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This article conflates "clean your plate" with taking actionable steps to minimize food waste where you have mid-level influence. To steel man the author's arguments, the large, systemic food issues in the United States will not be solved merely by trying to keep food from spoiling in your home. Corporations trying to shame people for wasting food is the same as them shaming us for littering, when its the system that sells single use plastic that is to blame. But lets get past the author's dismissal of books and studies, and talk about what actual, motivated humans are doing to effect change. There are currently student groups across the US at universities who have advocated with their dining service providers to create a pipeline where in excess food from the dining service is packaged in food safe containers, brought to food rescue organizations, and then fed to people in need. This isnt "cast off" food either, its high quality prepared food. In the city I live in my spouse has started working with a local school district to get them to take the excess meals from school lunches, package it, and then allow school children to take it home. If you work at a company that has a cafeteria, there is a decent chance that the food service provider is already competing for the contract on not just the basis of cost, but on the steps they are taking to minimize food waste. That comes from just better planning, but also from the hierarchy of feeding first people, then animals, and then composting when it comes to excess food. You dont have to try to solve poverty in the US, or fix the entire system, to make actionable change. Connecting the right people, and providing the right training, could be all it takes to have your job start directing a few hundred meals a week to people in need in your own community. Source - Spouse co-founded a national organization to redirect food waste in colleges across the nation |