America: The Hummer in a Parking Lot Full of Hybrids?
In America, we don't like reusing food. While millions of United States citizens starve on the streets, we still continue struggling to use what we produce and purchase. Because of this predicament, individuals wishing to battle the profound negative effect of our wastefulness have devised numerous ways to re-purpose our trash. This practice may ultimately provide answers concerning providing sustainable food, energy and waste solutions to a world in dire need of environmental repair. By turning uneaten food into feed for livestock, we can reduce the amount of new feed we need to grow and process. This concept is fairly simple. But there are even more possible uses for leftovers and 'imperfect' food, and even more potential applications in the future. Food waste is something that will always exist. Despite this, there are ways that something seen as a waste could be used to benefit society and help to create a sustainable future.
There was a time when wasting food was a taboo concept. Throughout the 19th century, both natives and colonists worked hard to use every last scrap of an animal for either food, clothing, or another tool for survival. Early explorers would do everything they could to prevent food waste. Some popular recipes would include grinding every last scrap of dried meat into a meal with some berries, drenching it in animal fat and putting it into the bladder for storage where it could stay fresh for months (Pemmican). Another would be some refreshing bitters concocted from a cup of gallbladder fluid and a cup of water. As the need for such inventive methods of nutrient scavenging decreased, early settlers would still find ways to use what they didn't eat. Pioneers in the Mormon Church created the Female Relief Society which acted as an early food bank. People would donate excess food and it would go to others in need. Settlers would also make soap with the excess animal fat by boiling it down and mixing it with lye. Early settlers also used the practice of using extra food to feed livestock, and mulching it into compost in order to avoid waste. However, excessive food production around the start of the 20th century started to create a sanitation problem for urban areas. Laws were enacted forbidding uncovered trash cans and leaving trash in the street. In Salt Lake City, Utah, edible garbage was used as animal feed and inedible garbage was used to build new roads. The invention of canned food allowed food to stay edible longer, thereby creating less waste. As war broke out around the world and food preservation and distribution to soldiers became a top priority, governments led propaganda campaigns persuading people to save their food and donate sugars, animal products and grains to the war effort. Fats could be made into glycerin for explosives, as advertised in the video above. Moreover, fats were often saved to be used in other recipes (before saturated fats were likened to the devil). These efforts resulted in a 15% cut in food consumption and doubled the amount of food exported to Europe during World War I. All was well until attention was turned from military malnutrition, to civilian malnutrition.
After the second world war, commercial food production remained steady. With no hungry soldiers to feed, the government turned its attention to its citizens and President Johnson initiated the "War on Poverty" and worked to use the overproduction of food to drop prices and feed impoverished Americans. For the middle and upper class households, food abundance made it more desirable to eat more freshly bought food. Technological innovations such as the garbage disposal allow people to throw uneaten food literally down the drain and forget about it. As the number of World War and depression-era consumers diminished, western society adopted the post-war ideology on food waste and efficiency became less and less of a concern. Instead, food aesthetics became the new focus causing less of an inclination to save 'second tier' food, thus beginning a snowball effect changing food as we knew it. Mass production of food became the apparent solution for hunger and poverty, and conserving food slowly faded from popular culture.
There was a time when wasting food was a taboo concept. Throughout the 19th century, both natives and colonists worked hard to use every last scrap of an animal for either food, clothing, or another tool for survival. Early explorers would do everything they could to prevent food waste. Some popular recipes would include grinding every last scrap of dried meat into a meal with some berries, drenching it in animal fat and putting it into the bladder for storage where it could stay fresh for months (Pemmican). Another would be some refreshing bitters concocted from a cup of gallbladder fluid and a cup of water. As the need for such inventive methods of nutrient scavenging decreased, early settlers would still find ways to use what they didn't eat. Pioneers in the Mormon Church created the Female Relief Society which acted as an early food bank. People would donate excess food and it would go to others in need. Settlers would also make soap with the excess animal fat by boiling it down and mixing it with lye. Early settlers also used the practice of using extra food to feed livestock, and mulching it into compost in order to avoid waste. However, excessive food production around the start of the 20th century started to create a sanitation problem for urban areas. Laws were enacted forbidding uncovered trash cans and leaving trash in the street. In Salt Lake City, Utah, edible garbage was used as animal feed and inedible garbage was used to build new roads. The invention of canned food allowed food to stay edible longer, thereby creating less waste. As war broke out around the world and food preservation and distribution to soldiers became a top priority, governments led propaganda campaigns persuading people to save their food and donate sugars, animal products and grains to the war effort. Fats could be made into glycerin for explosives, as advertised in the video above. Moreover, fats were often saved to be used in other recipes (before saturated fats were likened to the devil). These efforts resulted in a 15% cut in food consumption and doubled the amount of food exported to Europe during World War I. All was well until attention was turned from military malnutrition, to civilian malnutrition.
After the second world war, commercial food production remained steady. With no hungry soldiers to feed, the government turned its attention to its citizens and President Johnson initiated the "War on Poverty" and worked to use the overproduction of food to drop prices and feed impoverished Americans. For the middle and upper class households, food abundance made it more desirable to eat more freshly bought food. Technological innovations such as the garbage disposal allow people to throw uneaten food literally down the drain and forget about it. As the number of World War and depression-era consumers diminished, western society adopted the post-war ideology on food waste and efficiency became less and less of a concern. Instead, food aesthetics became the new focus causing less of an inclination to save 'second tier' food, thus beginning a snowball effect changing food as we knew it. Mass production of food became the apparent solution for hunger and poverty, and conserving food slowly faded from popular culture.
The Food Conservation Renaissance
What does the future hold? Will we continue to waste our way into certain environmental disaster? In recent years, we have begun to realize the reality behind where food goes when it's thrown in the trash can. Food decomposition in landfills release methane gas which plagues our environment and hunger still runs rampant all over the nation. In response, devising new methods of re-purposing waste has become a focus all over the world. In class, we learned how a Japanese company created Eco-Feed, a nutritional animal feed made from food waste. We also learned how methane created as a byproduct of food decomposition is sometimes collected and stored to be used to produce electricity. Additionally, there's a trend of startup companies capitalizing on the growing issues with food waste here in the United States. One idea used by companies such as MOGO and Mintscraps use a cell phone application to let restaurants and retailers sell overstocked food and ingredients that would otherwise be thrown out to consumers at a discounted price. Mintscraps uses sensors to estimate what products a restaurant won't be able to sell in time and calculates the money they'd save by selling their overstock on Mintscraps. Other companies such as Re-Nuble and Spoiler Alert connects food retailers to both non-profit organizations, and fertilizer and animal food companies. Using waste renewal to turn a profit might motivate citizens into solving problems regarding food waste. In the future, large scale use of methane from decomposing food might allow us to use it as a renewable energy source which would reduce and hopefully eliminate the use of fossil fuels.
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