Waste Not, Want Not

From my back door to my garage must be a good eighty feet and in the winter that eighty seems more like a hundred and eighty. That is why when I saw the cool wagon with beefy tires that could hold numerous pounds of whatever, I had to have it. Now I could get all those groceries out of the car and into the house in one trip, well maybe two. But it was a lot better than hauling all those bags up to the house over several trips.

Sounds clever right? A wagon, how cool and smart, Wrong. Statistics say that we will throw away a good amount of what we buy. It either goes bad or most likely we over-produce, cooking more than we need which ends up in the trash. It is how we eat in America, fill that plate, be a good boy / girl and finish what’s on your plate. One aspect of why we are the most obese country on the planet.

Restaurants aren’t much smarter, as they have trained the customer to believe more is better. Do not leave any of that plate uncovered -- just ladle on the carbs. And we either eat it or take the rest of it home and most likely after a few days it ends up in the trash as well. Whenever someone tells me their restaurant is successful and doing really well I tell them to go and look in the trash cans in the kitchen. Just see how much food comes back from the diners who don’t want doggie bags. The waste percentage just went up.

If we go back a few steps from your kitchen, back to the grocery store, back to the supplier and finally back to the farmer we find the head of the snake. Commercial or factory farming is an industry, probably our biggest. So what happens when the broccoli crop is super and it is flooding the market? We dump it, we tell the farmer to plow it under, keep the demand high, at a point to maintain the retail price. Our wastefulness is not just in our own homes. It is part of the agricultural business model for America. But we can fix that with a few easy steps.

When the brunette and I lived in England the majority of the middle class had very small refrigerators, so when they shopped they did so for the moment. Shops were close by so it was not a big distraction in our daily affairs to visit the local grocer for the evening meal.

The most effective way to shop is with a plan. Stores set you up for impulse buying. It is subliminal seduction and we all fall victim to it. So plan your menus, make your grocery list for no more than two days, put on your blinders and buy only what you have plans to eat.

Why do you think grocery stores and their carts are so big in America and why our refrigerators are even bigger? We are Americans, proud of it and rightly so, so let’s fill that cart and let’s fill that fridge. It’s what we do, right?

Sit down some day while you are fretting over all those commercials about whether or not you are saving enough for retirement (If you keep eating the way you are retirement won’t be a concern - funeral arrangements will be) and figure out how much you are spending on food items you purchased that you didn’t eat and more importantly didn’t need.

I was pleased to hear a few weeks ago that Luna restaurant on University was cutting the protein portions on their plates to four ounces. This has been a business model for fine dining restaurants in both Europe and the US for years. In some cases it is cost-prohibitive to have more on the plate, but more importantly it allows for a more complete meal and one that doesn’t leave you comatose on the couch while your body turns everything you just ate into deadly belly fat.

It is time to be just a tad more posh. When was the last time you dressed for dinner, at home? Take some time to treat yourself and your partner. Turn off the TV, turn on some music. Don’t just wash your hands, get cleaned up, make dinner a date and dress those kids up a bit as well. Take time and actually chew your food for a change and have a shared civilized conversation. There is a reason they call it dinner and not fast food.

Save yourself and save the planet…