Tag Archives: food waste

Weekly Round Up, 11.9.12

Hurricane Relief

Here are some of the best food stories we came across this week:

  • Where to Eat to Support Hurricane Relief Nationwide – Across America, people want to pitch in to support those on the East Coast struggling to recover after the storm’s estimated billions of dollars worth of damage. This constantly updated list provides news on restaurants around the country that are donating a portion of their proceeds and hosting events to make a difference. Continue reading →

Weekly Round Up, 11.2.12

Northern Spy Food Co Feeds Neighbors

Here are some of the best food stories we came across this week:

  • Acts of Kindness by NYC Restaurants Post-Sandy – Many restaurants and food purveyors across New York’s five boroughs have reached out to residents and offered free food, storage and delivery of emergency supplies in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. On Tuesday, Clean Plates-approved Northern Spy Food Co. cooked their remaining usable food and served it to their neighbors for free.
  • Urban Farms Destroyed by Hurricane – Many New York City rooftop plants, bees and birds were able to withstand the gale-force winds, but very few urban gardens that experienced flooding on the ground survived. In the aftermath of the hurricane, grocery stores are struggling to restock shelves; communities with surviving gardens are faring better due to their local access to fresh food. Continue reading →

Weekly Round Up, 8.24.12

Waste Not Want Not

Here are some of the best food stories we came across this week:

  • Study Finds Americans Waste Up to 40% of Their Food – A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council found that American trash up to 40% of the nation’s food supply every year, which creates the largest amount of solid waste in landfills. The study found the average family of four wastes about 20 pounds of food per person per month, and about $2,275 per year.
  • Lawyers That Took on Tobacco Now Targeting Big Food – Attorneys who won millions of dollars in record class action settlements against the tobacco industry have turned their sites on Big Agribusiness. In the last four months a dozen of those lawyers have filed 25 cases against ConAgra, Monsanto, General Mills, PepsiCo, Heinz and Chobani, claiming that the companies have wrongly labeled ingredients and products in violation of federal regulations.
  • New Scanner App Gives Gluten-free, Dietary Alerts – Fooducate has come out with a new smartphone app that scans barcodes on packaged foods; users can choose up to three alerts that will warn them if products contain gluten, peanuts, eggs, soy, tree nuts, fish, shellfish or milk. It also informs gluten-free users if the food was processed in a facility with gluten. The app costs $4.99.
  • Kids State Dinner at White House Celebrates Healthy Eaters – First Lady Michelle Obama, as part of her Let’s Move! initiative, hosted a State Dinner — well, luncheon — to honor the 54 kids (and their folks) from each state and territory who won the contest to develop a healthy, delicious recipe. (The link above includes the free cookbook.) The President dropped in to say hello. The menu included kale chips, a corn, bean and quinoa salad, and fruit smoothies.
  • “Good Food on a Tight Budget” Guide Helps Families – The Environmental Working Group reviewed government surveys and tests for nearly 1,200 foods, then factored in prices, nutrients, pesticides, environmental pollutants and artificial ingredients, and chose the best 100+ foods for their guide. The site also includes tools for tracking food prices, plus menu planning and shopping list tools.

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments below, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for links like these all week long.

Photo courtesy of goblinbox.

Weekly Round Up, 7.13.12

Perfectly Ripe Produce

Here are some of the best food stories we came across this week:

    • Bomb Sniffing Technology Used to Detect Ripe Produce – The same lab at MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies that developed dog-level ultra-trace-sensing equipment for detecting the chemicals used in bombs is now being used to sniff out the chemical vapor signatures of ripe produce by measuring the trace amounts of ethylene gas being emitted, thus reducing food waste for grocers and other retailers.
    • First Global Standards for Salmon Farming – A consortium of scientists, environmental agencies, governments and commercial fishing executives has developed the first set of universal standards for salmon farming. The process took eight years and a great deal of discussion and research. It entails 100 fish-farming standards, from the construction of cages to antibiotic use. These standards would allow certified aquaculture farms to use a label on packaging declaring the fish A.S.C. Certified.
    • “Big Organic” has Become Unnatural – Has the organic movement become a victim of its own success? Organic food has become a wildly lucrative business for Big Food and a premium-price-means-premium-profit section of the grocery store. The industry’s image — contented cows grazing on the green hills of family-owned farms — is mostly pure fantasy. Or rather, pure marketing. Big Food, it turns out, has spawned what might be called Big Organic.
    • Researchers Plot Roadmap for Protein-Induced Satiety – A study published in Cell has mapped out the complex chain reaction of signals that travel from the gut to the brain to cause feelings of satiety in the body after a protein-rich meal. It found stimulating certain receptors in a major blood vessel connected to the gut enhances food intake, while blocking them suppresses food intake; the researchers hope to use the data in the battle against obesity.
    • Eating Smaller Pieces of Food Effects Consumption – A study presented at the conference in Zurich for the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior found that in college students and rats, after consuming food cut into smaller pieces, later calorie consumption decreased by about 25%. Some speculate eating smaller pieces tricks the mind into believing the body has consumed multiple portions.

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments below, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for links like these all week long.

Photo courtesy of Wonderlane.

Wrapped by Nature: WikiCells

WikiCells

Good things come in edible packages.

In an attempt to reduce the waste created by food packaging, chemical engineer, inventor and Harvard professor David Edwards has stumbled upon a unique form of biomimicry. Inspired by the way a grape’s skin or an apple’s peel protects the form of the fruit, Dr. Edward’s new startup, WikiCell, introduces self-contained, edible casings for any food, including liquids. Since this kind of digestible packaging exists in nature, why not offer natural exteriors held together by edible materials? Continue reading →

Weekly Roundup 4.6.12

Noble Chickens

Here are some of the best food stories we came across this week:

  • New Technology May Help End Food Waste – New RFID tags, replete with GPS, monitor temperature and location as produce is shipped to stores, which allows grocers to sell the most perishable items before they spoil.
  • Chicken with Arsenic? – Two new studies discovered poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic. Continue reading →