be thrown in the dumpster, and not doing so was
grounds for being fired. A friend had to throw out around 20 pounds of fresh
fruit every Friday because the venue that they were at wasn't open over the
weekend.

