Tag Archives: Waste

Reducing food waste is good, but is it safe?

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Organizations dedicated to hunger relief have grown in recent years to increase their capacity to reach more food insecure populations for example, Feeding America served 11% more meals in 2016 than in 2015.

One barrier to ensuring food safety during the diversion and donation of food is lack of effective training for volunteers. Some programs are affiliated with universities and as such rely on student volunteers. Students have been shown to have risky practices in food-handling environments and can create situations in which food distributed by hunger-relief organizations can be at risk for unintentional contamination.

Using a food recovery program at a large, land-grant university, food-handling behaviors of student volunteers were observed in-person and compared to self-reported behaviors and self-identified training needs gathered via a survey.

Commonly observe behaviors were improper handwashing, inconsistent record keeping, and the use of unclean or contaminated equipment for example, during deliveries only 13% of volunteers were observed washing their hands at least once, while 69% self-reported doing so.

Training volunteers is necessary in view of the vulnerability to foodborne illness of those receiving recovered food. Trainings specifically for this audience should include unique handling scenarios adapted to food handler best practices.

Food-handling behaviors of student volunteers in a university food recovery program

Food Protection Trends, Volume 38, Issue 4, Pages 284-294, 2018

Lester Schonberger, Renee R. Boyer, Melissa W. Chase

http://staging.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trilix/fpt_20180708/stage.php#/44

Aussie farmers reduce waste with carrot vodka

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As a former occupant of jail and a budding microbiologist, I know that booze can be made from anything that contains sugar or their carbohydrate predecessors.

According to Australian Food News, two Australian women on a mission to reduce food waste have launched a new vodka made using carrots.

The pair behind the drink, Gen Windley and Alice Gorman, came up with the idea knowing that carrots grown by their husbands were going to waste when they did not meet supermarket cosmetic standards.

Wanting to stop waste, the women joined with a wine maker, Jason Hannary of Flinders Park Winery, to create a vodka made from carrots.

The resulting drink has been described as a clear, slightly-sweet vodka that has a subtle hint of carrot.

“Not having done anything with vegetables before was a bit daunting, but after a few experiments we got a great result,” said distiller Jason Hannary.

It is not the first time the women and their families have found unique ways to use leftover carrots from their farms. In 2015, one of the women’s husband created carrot beer sold at a Queensland brewery.

“Alice and I have four loud and energetic sons so we decided this was the year to create an alcoholic vegetable drink for ourselves!” Gen Windley said.

Carrot Vodka will be launched at the Winter Harvest Festival which is part of the Scenic Rim Eat Local Week. The week is dedicated to promoting food and wine from the Scenic Rim region in South East Queensland.

Dumped

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Ashley Chaifetz, a PhD student studying public policy at UNC-Chapel Hill writes,

Food safety and food quality are not the same, especially when you are in a dumpster searching for food to eat.Unknown-10

NPR’s The Salt covered Maximus Thaler, a “semi-professional dumpster diver with a moral purpose” and his organization, The Gleaners’ Kitchen.

“You look at the food and you smell the food … using your senses is really important,” Thaler says.

While vegetables may get mushy and cheeses might mold, it’s nothing that Thaler can’t cut off or cook up. He says the only thing that’s really risky is meat.

“I would never eat a rare steak out of the dumpster,” he says. “Don’t take the meat that’s obvious discolored,” he advises. Eggs, on the other hand, are fine, he says, as long as they don’t smell absurdly strong of sulfur.

“There are complex systemic reasons why there is so much food waste in this country, but at their core is the fact that most Americans have forgotten what good food is.” He argues that humans have evolved to know what good food is, and we don’t need the Food and Drug Administration or sell-by dates to tell us that.

The dates on food packages are certainly flawed but it isn’t because of the FDA. No federal agency regulates the dates on packaging, except for baby formula. Manufacturers and retailers add various kinds of dates to their foods—and use sell-by, best-by, or use-by to help consumers make choices about the quality, not safety, of the items.

Humans have no special ability to smell Salmonella, or E.coli, or any other pathogen that might be reason a grocery has tossed the food into the dumpster (and neither do dogs). Every item Thaler mentioned (vegetables, cheese, meat, and eggs) has been recalled due to pathogen contamination or foodborne illness risk within the last 5 years. Just because he hasn’t gotten sick does not mean the food is zero risk.

I agree with Thaler’s suggestion that more food is wasted than it should be—and certain grocery stores are better than others at donating their barely-damaged fruits and vegetables to food pantries and food banks.

It’s not that I think dumpster diving is intrinsically bad. It’s that the advocates often fail to adequately address certain issues, like food safety.

Food safety from farm to fridge to garbage can (compost pile)

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When in doubt throw it out.

That’s the food safety mantra of help lines, web sites and other food safety sages dispensing wisdom for the masses.

So it’s hardly surprising that according to the New York Times, a quarter to half of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten — left in fields, spoiled in transport, thrown out at the grocery store, scraped into the garbage or forgotten until it spoils.

A study in Tompkins County, N.Y., showed that 40 percent of food waste occurred in the home. Another study, by the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, found that 93 percent of respondents acknowledged buying foods they never used.

And worries about food safety prompt many of us to throw away perfectly good food. In a study at Oregon State University, consumers were shown three samples of iceberg lettuce, two of them with varying degrees of light brown on the edges and at the base. Although all three were edible, and the brown edges easily cut away, 40 percent of respondents said they would serve only the pristine lettuce.

Personally, I try to minimize the waste by regularly biking to the supermarket and buying food for a couple of days only. I still waste food, especially because I prefer marked down produce about to go bad, and if it’s not used quickly, it goes. Also, we’re a family of three. When I was part of a family of six, there would be some bicycle trips to the grocery store with a kid or two in the trailer, but usually larger quantities of food were kept on hand.

Instead of blaming consumers, maybe the message should be adjusted. When consistently telling people, “when in doubt, throw it out,” there’s going to be a paranoic level of food waste.
 

New hand dryer eco-friendly, food safe

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I’ve waited a whole month for this Saturday to roll around. For weeks, I’ve been rinsing, drying, crushing, and collecting our cans, bottles, and boxes in anticipation. This Saturday is the day the county picks up our recycling. I have to drive my tubs to the library parking lot, but I don’t mind. I’m happy to be counted among those who choose to waste less. This reflects one particular side of my personality.

Another side is evident when I wash my hands: I soap up my palms and fingertips. I get between my fingers and up my wrists. After I rinse away the soap, I dry them thoroughly.

And this is the point where the two collide: When I go to dry my hands (and am not at home where clean cloth towels are available), I always reach for the paper towels over a blow dryer.

I know many trees are felled in the making of single-use paper towels, but blow dryers are disgusting: They collect microbes that may have been aerosolized when the toilet was flushed and then blow them onto your hands.

At least, most blow dryers do. HACCP Australia thinks the Dyson Airblade hand dryer can effectively dry hands without recontamination.

Australia Food News reports that the Dyson Airblade is the first hand dryer to be approved for use in food handling areas. AFN explains,

“Using high velocity sheets of unheated air, hands are dried in just ten seconds while, at the same time, 99.9% of bacteria and mould is removed from the air using HEPA filtration…The dryer, unlike conventional warm air hand dryers, does not blow bacteria back onto freshly washed hands nor use a heating element that can induce bacterial growth.”

As an added ecological bonus, the Dyson Airblade uses up to 80 per cent less energy compared with conventional hand dryers.

“Recently unveiled in Australia, the Dyson Airblade hand dryer has already had local success by receiving a New Product Award at its first public launch. It has now been introduced in food manufacturing areas at Cargill’s, Kellogg’s, Fletcher’s International, KFC, Tabro Meats, Wingham Beef and George Weston Food’s Tip Top bakeries, as well as a number of kitchens at McDonalds Restaurants.”

Until these are available in all the kitchens and public bathrooms I visit (and the data shows up on their microbial safety), I try to strike a balance between food safety and eco-friendliness: I use one paper towel to its fullest (two, if necessary), and avoid grabbing a handful out of assumption that they’ll be needed.

I hate assumptions.