Hacking Our Wasteful Food System—for Fun and Profit

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I have a couple of friends who always eat about half of whatever they order and leave the rest. It seems like their way of controlling their portions, or they just get bored – because they never take any of it home. It just goes in the trash, like $200 billion worth of wasted food in the U.S. every year. I fantasize introducing them to the team over at Misfit Juicery, who proudly make premium juices with discarded and misshapen fruit and veggies.

Like a bunch of new trendy food startups, Misfit is painting wasteful perfectionists as sadly outdated and out-of-touch, (which would probably be a surprise to my hip friends who like to over-order).  In fact, there is a burgeoning movement in the food world to outsmart the old “leftovers” system, which can be pretty fun once you get into the spirit. For instance, you can see what I posted earlier about beer made with old bread.

Now big business is getting into the act, such as a recipe contest from Quaker Oats that encourages us to make soup stock with rescued food like onion and garlic skins.  Good idea, but not exactly earth-shattering. On the beverage front, AB InBev, which sells Bud Light, is funding the startup that just  launched Canvas barley smoothies, made with the spent grain that breweries used to dump. (For more details, see my article.)  

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Most recently, the heirs to the Walmart chain decided to pump money into FoodMaven, a Colorado startup that finds buyers for edible food that has been rejected by stores and restaurants.

As for you and me, we can remember that unwanted food is bad for Mother Earth. It squanders an enormous amount of water and releases a ridiculous volume of unnecessary greenhouse emissions. So it would be a cool idea to mimic what some indie grocery markets are now doing  -- stashing surplus veggies, sauces, noodles, nuts, bread and, yes, even carrot and onion peels in the freezer. Then using them later in dazzling soups and maybe even a grandmotherly pudding.

 Here’s a start—a hearty, healthy recipe for bread and fruit leftovers that I adapted from Decadent Creations, a custom-order bakery in Hillsboro, Oregon.

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1/2 lb. bread

3 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cup milk (can be almond or soy milk if you prefer)

1-1/2 cup fruit (frozen or fresh, can be berries, bananas or whatever combination you have)

 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Chop the bread into 1-inch cubes. Set aside.

Mix egg, sugar, milk and vanilla.

Toss the bread cubes in the egg mixture until fully moistened.

Put the bread and egg combination into a baking dish and top with the fruit.

Cover dish with foil. Cook for 25 minutes. Remove foil and cook for additional 25 minutes.

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Perfect with coffee or ginger tea 

(photos from Unsplash: Henrique Felix (top), Caroline Attwood)