The Feed

Fungi, mushrooms, mycelium, and food. Maybe you don’t associate all of these things together (or maybe you do, and you’re thinking of the terrifying reality of The Last of Us, currently airing on HBO), but the future of managing food waste and creating a more sustainable food system is intrinsically tied to fungi. Rest assured, fungi won’t be turning anyone into zombies any time soon, but they will be incorporated into more aspects of our food system. 

So why fungi? Not quite animal and not quite plant, fungi is an incredibly complex living system of threads connecting trees and foliage across miles and miles of land. It’s the communication network of the natural world, and vital in transferring nutrients across biomes and keeping soil viable. Fungi also produce a fruit, known as mushrooms. 

Edible mushrooms are a great source of iron, zinc, and vitamin B-12, and take little resource input for major nutritional output. They can’t replace meat entirely as a protein source, but fungi are a terrific choice to incorporate into any diet in regard to resource preservation. Not only are mushrooms great as a food, but soon they will be a great addition to your food. 

A food technology startup out of Israel, Mush Food, is adding fungi to meat in a 50/50 combination that preserves and enhances the flavors and texture of meat that carnivores crave while reducing the ecological footprint of meat in half. The product they are developing, 50CUT, effectively mimics the meat it is combined with, “Once you add 50CUT to ground beef, it acts like a sponge and absorbs all the water, juiciness, fat, aromatic compounds, and assumes the visual appearance of the beef. From the full organoleptic and nutritional perspectives, 50CUT functions as the perfect complement to beef, enhancing its taste.”

Leather made from Reishi mushrooms.

What about fungi’s ability to grow into predefined molds? It’s a resilient and malleable thing, so biotechnologist Akram Zamani and her team are using fungi to break down food waste and turn the result into something brand new! Food produces an immense amount of greenhouse gases when it rots in a landfill, and decomposing food makes up a majority of the product found in U.S. landfills. By utilizing the fungus Rhizopus delemar and stale bread crumbs, Zamani’s team was able to turn the gelatinous product into yarn to spin into fabrics and create synthetic leather.

The fungi are grown underground, using minimal land, energy, and water, and as you’ll read in a moment, using fungi’s incredible ability to grow into a mold, it grows to mimic the rich umami texture and flavor of its partnered beef. Sound weird? It is, but when this (eventually, give it a few years) hits the consumer market, give it a try! It’s a low-impact way to enjoy meat in a way that’s more natural than any of the other beef alternatives on the market. 

There is already one business on the market, Mycoworks, producing ready-to-buy product from fungi alternatives. From consumer reports, this vegan leather matches, if not exceeds, the quality and aesthetic of its competition. While mycelium (the threads of fungi that create the frame in which the vegan leather is made) won’t be replacing cows or plastic alternatives any time soon, the plant leather has made a splash with its incomparable production speed and sustainability. 

While We Don’t Waste works hard to recover local food excess, there is not much we can do about the bits and pieces of inedible food that slip through the cracks in your home or in your office. Imagine a future where food waste could be picked up, and turned not only into compost, but into clothing and furniture indistinguishable from its animal-borne or plastic counterparts. How exciting! Fewer greenhouse gas emissions from food in our landfills, and responsible, low-climate-impact items for use every day. Just from your food scraps!

As a food, mushrooms are an awesome addition to a diet, and as a tool, fungi are key in breaking down food waste and unsustainable production practices. It’s an exciting time in the growth and development in sustainable food system practices. 

The emergency allotments that came in tandem with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 are now coming to an end. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, a 2023 law recently passed by Congress, ends emergency allotments after the February 2023 issuance. This means by March 2023, all SNAP households’ benefits will return to pre-pandemic amounts, without the added supplement.

What does this mean for SNAP households in Colorado? In the coming months, there are going to be some major changes in the benefits received through SNAP and Social Security. The average household will be losing around $90 a month in SNAP benefits, with senior citizens on Social Security losing over $240 a month in SNAP benefits. 

The daily recommended minimum amount of money for food per individual in Colorado ranges from $11 to $13 depending on your preferred diet. For a household with limited income, this change will likely lead to skipped meals and detrimental nutrition and health outcomes.

The USDA recommends impacted families do the following:

• If able to, households can roll over your SNAP benefits to the next month. This may help “cushion” the impact of the reduction in benefits. 
• Stock up on non-perishable items now, while you have the additional benefits. Click on this link for tips on stocking your pantry: English; Spanish
• Stretch your ingredients and plan to use them in more than one meal. This helps to save money and reduce food waste.  Click for more tips: English; Spanish
• Consider freezing your produce to make fruit and vegetables last longer English; Spanish

What can YOU do to help? 

Make a gift to We Don’t Waste to help support increased food access across Colorado. In the last few months, We Don’t Waste has seen record numbers of attendance at each of our Mobile Food Markets, along with a significant waitlist for agency partners, and we anticipate we will be seeing a greater number of families in need of more support in the coming months. As such, we have plans to grow our market initiatives and food distribution efforts across the metro area. 

$25 provides over 160 meals through We Don’t Waste’s food distribution. Your gift is maximized to provide as much nutritious food as possible to vulnerable communities. 

Make an even greater impact by becoming a monthly donor. By doing so, you sustain our programs and allow We Don’t Waste to be consistent in our services to our community. 

Spread the word. Food insecurity is not an issue you can see by looking at someone, and it can be impossible to know who in your circle is affected and who is not. You can positively impact so many of your community members, neighbors, and friends by helping to spread the word about available resources.

211 Colorado Hotline is a free, confidential, and multilingual hotline that connects Colorado residents with free and low-cost programs and services across the state, ranging from food access to healthcare. This is a go-to resource, and registration and documentation are not required. 

Share We Don’t Waste’s calendar of Mobile Food Markets. These markets are open to everyone, and provide free food access in different neighborhoods across the Greater Denver metro area. 

Hunger Free Colorado has a food resource map and hotline that locates food pantries and more based on age, location, and the type of food needed. The hotline is confidential and supports 150+ languages. 

We’re highlighting a really unique partnership we’ve seen blossom in our community. Teens for Food Justice has partnered with Bruce Randolph School (one of our Mobile Food Market locations) to launch a hydroponic farm run entirely by the students! We discovered this program when Bruce Randolph sought us out to distribute excess student-grown produce at our Mobile Food Market. That should give you an idea of how successful these students have been at running this farm!

Teens for Food Justice operates high-capacity hydroponic farms on five school campuses across New York City, and one in our hometown of Denver. The students in grades 6-12 use real-world 21st-century science and technology to grow up to 10,000 pounds (per school) of hydroponic produce annually. Vertical hydroponic farming uses less space and just a tenth of the water resources compared to an outdoor farm, which allows students to grow more produce, more quickly.

The process of growing, caring for, harvesting, and eating the produce equips students with the expertise and hands-on experience needed to combat food insecurity. The locations of these hydroponic farms are not a coincidence. These programs are started in areas specifically chosen based on their need for food access. 

Schools are natural community anchors, and Teens for Food Justice combines STEM education, nutrition education, and food-justice advocacy to mold the next generation of agricultural experts. By partnering with We Don’t Waste and servicing our distribution network, TFFJ and WDW are working together to create an immediate and inter-generational impact on ending food insecurity in Bruce Randolph’s neighborhood. 

We Don’t Waste has received hundreds of pounds of excess greens for our Bruce Randolph markets since the program kicked off in the summer of 2022. At each of these markets, we typically serve between 150 to 200 families. The students’ view of food is transformed, and their community can reap the benefits as well!

Produce is one of the most culturally universal foods, and one of the most requested food groups across all of We Don’t Waste’s Mobile Food Markets. We are thrilled to be able to receive this produce from the Bruce Randolph School, and are grateful to Teens for Food Justice for making this program possible! 

Check out their website to learn more!

Despite the fact that everyone needs to eat to survive, food means different things to different people. From our Distribution Center where we move dozens of pallets, to our 90+ partner organizations to whom we directly distribute the food, there are hundreds of people who come into contact with the food, and each holds a different relationship with it. 

I did some investigative research on what comes to mind when people think of food, and got some awesome responses! 

Food is community. Art. Life. Life-giving. Energy. Everything. Family-time. Home. A blessing. Essential. Happiness.

One thing I heard across the board was that no matter what, gratitude and appreciation for food access were overwhelming themes of my conversations. Speaking with our Mobile Food Market participants, you can feel the positivity radiating from each person I spoke with, so I’d like to share a sampling of some of the conversations I had. 

Jessi was one of the first people I spoke with during one of our Mobile Food Markets. She started attending our Mobile Food Markets in the summer of 2022 after her friend told her about We Don’t Waste. Grocery bills had been getting more and more expensive, and with the arrival of her first little one, Declan, her relationship with food changed quickly. She loves to cook, but she was thinking about eating healthily, introducing foods to Declan, and balancing all of this on top of her new responsibilities as a mother. 

“Food is community. And I really believe that! I’m really all about the verse that says “taste and see that the lord is good.” I was thinking about it today, it’s even cool standing in line and seeing people in front of me and behind me. And often, people start talking and sharing their story and what is bringing them here. Maybe I never would have met this person before, but here we are standing in line together. And we have the opportunity to chat about our lives and circumstances, and come together.”

For Manuela, food is one of the things that brings her large family together, quite literally, around a busy dinner table! Manuela prepares three meals a day for her husband, four children, and her grandmother. 

“Food. I’m thinking about it all the time. I’m thinking of it the night before, what am I going to make tomorrow, what am I making for breakfast, dinner? I don’t want to make the same thing over and over. I look up recipes.”

Between taking care of her four kids and her grandmother, she’s got her hands full! Her oldest is 17 years old, and her youngest just hit one year, but they all stick together like glue, with food being one of the things that unites them. She has the kids help with preparation, and she creates meals inspired by her grandmother’s home in Guatemala. 

“Usually, dinner is a big deal. When everyone gets home, we found out how our days went. Usually, Oscar goes to bed pretty early, so we have dinner early, and we just watch TV. The older kids do homework and we stay together.”

Even though money is tight for this family, it’s evident by the stories Manuela tells that her family is even tighter, and meals for them are an important piece of their quality time. 

“Food helps you do everything! Food is going out for adventures, and going out with the kids to have fun! It gets you out the door to do new things.” 

A huge portion of the food We Don’t Waste distributes goes to local nonprofits serving our neighbors in a variety of contexts. I spoke with Jone, who works at the Mariposa House with The Empowerment Program. One of the organization’s services is providing shelter for women who have been victims of domestic abuse, and preparing them with the resources and the skills they need to restart life independently and healthfully. 

Jone was kind enough to show me around the Mariposa House, and guide me through the kitchen and pantry where the food from We Don’t Waste is stored. Each woman has her own cupboard and section of the fridge, and Jone prepares meals for the women to share. 

“Every day I prepare dinner for them, and we all sit down together to eat and talk. We’re really about building a community here. And the women, they love it! Every day they say ‘Miss Jone, what’s for dinner, what are you making?’ and we talk and laugh and have a good time.” 

The women in the house also practice food recovery of their own and save seeds from the produce they receive to grow as much food as they can in the garden. Jone showed me the garden by the side of the kitchen, with some herbs and squash displayed proudly.  

This house was creating a safe space and a family for these women, and Jone was proud to share stories about the women who had recently found full-time work, and were able to transition out of the Mariposa House. She thanked We Don’t Waste profusely while breaking down the ground meat for their spaghetti night. 

“With this food, we can take one less thing off of these women’s minds. They focus on themselves and where they’re going. We are just so grateful for the food you give us.” 

A good meal can be easy to take for granted, but for so many Coloradans, it means so much to have a full plate. This Colorado Gives Day, you can help us provide more recovered food to organizations serving our community, and directly to families and individuals. 

With the match from our friends at CoBank and PB and K Family Foundation, a gift of $50 will provide over 600 meals to families like Manuela and Jessi’s, or will provide two weeks of meals at the Mariposa House. 

We’re getting into the time of year when friends and families start to come together to sit down and enjoy meals together. But, while we gather around a table in gratitude for our food, it is important to be conscious not to produce more food waste. Out of all of the holidays, Thanksgiving is one of the most wasteful days for food waste in America. Around 305 million pounds of food will go uneaten on Thanksgiving day alone. 

Here are some tips to help reduce the amount of waste produced in your home. 

Plan your meals

If you have trouble buying the right ingredients, look up some recipes ahead of time, and plan meals that will feed the number of people you plan to serve. If you stick to a recipe, you will have an easier time using up all of the ingredients you purchased

Buy the correct-sized turkey

You should purchase 1 and a half pounds of turkey per guest, or 8 ounces per person if it is boneless. This should give you enough meat to make sure everyone is satisfied, but not so much that finishing the leftovers is impossible. 

Save the scraps

As you cook, you’re probably chopping off bits and pieces here and there. Save these in an airtight bag to make some delicious and nutritious broths! Use the vegetable bits for a veggie broth and the bones from the turkey to make a bone broth. (Don’t combine your veggie scraps with bones!) Save these in the freezer until you are ready to prepare the broth. The scraps will keep for up to 6 months! These are great recipes if you’ve never tried a bone broth or a veggie broth from scratch before. 

Prepare food with what you have leftover in the kitchen 

No matter how prepared you are with the recipe and food prep, you’ll probably have some food leftover. What do you do with the bag of carrots you have left? Look up recipes based on the ingredients in your pantry with sites like SuperCook and MyFridgeFood.

Save the leftovers

Throughout the year, leftovers are one of the biggest food-waste culprits.  Make sure that you label your leftovers, especially if you have them in an opaque container. It’s also helpful to write the date you prepared the food on the leftovers so that you know what to eat first. Masking tape is great for this. Move these leftovers to the front of the fridge. Play some Tetris if you have to! 

Have a day dedicated to eating your leftovers

Bring them to work with you and eat them for lunch. Get creative with the leftovers. Make the turkey into sandwiches and combine with the cranberry sauce for a tasty treat. Or throw some barbeque sauce on it. If you have a hard time finishing the leftovers because you get bored of the taste, mix it up with other foods! Throw some turkey in the broth you’ve made out of the scraps and prepare a stew. 

Compost the rest

If you’ve got food that’s inedible, or you just can’t finish it and it’s gone bad, the best thing to do is to compost it. By letting food decompose in the correct environment, you are allowing it to break down much quicker and reduce the carbon emissions the rotting process gives off. If composting is new to you, check out our beginner guide on composting. 

Recovered turkeys from grocers during the 2021 holiday season.

Donate the extra to food drives

If you have unopened cans or nonperishable goods you didn’t end up preparing, local food banks would be happy to take it! There are always lots of good options run by local organizations for food drives if you don’t happen to know of any within your community. 

While you celebrate the holidays, consider making a donation to We Don’t Waste to help provide meals for families and individuals experiencing food insecurity. Your gift provides our community with health, strength, and happiness; and the impact is DOUBLED thanks to a gift match! 

You are the special ingredient in improving our community! 

Boo! Is there anything spookier than food waste? We don’t think so. That’s why we’ve compiled some ways to make your upcoming Halloween celebrations more sustainable and waste-free!

1. Use a reusable bag for your trick-or-treating! The classic pillowcase has never gone out of style and can fit a massive amount of candy. 
2. Use eco-friendly alternatives to treats. Use bulk candy in cardboard or cloth reusable bags for your friends. As for the neighborhood kids, individually wrapped candy is definitely the safer way to share food with strangers, but throw in other 10-cent treats like pencils, temporary tattoos, and more if you don’t want to buy the large plastic bags of candy full of many smaller plastic bags!
3. Don’t recycle candy wrappers. Most recycling plants do not accept the plastic wrap and will have to turn away massive loads of recycling if too much of the load isn’t recyclable. It’s best just to put these in the trash to ensure your recycling is actually recycled. 
4. But keep your aluminum! Aluminum foil covering like on Hershey’s kisses can be recycled if clean and clumped into a larger ball. Keep combining the aluminum foil with more aluminum products until it’s about the size of your fist, and it’s good to recycle. 

5. Hosting a party? Save the leftovers and compost the rest. Those trays and trays of spooky treats you made shouldn’t go to waste! Send people home with leftovers, or compost the remaining ghoulish greens. 
6. Use compostable silverware and cups! It will make the clean-up easier, and you don’t have to throw away more plastic. 
7. Prepare for the pumpkin-pocolypse! About 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins end up in the trash at the start of November (which creates a HUGE amount of methane). Here are 46 pumpkin-centric recipes that you can try to use up the remaining pumpkins after the festivities. And don’t forget, compost what you don’t eat (but only if they aren’t painted, acrylic paint doesn’t decompose well). The graveyard of pumpkins will eventually break down into a nutritious treat for your garden or someone else’s if your city has a composting program. 
8. Thrift your costume! Most costumes now are made with a lot of plastic fabrics, and despite costing an arm and a leg, you probably don’t want to wear the costume more than once. Get more bang for your buck by using your creativity and thrifting pieces for your costume. 
9. To build on the last point, donate your costume! You may have worn it three times in one weekend, but your costume will be brand new to someone else.

Yes, you read that right! 

Today September 28th, the White House will gather with hundreds of advocates, educators, health care professionals, lawmakers, cabinet officials and everyday Americans to discuss the state of hunger and food security in the U.S. This conference aims to identify the solutions to hunger and nutrition-related diseases and create clear courses of action on a systemic level and an individual level. 

The hope is that the focus on these issues will be transformational for the systems in place currently, and can lead to the addition of entirely new programs. The first conference that took place over 50 years ago led to the creation of the first major underpinnings of hunger-relief programs that still run today, including: 

• Significant expansion of the National School Lunch Program and the Food Stamp Program (known today as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP),
• Permanent authorization of the School Breakfast Program,
• Launch of a pilot program that would later become the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and
• The first ever Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

These programs quickly became integral resources for Americans. Over the last 50 years, our federal nutrition assistance programs have grown to serve about one in four Americans each year. For so many Americans, balancing the increasing costs of food, rent (we’re looking at you, Colorado) and utilities leave little room for savings or emergencies when wages remain slower to grow. 

This conference comes after one of the biggest jumps for food costs in one month, with food prices rising 13.5% year-over-year in August according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the largest 12-month increase since 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Recently, the free school lunch program ended across the country, leaving millions of families scrambling to rearrange their budget to cover their children’s additional meals each week. Some 330,000 students, or 37% of total enrollment, were eligible for free or reduced school meals in 2021 across the state. 

This November, the Healthy School Meals For All policy goes up for vote in Colorado. This would reinstate the free school lunch program, and make nutritious meals available to every growing child in our state. Ashley Wheeland, public policy director for Hunger Free Colorado, estimates the program would save struggling Colorado families $78 million a year. Those savings in turn can help them keep up with bills and other needs. With the expiration of the child tax credit and other pandemic-era help, the help is even more desperately needed, she said.

Hunger rates also rose this summer when supply chain interruptions began to impact local grocers. Food insecurity for families with children climbed to 16.21% by July 11, when nearly 1 in 6 families reported sometimes or often not having enough to eat, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the highest since December 2020.

Escalating food prices are eroding the reach of SNAP dollars, which average around $231 per person per month in 2022, according to USDA data, sending more people to food pantries, which are in turn receiving less food from the government. In August 2022, the agency announced a cost-of-living adjustment beginning Oct. 1, increasing maximum monthly SNAP allotments for a family of four from $835 to $939 a month.

So there are a lot of moving pieces, but where does this leave food banks, food recovery agencies, and more? Supply chain issues are still causing issues in stocking our grocery stores, leaving costs inflated and less food available for recovery. And it’s not just individuals who are feeling the squeeze, as food pantries and other hunger-fighting organizations are also spending more on their grocery bill each week. 

If you would like to help, please consider supporting We Don’t Waste. Our vision is that nutritious food will be accessible to all, and with your support, we can make it happen. Let’s do this!

Get involved as a volunteer, and see the impact your time can make on your community. Donate once or give monthly, and you can help us provide countless meals to our neighbors. 

If you can’t prepare your veggies before they spoil, try blanching them to freeze them in time! What is blanching? It’s the process of rapidly heating and cooling fresh foods to prep them for extended stays in your freezer. 

The benefits of blanching food, instead of just throwing it in the freezer, are numerous! The process helps prevent enzyme breakdown, preserving the flavor and texture of the fruits and veggies you love. In addition, it cleans and disinfects the food by killing microorganisms on the surface to keep the food fresher, longer. Most importantly, it also helps keep the nutritious value of the food intact and prevents the breakdown of essential vitamins and minerals we love in our veggies. 

So what can you blanche? Pretty much any vegetable will benefit from the blanching process. Tender leaves will wilt while blanching, and some vegetables (broccoli, asparagus) will soften, but don’t worry, they will perk right up after thawing and cooking. 

It is a delicate process but gets easier with practice. Under-blanching stimulates enzyme activity (which defeats the purpose of blanching), while over-blanching leads to partial cooking and causes loss of flavor, color, vitamins, and minerals.

The best thing to do is to follow the instructions below, and pay close attention to the time the vegetable spends being blanched. By keeping an eye on the timer you can prevent both under-blanching or cooking the food!

Try it out using these instructions:

1. Use a blancher with a blanching basket, fry basket, or a strainer (be sure to use oven mitts if you don’t have a handle to use), or fit a wire basket into a large pot with a lid.
2. Use one gallon of water per pound of prepared vegetables.
3. Put vegetable in blanching basket and lower into vigorously boiling water. Place lid on blancher. The water should return to boiling within 1 minute, (if it doesn’t, too much vegetable is being used for the amount of boiling water).
4. Start counting blanching time as soon as the water returns to a boil.
5. Keep heat high for the time given in the directions for the vegetable you are freezing.
6. Immediately plunge basket of vegetables into a large quantity of cold water, 60ºF or below.
7. Change water frequently or use cold running water or ice water. If ice is used, about one pound of ice for each pound of vegetable is needed.
8. Cooling vegetables should take the same amount of time as blanching.
9. Drain vegetables thoroughly after cooling. Extra moisture can cause loss of quality when vegetables are frozen.

To steam blanch the vegetables, simply keep them above the boiling water instead of submerging them by using a taller pot. Check out the graphic below to see some example times for some commonly used vegetables that are easy to blanch!

Blanching your vegetables before freezing them is not always necessary, but it can help extend shelf life, flavor and texture! The most important thing to remember is just to use up as much food as you can. The less food that ends up in the trash can, the less money you’ve wasted on uneaten groceries, and the less carbon impact is created by food waste! 
There are lots of other ways to reduce waste in your kitchen. Check out How to Reduce Waste with Kids and our Top 10 Ways to Improve Food Storage. Are you curious about how much food waste you are actually producing at home? Check out We Don’t Waste’s At-Home Food Waste Audit and see what foods are commonly going to waste in your kitchen!

Last year, we shared our seven essential reads on food systems covering many different aspects of food systems and food cultures. This year we have an updated collection of books for you to add to your summer reading list! Whether you’re interested in growing food, cooking it, eating it, or just learning more about food and all of the many ways it plays into our lives, we’ve got something for you!

Retail Inequality by Kenneth H. Kolb

We Don’t Waste in the business of making sure everyone, no matter their background, has equal access to nutritious food. For us, that means we provide free food to communities across Denver in areas considered to be “food deserts” or “food apartheids.” These are neighborhoods that lack multiple options for affordable, nutritious food. “Food apartheid” addresses the nature of intentional scarcity by the strategic placement of retail stores and whole-food markets in wealthy neighborhoods. Kolb takes a deep dive into two neighborhoods in Greenville, South Carolina, that have spent decades without access to nutritious food, and how the retail and food industry, and even public policy, contribute to the unequal access present in these communities. 

Foodtopia by Margot Anne Kelley

Food isn’t just about nutrition and survival, but is also intrinsically tied to our lifestyle. Throughout America’s industrial and capitalistic history, there have continually been surges of the “back of the yard” counterculture movement. Through gardens, homesteads, and moving out to land far from the city centers, Kelley covers 5 groups—from the 1840s up through the COVID-19 pandemic—that have taken food production into their own hands in a form of radical self-sustenance. Fueled by the drive for furthering the sustainability of our land and water resources, racial equity, anti-consumerism, and control of their health through food, these groups found independence and their own “Foodtopias” in their backyard. 

To Boldly Grow by Tamar Haspel

Part memoir and part how-to guide, self-proclaimed “crappy gardener” Haspel shares the story of how she and her husband decided to reclaim their diets by growing their own food, keeping chickens, fishing, and even going out into the woods to forage for mushrooms, root bulbs, and anything else they find that is edible! Haspel’s goal is to prove that going out and making food or finding it ourselves really isn’t as difficult as it’s made out to be, as she shared her stories of triumph in MacGyvering harvesting tools, and by sharing the spectacular failures that ruined Thanksgiving dinner. In the end, Haspel discovers how the way we interact with and consume our food can change the way we think about our food—and even ourselves.

Getting Something to Eat in Jackson by Joseph C. Edwoozie, Jr. 

Edwoozie, Jr. takes a deep dive into the way “foodways”—food availability, choice, and consumption—are changing in Jackson, Mississippi, and how the changing culture surrounding race is impacting food culture, and vice versa. Historically, food in Jackson had been a unifying force for Black Jacksonians in Mississippi, but as Edwoozie, Jr. discovers, the way people consume food has changed because of the existence of food deserts, the perception and reality of class differences, and how vegetarianism and veganism as a way to address health outcomes have all but displaced the traditional culture of “soul food” in the urban south. Edwoozie, Jr. spends a year following a diverse socioeconomic array of Jacksonians and discovers the habits and trends of the modern food culture and how it reflects societal changes in the area. 

I Am From Here by Viswath Bhatt

There are few things more comforting than a home-cooked meal, and for Bhatt, this would be a combination of American Southern food and traditional Indian cuisine. Bhatt has been the executive chef of the Snackbar in Oxford, Mississippi since 2009, earning him Best Chef: South (2019 James Beard Awards) and induction into the Fellowship of Southern Farmers, Artisans, and Chefs in 2022. This collection of stories and instruction includes over 130 recipes inviting you to grill, fry, and boil your way into a more delicious dinner evoking the flavors of an evolving southern cuisine. 

What Your Food Ate by David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé

When you think of the quality and the health benefits of the meat you eat, you’re also probably thinking about the things that animal was eating while it was alive. Montgomery and Bilke argue that the same standard should be applied to the plants we eat as well! Combining multiple scientific disciplines and weaving them into one cohesive story, Montgomery and Bilke show how the health of our soil has a direct impact on the quality of the food we consume and the health of humans as a whole. Can we produce enough quantity and quality food? We’ve got to heal the sick soil to do that, and the results of this could help reverse the modern epidemic of chronic diseases and mitigate climate change. 

The Regenerative Garden by Stephanie Rose

Discover how you can work with nature, as opposed to against it, by employing permaculture techniques in your garden. Through 80 different DIY projects, you can explore how to make your garden more eco-conscious and more resilient. Whether you’re working with an acre, a small raised bed, growing a grove of trees, or a single tomato plant, there are plenty of tricks and habits for you to implement to make permaculture accessible and working hard for your garden. 

Iwigara by Enrique Salmón

The belief that all life-forms are interconnected and share the same breath—known in the Rarámuri tribe as iwígara—has resulted in a treasury of knowledge about the natural world, passed down for millennia by native cultures. Ethnobotanist Enrique Salmón builds on this concept of connection and highlights 80 plants revered by North America’s indigenous peoples. Salmón teaches us the ways plants are used as food and medicine, the details of their identification and harvest, and their important health benefits, plus their role in traditional stories and myths. 

How We Eat by Paco Underhill

In this upbeat and witty approach, How We Eat reveals the future of food in surprising ways. Go to the heart of New York City, where a popular farmer’s market signifies how the city is getting country-fied, or to cool Brooklyn neighborhoods with rooftop farms. Explore the dreaded supermarket parking lot as the hub of innovation for grocery stores’ futures, or how marijuana farmers, who have been using artificial light to grow a crop for years, have developed a playbook on indoor farming for mainstream merchants like Walmart and farmers across the world. In How We Eat, Underhill shows how food intersects with every major battle we face today, from political and environmental to economic and racial, and invites you to the market to discover more.

Recovered food is sourced from countless businesses, and is donated for equally as many reasons. Some food comes from the excess that is produced intentionally to cover customer satisfaction in the event of an exchange or return. Other food items get caught in traffic during transit and arrive too late for grocers to meet the “sell-by” date. What is common across the country and throughout the entire food industry is the immense amount of food that never makes it to people’s dinner plates. 

The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act was passed in 1996 to shield food donors from criminal and civil liability, and as a result, encourage more food donations. The burden of food safety is transferred to the nonprofits and organizations receiving the food, and businesses are free to decide what food they donate. 

It seems counterintuitive, but the Act is regularly cited by businesses as the reason they choose not to donate food. Something has to change when the Act that is meant to protect donors becomes a confusing and discouraging hurdle. 

This is where the new, proposed Food Donation Improvement Act comes into play. It would update the 1996 Act, making it easier for people to donate food and to feel more comfortable with the process. The current Act does not have a specific agency in charge of clarifying the details, nor does it explicitly address many of the common circumstances in which a business or farm might donate food. Many business owners find the vague language concerning, and don’t have an immediate or official source of guidance.

The update would require the USDA to release regulations clarifying the protections that exist, the businesses and agencies that can donate, and which businesses (nonprofits, schools, food banks, etc.) they can donate food to. 

In addition to the clarification, it would also extend liability protection to food businesses and farms that want to donate food directly to people in need without going through a registered nonprofit. A restaurant shut down by the pandemic that wants to serve community meals would be protected, as would a school that wants to send surplus food from meal programs home with low-income families. Finally, it would also cover organizations and companies that want to take surplus food and sell it at a very low cost—such as nonprofit grocery stores that accept donations.

The response to the Food Donation Improvement Act has been overwhelmingly positive from lawmakers and policy experts, with the sentiment being that making food donation easier is just common sense. It is a straightforward way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a national scale and will increase food access as well. 

And while activists acknowledge that the bill alone will not solve hunger, it represents an important step in reducing food insecurity and protecting the environment. Chef and advocate Tom Colicchio also argues that preventing food waste is a matter of showing respect for the food that nourishes eaters and the workers who produce it. By wasting food, he says, “we’re devaluing not just the food, but we’re devaluing the people who are responsible for feeding us.”

We Don’t Waste has signed the petition in support of this act, as it directly aligns with our goal of using food recovery and distribution as a means to support our environment and increase food access in our communities. To learn more and support this initiative, sign the petition here.