Trash or Treasure? Repurpose Would-Be Wasted Food to Feed the Hungry & Create Jobs

If I offered you a brown banana at the end of a buffet line, you probably wouldn’t be interested. But what if I offered you some banana ice cream on a hot summer day? I bet you’d find that a lot more appealing. And what if that “ice cream,” was just pureed frozen bananas—handled well, at peak ripeness and nutrient quality—with no added ingredients and requiring minimal labor.
It was this simple observation that inspired a new model, called the FSSM, Food System-Sensitive Methodology, for recovering would-be wasted – or surplus – food and repurposing it to feed hungry people, generate revenue and even create jobs. The model was recently piloted in West Philadelphia, home to a large population of low-income and food insecure individuals.
Along with me, culinary arts senior Ally Zeitz from Drexel University, nutritional anthropologist Sol Katz from the University of Pennsylvania, communications professor Cathy Yungmann from Cabrini College and Tom O’Donnell from the US Environmental Protection Agency, published our results in the journal Food and Nutrition Science. The report also projects the amount of food that could be saved if the program was replicated nationally.
Roughly one third of all global food gets wasted, anywhere along the chain from on-farm to on plate. In the United States, that number is even higher, with nearly 40 percent of all food going to waste, making it one of the most wasteful countries in the world.
Supermarkets – where fresh produce...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - September 3, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Food Nutrition Source Type: blogs