Creating a Clean Plate

After a very long day of classes and crew practice I walk into the dining hall and grab a plat. Before I know, it is piled high with pasta and salad. I have noticed that the longer my day is and the more stressed out I am, the more food I will take. This is not even directly correlated to how hungry I am. This a problem because I take a lot of food, not realizing I am not that hungry, and end up throwing away half of my meal. Living in a college environment makes this even more of a challenge because at home I would always save my leftovers and eat then the next day. In college, that is against the rules.

British journalist Madeleine Cuff also decided to take this challenge. She was determined to go one week without any food waste and was motivated by the “Love Food Hate Waste campaign” which is a campaign focusing on reducing the amount of consumer waste going to the landfill. Cuff says that many people blame the amount of waste in the landfill on the supermarkets, but in reality “nearly 50 per cent of all food and drink” waste in the UK comes from homes (Cuff, 2012). Cuff’s experiment seems slightly more challenging from mine since she is a family of one. All of the groceries she buys she must eat, and she must cook her own meals. But despite our different living arrangements, we both ran into the same three major problems with eliminating food waste. 1) Throwing something away without realizing it. 2) Getting too big of a portion of something and 3) not eating something before it expires.

It is easy to take a bite of something and throw it away without noticing. Often for me, I realize I don’t like what I am eating and without second thought I will throw it away and try something new. Another problem we faced was taking or making portions too big. Madeleine would often make too much for one person to consume but wanted to say true to her goal and would attempt to eat as much as she could. My challenge is taking too big of portions in the all you can eat dining halls.

Another  main topic she addresses in her article is the concept of the “use by date.” Many people will buy too much at the supermarket and not use it by the end date. She says in her article, “ It all relates to running a kitchen in a professional sense really- people just need to take the time to manage their fridge and check what needs using before it goes off” (Cuff, 2012). Cuff  found it difficult to eat all of her produce before it started to rot and I too often forget about the apples and grapes I by for my tiny refrigerator. Before I know it, they have gone bad.

Cuff, M. (2012). Love food hate waste: could you live without throwing food away?. Ecologist, 40(34), 8-11.