Category Archives: Food Waste

Mitigating Food Waste in the University District

Over the course of our Action Project, I learned many new skills and had experiences that enriched my learning and outlook on the topic of food insecurity. Each group member was tasked with contacting local restaurants and grocery stores to inquire about excess food that could be donated to local shelters that would otherwise be thrown out. In retrospect, I… Read more »

Complications with Food Waste

Our group project was focused around food waste reduction. We decided to connect a restaurant with a shelter to donate food and therefore reduce their food waste at the end of the evening. The ultimate goal was to connect a restaurant with a shelter and start a continuous relationship, but we weren’t able to make that happen beyond the few… Read more »

Local Solutions to Food Waste

My group’s action project on food waste ended up (after a bit of re-calibrating) being the creation of a website to spread awareness of how much food goes to waste, and the effects of this waste. We also focused on a few groups that are doing their part in reducing food waste – Imperfect Produce, and UW Campus Sustainability funded… Read more »

Imperfect Produce in Action

What is food and how is it part of a larger system? This is the question that we have been learning about all quarter long and what my action project group decided to explore through food waste. Before I took on this project food as waste was merely the cuisine that I was unable to finish at the dinner table. I had… Read more »

Food Waste: Uneaten Matters

Throughout this course, I have learned so much about how the food system correlates and intersects with politics and overall it was super interesting to learn about. Through my group’s action project on food waste, I have learned that the U.S “wastes, or loses, anywhere between 33 and 50% of all food that is produced annually (Carolan, 126). This is… Read more »

Food Conscientiousness Can Reduce Food Waste

Food waste is an on-going affair that plagues all parties involved with the food system in either a direct or in-direct manner. My group’s interest in food waste arose when we heard the stat that 15% reduction in food waste could feed 25 million more Americans each year. To put that into another context, that means that food insecurity in… Read more »

Taking Action Against Food Insecurity

Food insecurity is an issue that plagues most of the impoverished people of the world today (HDCs included). Due to this, I decided to join with 4 other individuals in combating food insecurity. The main objectives of our group were simple: find stores or restaurants which would normally throw away extra food, and use that food to create a shared… Read more »

Wasteland: Apples in the context of a linear model of industrial production

(see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/19/the-apple-industrys-strange-savior/ for image cred) For our project, we chose the topic of food waste, and in particular apples in the Seattle area. We made a children’s game inspired by Candyland that showed the (linear) path an apple makes as it is grown, shipped, stocked, and eventually eaten by consumers. We called it “Wasteland.” It is mostly geared toward waste on… Read more »

Putting the Present Second – A Contemplative Practice

Why are we as human beings obsessed with the idea of making the most out of the present? There are numerous idioms about “living in the moment” and “making the most out of your time” that convey warm sentiments, but as a society we’ve taken them too literally. In fact, we’re “living in the moment” so much that there might… Read more »