The ultimate troll in that, after all that, it's a blog post leading up to a recipe.
The Secret Life of Leftovers
41–46 of 46 posts
Re: The Secret Life of Leftovers
#42[deleted]
Re: The Secret Life of Leftovers
#43Love the sight of the Oz Harvest[1] bright yellow trucks combating food waste here in Australia.
Re: The Secret Life of Leftovers
#44Awesome article. If there is one takeaway for everyone from it is the myth of the "expiration date". Boggles my mind that food banks routinely reject *canned* food that is even one day out of date.
Foods' resilience vis-á-vis expiration dates varies. For example: yogurt seems unaffected even a week after "expiration". Manufacturers by law have to set a date, but it ain't a law for end-consumers.
There’s probably more nuance to it in reality. Sometimes yogurt goes bad before the expiration date, which would be on the lower end of the probable expiration duration bell curve.
So given the myriad of different factors*, where along the bell curve do you decide to put the cut off? The longer the duration, the more people will eventually ingest expired food and risk illness, but also less food is wasted.
From a purely economic perspective, it might come down to the cost of food waste vs hospitalizations and lost productivity.
From a user experience perspective, I’d rather only eat food before it’s expired and throw away some good food rather than throw away less food while occasionally eating unsafe food.
It’s a trade off, really, and probably not some massive conspiracy, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the agencies responsible had been “overly cautious” with the expiration dates. Perhaps to increase profits or promote higher than necessary food production to increase our food security.
* - There’s lots of factors that would change that date. For example, is the yogurt stored at the front or back of a refrigerator? It’s usually colder in the back so it might last longer there. How long did it take to get it home or to stock it? Where in the industrial chiller at the supermarket did it sit? Closer to the aisle where it’s warmer? Was the cold chain** disturbed in general? What’s the specific fat content of that style/brand/cow? There’s really a lot at play here.
Re: The Secret Life of Leftovers
#45As someone who has sometimes used "food waste" as an excuse to overeat, I find the concept of "metabolic food waste" useful. That is, food that you over eat is still wasted food. If you bought or cooked too much food, that was the point at which you made a mistake, and that mistake cannot be undone by proceeding to stuff your face.
So what about people who overeat just to work off the calories later? Is that food waste too? In other words is leisure exercise above that which helps keep the body fit, exercise that leads to food waste?
Honestly, the agenda of my comment was not to shame people who eat a lot and burn it off (assuming that's possible/feasible), but to free people from the "clean plate club".
Re: The Secret Life of Leftovers
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very common in the US, at least the parts I've been. It depends on the restaurant, of course, but most places will provide a takeout box to take home uneaten food if you ask. In fact, it's not uncommon for the waiter to offer a box unprompted if you have a fair amount of leftover food.
> in the US Ah, this makes sense. I recall eating in US restaurants and being given ridiculously large portions... something we half-joked - half-seriously suggested was down to the size of some of the patrons. Presumably is it instead the expectation that some of the food is taken home.
>Presumably is it instead the expectation that some of the food is taken home.
I'd imagine that it might differ based on where you are. Remember that the US is pretty close in size to the entirety of Western Europe. There are a lot of different places here.