Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story (2014) - full transcript

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I don't think we're foodies.

I think we're more like food

fans, you know, at parties I'm

always the one that's hovering

over the snack table.

And even when I was a kid, I

remember going to my friends'



houses and opening their fridge

and taking food out of there.

As a kid, I was more had a

problem with rationing
than anything.

You can see that even though

I've got my own candy, I'm

looking at his going,
that would be nice.

My mom thinks I'm looking at my

brother, admiring my brother,

but I know for sure that I'm

admiring his candy
in this photo.

I've read a couple news articles

now that we're wasting
40% of our food.

My question is, if that much



food is being wasted, how much

of it is still good
and can I eat it?

I was looking at various

metrics for sustainable

agriculture in the fruit and

vegetable industry.

And I started coming across

these numbers about how much is

being wasted.

And here we were trying to get

farmers to be just a little bit

more efficient with their water

and just a little bit more

efficient with their
fertilizer use.

And yet, on the other hand, 40%

of the food is not
actually being eaten.

And I just thought, how is

nobody talking about this?

So 40% of everything raised

or grown is not,
in fact, eating.

Globally, about one-third of all

the food produced
is not consumed.

It's very scattered
throughout the system.

And it makes it hard to point a

finger and it also
makes it hard to see.

If we're wasting a fourth of

the world's food supply and we

need to increase food

availability where it's needed,

cutting the food waste is one

really quite simple
place to start.

Tomorrow, we start living off

discarded food.

Tonight for our last supper,

we're having all you can eat.

This has wasted food subject

to extra charge.

So anything expired
or already wasted.

Yeah.

Meaning that they
-- oh, my goodness.

I have to go dumpster diving on

my lunch break if I
forget my lunch.

don't forget your lurch.

Can I just picture your boss

seeing you, Jenny,
everything okay?

We're super lucky.

My brother is moving.

He's clearing out his fridge and

it looks like we're getting our

first food score.

Oh, my goodness!

Why weren't you guys eating this

the last couple of days?

We're going to take them.

Well, yeah, you should
take most of it.

No, just take what you think

you're not going to want.

Okay.

You have it.

It's fine.

That will keep.

No, no, no.

Are you sure?

Yes.

It's been in there forever.

Sour cream we don't want.

You can have that.

I hate this.

don't want that.

That's probably done.

Garbage.

Black beans from the other day.

Do you want those?

You're going to
keep that, right?

Oh, and a nice red onion.

This is fine.

You can have that one.

Chili or spaghetti sauce.

You can probably take this one.

Thanks for shopping the a

Nicholas's fridge.

You go shopping, you're busy,

you forget what you have, right?

It's a chore.

You have to go back in your

fridge, find what you have and

figure out what you need to make

a meal off that and go shopping.

And the reality is you're out

shopping and busy and you're

like, what should
we have for dinner?

Let's get this.

Fill it up, right?

Just keep piling up this

collection of stuff
in the fridge.

I have some of it and I'm like,

i don't want that.

Do I really want leftoveres from

last night?

Nothing wrong with the food.

Probably going to taste okay.

But I had it last night.

We have enough men to buy a

whole brand new meal, right?

Part of it is just
a wealthy society.

Not bad.

This is a small one.

That's good.

That would have been -- because

usually like a full
bag, good job, guys.

We fill our refrigerators to

the point that we couldn't

possibly use everything
before it goes bad.

There was a study in New York.

They looked at all the food

waste in one county and the most

waste came from households.

More than from restaurants, more

than from supermarkets, more

than from farms.

In our household, we're

wasting somewhere between 16%

and 25% of the food
that we're buying.

That's expensive.

Imagine walking out of a grocery

store with four bags of

groceries, dropping one in the

parking lot and just not

bothering to pick it up.

That's essentially what we're

doing in our homes today.

♪♪

thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good day.

You all, too.

What do you have for
calls ride now?

So this.

Okay.

So this one I knew it

wouldn't sell when I
put it out, right?

It has this bulb
because it rained.

You get an abnormal formation

when it rained.

I knew it wouldn't sell.

That's why I'm going
to give it to you.

You guys can totally take all

this and take all the chard.

You'll use this, won't you?

No.

This is a lot of greens.

Okay.

Let's stop.

I'm going to give you ten bucks.

Sure.

That's probably too much.

My wife and I operate
Ice Cap Organics.

We sell mostly to farmer's

markets and the local CSA.

We've been doing
it for five years.

We're all vegetables and that's

what we do for a living.

This is what I had and there

was an hour left in the market.

That one bunch of chards would

sit there and no
one would buy it.

But if I had 30 bunches bursting

out, I'd probably sell
like 25 of those.

What does that say?

People are totally
impulse shopping.

And they think if there's one

left that there's
something wrong with it.

People are always looking a lot

for value and for
aesthetic appeal.

I think a lot of it has to do

with people assuming that what

looks better tastes better.

The farmer's market has more

people that are open to trying

things that look different and

that's kind of nice.

But still, overall, there can be

a lot of good crop at a market

that won't get sold if it has a

slight blemish or something is

wrong with it aesthetically.

Not every apple grows

perfectly red and perfectly

round on a tree.

When we expect that going into a

store, we're driving waste up.

Stores are very careful to

have their produce
sections look beautiful.

And they don't want to ruin

their image by having something

like a bargain shelf or products

that don't look perfect.

I went to the plantation and

after one day of harvest on a

single plantation, there was a

truckload of bananas
being wasted.

And those were being wasted

solely on the basis of
aesthetic standards.

For European super markets,

those markets tell you what

diameter, length, curvature, all

of those parameters have to be

exactly right for that super

market's bananas.

It is deeply shocking what you

see mountains, concentrated

mountains of food being wasted.

It's something that every time I

see, I still get shocked by it.

We're a very large operation

for our commodity, which are

peaches, plums and nectarines.

To put it into perspective, I

probably produce -- for peaches,

about a third as many peaches as

the state of Georgia does.

We have greaters sorting out

the fruit that is not going to

go into a box.

You know, they're looking for

scars like this that you and I

could cut that off right
there and eat it.

But unfortunately, they don't

want it in the box.

A lot of it is about appearance.

This is edible, but it's not

edible to the super market.

They have state standards.

They have, you know, the usda or

federal state standards for

product, but the retailer

standards far exceed that which

is placed on us by the state.

The amount of fruit that's

left either in the field or is

discarded after it gets from the

packing house I've
seen as high at 70%.

The least I've seen is 20% that

gets thrown away for a lot of

times no reason that a consumer

would think would be practical.

I'll call up the food bank

and say I can get you an extra

load this week because we're

throwing away perfectly good

fruit with nothing
wrong with it.

There's just no market for it.

We donate a lot of fruit to

the California food bank but

they do not have the

infrastructure to manage the

amount of fruit that we could

possibly give them.

A jam and jelly company will

take a little bit of it, but

there is so much of it that gets

thrown away.

As a grower, that's
heartbreaking.

When you grow the fruit and

there's nothing wrong with it

and you can't sell
it, that bothers me.

So here is a whole celery plant.

On the heart machine, the heart

machine will cut the heart to

length, more or less like that.

And then the crews
will drop that.

And there's your heart.

Look at all this.

We have to peel a certain amount

of stalks off so they
can fit in the bag.

You know, you saw me, that's one

square foot and I got probably

two pounds of product right

there, you know?

A little bit of peanut butter

and some raisins, you've got

ants on a log, right?

Except they're
perfectly good stalks.

None of us are fans of the waste

that we get, you know, because

obviously there's a lot
of good stuff here.

You could dice up, put in soups

and we've tried, it didn't even

pay for the labor that it costs

to pick it up.

So, obviously, it
wasn't feasible.

We have this abundance.

Part of being a host is having

more than plenty of food

available to someone.

If you've ever been in that

situation where you have people

over and completely run out of

food at the end of the meal,

there's this odd sense that you

have failed as a host.

Basic general rule of thumb

when you're a chef and you're

working in a kitchen, don't ever

run out of food.

Ever.

Some guests really like that

plentifulness of a buffet,

whenever we have guests at our

hotel that dine with us quite

frequently that tell us not to

have a lot of food, that they

want us to be very selective in

what we're putting out and

making sure that we're managing

the food because they don't want

to see that waste.

Every job at work is
to organize events.

And we always have catering.

And I become so conscious of the

food waste.

And we had this event today and

it was so frustrating.

We were working with another

organization, a big event and it

was like 200 people.

Usually we order 75% of what

there's going to be.

The but they were so paranoid of

not having enough food.

They said that would be the most

embarrassing thing possible.

We ended up ordering food for

190 people when we thought we

would have 200.

And we have an unbelievable

amount of leftovers.

She even used the analogy when

we were discussing this.

She said if you had someone over

to your house, just had enough

food, that would
be embarrassing.

And I was like, I don't think

that would be embarrassing.

I think that would be awesome.

Things are going to get

harder now because I just

realized we're running lower on

cooking oil.

We're -- we've still
got some flour.

We're out of sugar.

We're out of honey, any
sort of sweetener.

I'm fatigued with this project.

I don't want to
do this any more.

It's not fun.

The point of the project is

not about maintain ago certain

happiness or comfort level.

It's about proving that there's

food being thrown away.

Yeah, but --
this is not a lifestyle that

i want to continue.

Then let's stop.

I don't want to stop because

we haven't proved anything yet.

One month, six months, why

don't you do it for
ten years, then?

No.

I'm --
because it's ridiculous.

The last time I came to this

place, I was in there and I was

rooting around the bin and the

owner was closing up, I guess,

and threw some garbage on top of

me and he was like,
oh, I'm sorry.

I was like, oh -- like I was so

-- no one was supposed to know.

You never told me that.

I know.

I just felt really embarrassed.

But I was like, in his bin, and

then he felt really sad is for

me, probably, like I just threw

garbage on a bum.

That was the lowest point.

You know what?

I didn't even get anything good

that night, either.

Wasting food is not taboo.

It's one of the last things you

can do, one of the last

environmental ills that you can

just get away with.

You know, if you were walking

down the street and had a can of

soda, you couldn't find the

trash can and you were just

going to throw it on the ground,

that is the ultimate sin in many

places, littering.

And you could actually be fined

for doing that.

Same thing with not recycling,

something that in many places

could get you in trouble.

But throwing away food
is perfectly fine.

Wasting food is not only

widespread, but it's condoned.

So the last time we were asked

to not waste food was
during world war ii.

And there was this sense that we

had to sacrifice for the good of

the country, for the war effort.

Here, we have an ordinary

loaf of home made bread.

Watch closely.

Imagine that.

All of the bread disappearing

before our very eyes.

Watch this.

There, madam, is the amount of

bread that you cause to

disappear every week.

You must be crazy.

There isn't that much
bread in the world.

There's that much bread he

week for household waste.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is

a horrifying fact.

And there was posters, food

is a weapon, don't waste it.

And all sorts of propaganda to

encourage the public
not to waste food.

Since that time, it's
been the opposite.

Food became more plentiful.

All of a sudden we did start to

see much more abundant
and cheaper food.

Our notion of what's a

reasonable amount of food to eat

has changed.

This idea of larger portions is

seeping into our households and

now we're serving our friends

and family too much food.

The Joy of cooking is that

venerble cookbook that has been

around for ages.

Many of the recipes have stayed

the same, but number of people

that it serves has changed.

You'll have the same recipe from

20 or 30 years ago and in the

current version it's only

feeding two people instead of

four or maybe it's four people

instead of six.

The average cookie has

quadrupled in calories
since the mid '80s.

And we're looking at larger

portions of almost
everything we're eating.

It happens all the time at

restaurants where we've given so

much food that we can overeat or

waste food and in some cases you

can actually do both.

My grand dad never
wasted anything.

He obviously grew up through

that time where people were more

conservative through world war

ii or whatnot.

And we used to kind of laugh

behind his back because he would

always reuse his tea bag.

I swear that he would use it for

days on end.

And at the time I was taught

that that was really -- I

thought it was ridiculous.

Like, get a new tea bag.

And he was pretty much like that

with everything.

If he had any left overs, even

like two spoonfuls left and he

couldn't finish it, he would put

that in the container
in the fridge.

And he would eat it.

It wasn't just putting leftovers

in the fridge and
leaving it there.

He would finish them.

What I used to think was funny

about what he did.

I now find it sort of inspiring.

We've had almost no luck

finding food at the
grocery stores.

They're almost always locked

bins or they're compactors.

Now would he be looking a little

bit further up the supply chain

in wholesale areas, a little

further out of the city.

Holy cow.

There's so many vanilla.

Hurry up.

A drolnut treat.

I think it's fascinating.

I -- I'm starting to enjoy this.

You think people do this, videos

and photos and stuff, but I

didn't actually believe that

this is how much one could find.

I thought we were going
to be struggling.

♪♪

you're not starving?

We're not starving.

It's always a lot of one or two

things and there's never -- we

never sort of have a variety.

Like we're over here to see

family and I don't want to spend

my whole time, like, driving

around looking for food.

It's ridiculous.

And the other thing is, your mom

just asked us to pick up two

liters of milk so I'm going to

pick up two liters
of milk for her.

That's for her.

We're not using it.

We said that if we go over to

someone's house we can eat their

food so we can alleviate that

stress of making everybody feel

uncomfortable.

But we didn't take into account

like when we go away
for an entire weekend.

We can't just go to someone's

house and eat everything
that they have.

We can't drive around a strange

city to try to find some food.

We're trying to do it now and

it's not working out very well.

I don't know whether there's

even anything in there.

Is there any way that I could

look at the stuff you've pulled

today and buy some of it?

Possibly.

Oh, that's great.

Sweet.

Okay.

They're just dated.

We have to throw them out three

days before.

Should we go two, salads?

Yeah.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thanks.

That's cool.

Ask them.

Is that culled stuff?

At the bottom of the rack?

We're not allowed
to sell that, no.

Because we're known for the

highest quality.

Like those bananas
look totally good.

I'm just trying to do my job.

I know you totally are.

Can I buy those bananas?

Yeah, if you want
to buy the bananas.

That looks perfect.

Awesome.

Okay.

I'm not going to ask for a deal.

I'd rather not draw
attention to it.

And the food is
perfectly good, anyway.

Oh, my god.

Look at this.

Oh, my god.

It's the mother lode!

Okay, everybody is working on a

photo shoot for a pizza chain.

So they're shooting
all this food.

Let's see what he says.

Precooked bacon, chicken,

sausages, mushrooms.

Chicken.

Okay.

Let's go.

What's going on?

You go down there
and to the left.

Keep going straight.

You're going to find
a green dumpster.

Check out what it's
got in store for you.

I don't even know what
your game is, but --

we're trying to survive off

of food waste right now.

Really?

Yeah.

You're going to hit the

jackpot pretty soon here.

It was in the
fridge all weekend.

Oh, okay.

Food styling is really

interesting because, like,

anytime you see a picture of

food in an ad or in a

commercial, somebody has spent

hours preparing it and making it

look just right and choosing the

right tomatoes and the right

piece of meat and the right

pepperoni to make it look really

appetizing.

You want us to take all of it?

Yeah.

We'll put it in the freezer.

What are you going to do with

this many bacon bits?

That's gross.

We don't even eat bacon.

We'll add it to other things.

We don't have
anywhere to put it.

You get these tomatoes, they

have a couple of days on them.

Everything in our fridge only

has a couple of days and our

whole fridge is full of stuff

that needs be eaten tomorrow.

I'll start to make a list of

things that need eaten and it's

way more food than
we can possibly eat.

When we grow food, we start

with the soil and some sunlight.

The plants grow.

We harvest.

We take them into
the pack house.

We'll sort the one that's fit

the standards of the super

market that is providing and a

lot of that food is wasted at

the last stage.

Then, through distribution, it

will have to survive a long

journey to wherever the shop is.

It might sit on a shelf and some

of the food might be wasted.

Then the consumers come and

pick their favorites.

There's your winner.

It makes it home.

Who knows what
happens to it then.

♪♪

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well, you call my name ♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

well, you call my name ♪

♪ as you walk on by
will you call my name ♪

♪ when you walk away will you

call my name ♪

♪ I say la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ la, la, la, la la,
la, la, la, la, la ♪

♪ la, la, la, la
la, la, la, la ♪

when we fail to eat it, what we

have failed is an entire in

itself is almost wasteful.

All of that has been wasted.

This is my favorite
day of the project.

This is my favorite
day of the project.

I found some chocolate.

And I found quite a bit of it.

Is it expired or something?

Not for a year.

What?

I wonder if they're recalled.

Barbecues.

Not on the list.

Not even expired.

So if they weren't on the

federal recall list and they're

not past date, then I'd say

they're thrown out because they

don't have French writing on

them, French labelling.

Well, at the beginning,
we had four eggs.

Two for Grant and two for me.

And, of course, he ate his right

away but I've been rationing

mine because I didn't know when

we were going to
find eggs again.

I've been saving them because I

didn't know if we were going to

need something special.

I've been going to the grocery

store and trying to find all the

ones with the cracked eggs.

I'm willing to buy the ones that

are imperfect.

I haven't found any, though.

But as of today, I'd say we

don't have to ration any more.

Grant found tons of eggs in a

wholesale dumpster and they

still have a few
weeks on the date.

Actually, I think we're going to

have the opposite problem now.

Now we have so many eggs it's

like a race to eat the eggs.

We've been putting them in a

glass of water to make sure that

they sink because that means

that the eggs are good to eat.

But that's still a lot of eggs

for two people.

♪♪

our farm and all the farms

that are like ours, when we have

a lot of stuff leftover or if a

crop doesn't work out, it's not

such a big deal.

It's a loss of time and money,

but it's not waste as such

because we still use it.

We compost it and put it back

into the dirt and it's really

valuable for us.

It's to the point where we

actually buy compost.

Having compost on the farm is

also really valuable.

Zucchini is always a good

example because it -- it

produces so much at its peak

production time that in the

shorter seasons, it's barely

keeping up to demand.

And then once it really ramps up

and starts producing the maximum

amount, it triples the
amount of demand.

If we grew less zucchini, then

we would have less zucchini

waste, but then we wouldn't be

able to meet demand in the early

summer and spring and then in

the later summer when
things cool down.

We sell right to the people that

are eating the food.

So there's actually very little

opportunity for the
food to go bad.

We harvest on Friday.

We sell it on Saturday.

Well, it's going to last for two

weeks in your crisper.

So you're going to have a lot

more opportunity to
use that vegetable.

It tends to be 14 to 16 hours a

day, seven days a week, during

the harvest season.

Our harvest season is condensed

in this part of the world, so we

really have to go for it when

things are yielding, to put

enough away for the
winter to survive.

♪♪

abundance is the success

story of the human species.

You look back to the creation of

agriculture, 10,000, 12,000

years ago, that was all about

creating surplus, creating more

food than you need at any

individual moment.

That allows you to store food

over the winter.

It allows you to store food in

case there's a bad harvest.

It allows you to trade food, to

have feasts, which is a really

important part of human society.

Those are wonderful things.

And in the past, if you had even

more surplus than you could

possibly use, maybe it didn't

matter so much.

The problem is now that all the

rich countries n world in north

America and northern Europe have

about 250% of the food that they

actually need.

People think that environmental

problems are about smokestacks,

about roads, about factories,

about cities and concrete.

And for sure, those
are significant.

But if you look at the earth and

the sky, what do you see?

It's fields.

And it is there that we have had

the biggest impact.

Wasting a third of the land in

all of that energy that we

currently use by wasting the

food that we produced is one of

the most gratuitous aspects of

human culture as
it stands today.

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at the moment, we are trashing

our land to grow food
that no one eats.

I really see preventing food

waste as a parallel
to energy efficiency.

You think about both
energy and food.

They're resource intensive

industries in demand as

population grows and as the

world population increases.

From an energy perspective,

there's an estimate that about

4% of all U.S. energy

consumption is embedded in the

food that we ultimately toss.

So 4% of all the energy that

we're using is
being thrown away.

It's difficult to think of

water as a precious commodity,

especially for many people who

don't live in desert or

drought-ridden communities, but

the water that's embedded in the

food we throw out could meet the

household needs of
500 million people.

♪♪

one of the problems when food

waste started being picked up by

governments and they started

doing studies on where food was

being wasted and what kind of

food was being wasted, it

immediately became apparent that

by tonnage, fruites and

vegetables were being
wasted the most.

A lot of campaigning went into

fruit and vegetable waste.

That is no bad thing.

We need to not Chuck away a

whole load of carrots because

they're not straight.

But the tonnages of meat and

Terry products being wasted is

much smaller.

The resource of those products

is far greater.

You use vastly more land and

other resources to produce your

meat and dairy products than you

do your vegetables.

Just last night, I was at a

barbecue and there were all

these extra hamburgers.

For each one of those

hamburgers, the water that went

into producing it is equivalent

to taking a 90-minute shower.

We would have to use our land

in a sensitive way to plan and

to manage it in a way that

ensures that people are fed and

the long-term health of the

ecosystems that we depend on for

our survival.

Okay.

Let's go.

It's a lot different
than I thought.

I thought we would really be

scrounging for food.

But instead, it's -- it's more

like mass quantities
of certain foods.

The scale that wove seen so far

is pretty shocking and I think

we've only seen like
the littlest bit.

It's impossible to track how

much we've found.

Often when we find a pile of

food, we're just looking at the

top few inches.

And it's eight feet deep.

So we don't even know
what's down there.

It's been challenging enough

trying to log everything that

we've actually taken.

I've been trying to track how

much food we find.

And in the first month alone, we

brought home $1, 127 of foot.

Even though we were trying to

pay for it, we only
ended up spending $37.

And then after that, I just got

out of control and I couldn't

even monitor it any more.

It's starting to lose

excitement, finding
tons of food like this.

Ultimately what we're doing is

it's not reducing the
amount of waste.

Somebody is losing money on this

when it gets thrown out.

I mean, on the one hand, I'm

happy because we found food and

it's really exciting.

And then on the other hand, I

feel so guilty for even feeling

excited because it's such a

shame that so much food
is going to waste.

And it's -- it's really

depressing, actually.

Highs and lows of the
project, you know?

Highs and lows.

This is a high point.

I'm pretty sure that people

think that we're eating food

scraps, scrapings off people's

plates or something.

Because when I tell them about

the project, I just
get this weird look.

I mean, if they could see the

quality of the food that we find

and the amount, we've been

eating pretty well.

♪♪

♪♪

you're welcome to grocery

shop at our house.

Take what you need.

We have way too much.

Where did you find this?

Dumpster, map.

In the dumpster?

Sweet.

Organic free range.

Cheese, okay.

Sure.

Wheat.

Are you sure you can
part with all this?

Oh, yeah.

None of this is open.

It's like perfectly -- there's

nothing wrong with any of this.

♪♪

disking in food or plowing it

under is certainly
helpful to the soil.

It gets the nutrients back to

the soil and helps the soil

become more fertile.

But when you think about the

resources that go into producing

our food, if we're to rescue

those foods and channel them to

people who need it, that's a

much better use of the resources

and nutrients than just simply

plowing it under.

Gleaning is the practice of

going out into fields where

there have been harvests already

and recovering goods that

otherwise would be plowed under.

I go gleaning because it's a

nice way to practice what I

preach and to actually do

something to recover food and

get it to people who need it.

It's a little more participatory

and active than just writing

books and giving talks.

So we're headed to a
sweet potato field.

The society of St. Andrew

runs this gleaning outing and

most gleaning outings
in this state.

You guys want to stick around

until 7:00 P.M., we can go to

the turkey shoot.

The barber town turkey shoot.

I've heard good things.

♪♪

glad you could come.

Perfectly good potatoes and

we put them to good use.

When we deliver them, they'll

be on somebody's table tonight.

Wow, cool.

Kind of a good thing.

♪♪

the term gleaning dates back

to the old testament.

And it used to refer to the

practice of the hungry folks

going to the fields and picking

what had been left behind.

And many farmers would not

harvest certain
parts of the field.

But obviously there have been

some changes since that time,

and now gleaning looks a little

bit different, where it's

essentially volunteers

harvesting food for the hungry.

♪♪

♪♪

there's a secondary motivation

in that it's a whole lot of fun.

It's really neat to get out into

the fields and get your hands

dirty and really play a role in

our food system.

And also connect to where your

food comes from.

♪♪

♪♪

that's good.

Where did that come from?

Just a farmer who wasn't

gonna use them and he was nice

enough to let
volunteers come glean.

This is good for me.

You got more?

Yeah.

They sure look good.

Before I started gleaning, I

hadn't grown my own food.

I didn't really know what a

broccoli plant looked like.

I didn't know what collard

Greens looked like in the field.

I certainly didn't know how hard

it was to pick sweet potatoes.

♪♪

♪ I've gained ten pounds.

You can see it.

There's definitely curvature, an

extra -- I think it's a

combination of more processed

food, but also just stuffing

myself when we've got copious

amounts of one thing.

You know, I don't
even like yogurt.

I think this is probably about

maybe nine or ten yogurts in the

fridge right now, this
size, if not bigger.

The race is not
trying to find food.

It's like, trying to
not waste it again.

But you don't have
to take so much.

That's the thing.

You don't need to
get ten yogurts.

I can't see -- it's just so

disheartening, knowing if we

don't take that food that's

there right then, it's gone.

It's gone to the landfill
the next morning.

So since the beginning of the

project, Jen, um, has been

missing one food.

That's feta cheese.

And the coolest thing is the

best buy date isn't
from a year from now.

Not cool that it was thrown out,

but it's cool for Jen.

It's a bit of a surprise.

You can come in now.

I got you something.

What is it?

[ Chuckles ]

Open it up.

Oh, it's feta cheese!

[ Laughter ]

Thank you.

That's awesome.

That's what I've been craving.

Doesn't expire until
December next year.

We have more than a year on it.

Wow.

I didn't know that
feta lasts that long.

That's amazing.

About 60% of consumers are

throwing food away prematurely

because they don't understand

what the dates are telling them.

It's been shown that a

million times just in the uk of

food are wasting in people's

home because of date labels.

There's two buckets of dates

out there, the sell by dates

that are really a communication

between the manufacturer and the

store, saying, hey, if you sell

this product by this date, I

promise that when you're

consumer gets it home, it will

still have a shelf life left.

That date shouldn't
appear visibly.

It should be encoded so that

only staff understand it.

Because it confuses people.

They see a date and think they

can't eat it after that date.

Then there's a whole bucket

of dates which consumers
are meant to see.

That's used by, fresh by,

guaranteed fresh by -- and these

dates are indicators of quality

and not safety.

There is no regulation that

prevents them from selling it

after the best before date,

because there is no safety

concern with that product.

I've talked to manufacturers

of pies, for example, and their

use by date isn't the date that

they think it's gonna become

dangerous in that scenario.

It's the date that they think

the pastry will stop
being perfectly crisp.

♪♪

they often create this sense

that we can't possibly use an

item one minute after midnight

on the day of the
stamp on the package.

The only thing required by

federal law in the U.S. to have

an expiration date label on it

is infant formula.

Other than that, there's

really no other food product

that has a federal regulation.

Last night I went out looking

for food in a place that I've

gone a few times and
found a few things.

But I came around the corner and

they had brought in
a special dumpster.

And it was the size of a small

swimming pool.

And it was completely
filled with hummus.

It's unlike anything
we'd seen so far.

Initially, I thought, it must

have all gone bad.

They're throwing it out.

When I looked at it, it had

three and a half weeks left on

the best before date.

I took three or four home, you

can only eat so much hummus.

When we started the project, I

expected to find some waste.

And I really had prepared
myself to see it.

But when you're actual standing

in front of something like that,

it's totally different.

There's this misconception

that simply throwing something

away isn't a big deal because

food is biodegradable.

Yes, that's true.

If you were to throw an apple

core out into the woods, it's

not a big deal.

The problem comes when all of

that waste is aggregated and it

decomposed without
air in a landfill.

That anaerobic condition is what

creates methane, which is a

greenhouse gas that's more than

20 times as potent at
co2 as trapping heat.

So essentially we're creating

climate change from our
kitchen waste bins.

Putting food into landfill is

just a huge waste of resources.

If nothing else.

Those are nutrients we can

capture and be using.

So there's a hierarchy for food.

At the top, feeding people.

Maybe not just your family.

Maybe it's trying to donate

foods, to restaurants.

Try to feed animals, live stock

or chickens or
whatever it may be.

Certainly an age-old solution to

the scraps and food waste that

we have onhand.

If you can't do that, then

creating energy from it is the

next best thing, then

composting, get the resources

back into the soil.

Only if we can't do any of the

above should we be landfilling

or incinerating or sending our

food to the waste water
treatment plant.

In real life, it's flipped

around and the majority of our

food waste ends up
going to the landfill.

In the U.S., it's about 97% of

all the food waste that's

created, ends up in a landfill

or an incinerator.

We need a robust system for

ensuring food waste can be

recycled, fed to live stock, and

turned back into a resource that

we can use.

Our city is built on excess.

Everything.

We realize it must be, though.

To bring the people here.

We are taking a source that most

people would throw away and

we're feeding it to live stock,

which naturally is making

protein for humans.

It's the best source
for the food scraps.

Humans are first.

We're about seven miles to

the heart of Las Vegas.

Pig farming is our way of life.

I started working for the r.C.

Farms in about 1969, and I was

secretary for many, many years.

And then I ended up being boss

of R.C. Farms, because
I married Bob.

My father and mother, they

brought me up on a scrap-feeding

farm in San Diego.

But then my dad in Las Vegas had

an abundance of supply.

Here's some of the food scraps.

Food that you didn't eat,

leftover from your plate, turn

it back into a
wholesome protein.

We've processed to a boil to

kill all pathogens,
and the pigs love it.

13 tons a day.

A thousand tons a month.

Some of it's never been touched.

All out through the
pens, they're running.

Standard inventory is about

2,500 swine on the ranch.

You can hear them.

Can you hear them eating?

Can you hear them just chomping?

Yeah, that sounds like ice over

rocks to me, it's beautiful.

He loves it, and I think it's

just kind of in his blood.

He would go out in
114-degree weather.

He's been a hard worker
all of his life.

Never seen him slack at all.

Over here is bread.

Returned bread.

Cakes and so forth.

Yeah, this is every week.

We've had numerous offers to

sell this property and offer us

many, many millions of dollars

and go off on cruises.

That's not our lifestyle.

We like our old farmhouse.

We like our work.

And we more than likely will die

with his boots on, feeding food

scraps to pigs.

♪♪

it's the exact opposite of

what you usually look for.

I'm usually looking
for the newest stuff.

I don't even usually
look at dates at all.

Still good.

This is all still good.

Right, here we go.

Do you have anything
that's post dated?

No, we can't do that.

You can't?

No.

Food and health and
safety issues.

Do you guys donate it then?

No.

It goes right in
the garbage can.

Straight in the garbage?

Yeah.

Have you been sued before?

I don't know, to
tell you the truth.

But if it's post dated like

within two days, out
the door it goes.

What about ugly vegetables?

Same thing.

I don't know of a single

instance where a company has

been sued by somebody who has

been the recipient of
free donated food.

So I think very often they're

using the fear of being sued to

cover their shame.

♪♪

♪♪

donating food, you can do so

free of being sued.

There's a good samaritan act to

protect people who give food

that they deem to
be in good shape.

From my perspective, it's a

completely unfounded fear.

I think that companies are

morally responsible for ensuring

that the food in their custody

gets to people who need it and

doesn't end up in the bin.

And we the public have a

responsibility to demand that

that takes place.

I felt like I've been reading

about food waste, but I hadn't

been actually doing
anything about it.

So I've been volunteering once a

week at the quest grocery store.

If you're low income, or you

feel like you're in need, you

can apply to shop at quest, and

they stock the whole store with

donated food, so they can sell

it as a really reasonable rate,

and it's a really good bridge in

between the food bank and the

regular grocery store.

It's great to see that there

are grocery stores that donate.

I used to be a cashier.

I really liked it, actually.

When I was in university,
I was a cashier.

No, it's good.

Like a nice break.

At my job job, I sit in front of

a computer, so it's a nice break

to come here one afternoon a

week and do something where I

get to move around and move

boxes and do something with my

body, you know.

Quest saves roughly $4

million a year in food.

I only have a little
peanut butter.

[ Laughter ]

Everywhere you look.

My name is Ken March.

I'm a ware house
supervisor at quest.

Nobody can walk in off the

street and shop here, because

the goal is to help
those in need.

And not those that have.

What we have is things like

coconut milk, cranberry sauce,

candy, chocolate, spritzers, a

tomato basil soup,
rice crackers, cereal.

Organic cereals, repacked

raisins, risotto, butter beans,

sun-dried tomatoes,
peanut butter.

If we didn't salvage this, all

of this food would either end up

in the landfill or be destroyed

in some way.

I've worked in the trucking,

warehousing and packaging field

for more than 30 years.

You wouldn't want to know how

much product we
would dispose of.

You imagine that there are

warehouses that are a million

square feet of food products.

♪♪

♪♪

so something happens to that

product, whether it be dated,

damaged, or whatever.

The easiest, most convenient

thing to do with it is dump it.

And a large part of dumping is

simple economics.

I really like the
concept of quest.

It's something I never
would have known.

In all the years that I have

turfed goods out the door, I

wish I would have known.

And that's a big thing, knowing

that you can get rid of stuff

comfortably and
people can use it.

What we need is to believe

that wasting food
is not acceptable.

It comes down to citizen morals.

It comes down to cultural

attitudes, essentially.

There are all sorts of

changes we can make in our

personal lives to just start

chipping away at how much food

we're wasting.

First of all, use
our freezers more.

You can freeze almost anything,

and it's a really great

last-minute thing to do when you

think you're not going to get

around to eating something.

If you're someone who likes

to just shop once a week, then

it's really important to plan

out meals and make a detailed

shopping list and stick to that

list in the store.

Or it might make sense to have

smaller, more frequent trips and

just buy what you need.

I think we can start making

dinner by thinking of what we

have, and less about what we're

in the mood for.

It doesn't require a complete

revolution in terms of the way

we treat food.

It's just tweaking it slightly

and usually in delicious ways.

We're having 20 or so friends

over tonight to celebrate the

end of the project, and

everything on the
menu is rescued food.

I'm so excited to
be near the end.

I bet we'll still eat a lot of

the same food.

I think I'll still try to buy

food that's imperfect, and look

for those items that I think the

other people wouldn't buy.

Honestly, the best part about

this project is that Grant took

such an interest in the kitchen.

He used to look in the fridge

and be like, there's nothing to

eat, I'm going out for sushi and

there would still be tons of

food in, there, but it had to be

prepared, and he
wouldn't do that.

I'm so happy.

I made a crumble.

I've never made a
crumble before.

In the end, everything I've

learned in this project, my new

sense of value is gonna
stick with me most.

He made a bin that
says eat me first.

We put everything that needs to

be used first and he'll go there

first and make a
lunch out of that.

Thank you for coming.

And helping us finish off all

this food that we
needed to get rid of.

And I guess this is the end.

♪♪

♪♪

I definitely won't miss

having to go and
search for food.

That's gonna be great.

But I'm probably gonna still

have a peek from time to time.

I mean, how can you not?

♪♪

♪♪

just by being aware of it,

you almost automatically make a

difference, because
you can't help it.

All of a sudden you start to see

it everywhere you go.

Food waste we can handle.

It's something we can actually

do something about.

We can do something
about it now.

♪♪

♪

their experiment gives us all

a lot to think about, how we

need to make changes in our

homes, our businesses, our

policies, and most certainly in

our culture.

I'm Tom Colicchio, msnbc's new

food correspondent.

When we come back, I'll talk

with people dedicating their

lives to those missions.

And we'll have thoughts on how

you can get started making those

changes in your own
homes right away.

♪♪

here are a few figures that

don't sit right with me and I'm

guessing with many of you.

1 in 6 Americans
struggle with hunger.

They're never sure if there's

enough food to get by.

All of the while, 40% of all

edible food is wasted.

The facts inexcusable.

The good news is, there's

endless ways to make changes and

turn it around, on a personal

level and in our culture.

I've invited a small group to

chat with me, a lecturer at

Harvard Law School.

CEO of D.C. Central Kitchen,

dedicated to fighting hunger.

Among other things, healthy free

meals and job training and

Jonathan bloom, an
expert on food waste.

So Jonathan, in the film, we see

a sickening amount of food

thrown away by caterers, grocery

stores, large farms.

But consumers don't get away so

easily either.

The average consumer wasted

about $1500 a year.

So if you're gonna make some

changes, where do we start?

Yeah, I think it's so

important for consumers to be a

part of the solution.

It starts with the source of our

food, where we buy our food and

how much we're buying.

So much of us are squandering

about a quarter of
our food at home.

You see the image in the film of

someone walking through the

parking lot and dropping one out

of four bags, and we would never

do that, but once we get it

home, we aren't as
aware of that loss.

And it just happens in many

ways, in invisible parts of our

kitchen routine.

So as a result, we're really

squandering so much more food

than we need to be.

So, Mike, you're recovering

large quantities of food.

How do you go about that and

what are you doing
with this food?

Sure, we're recovering about

3,000 pounds a day.

When Robert Eggers started years

ago, most of it came from

restaurants, hotels
and caterers.

Now because of the volume that

we're doing and the business

model that we use, we need to

get that from grocery stores,

from food producers, from

wholesalers and from farms.

That's really where we're

finding the most success, really

going all the way back to the

beginning of the food chain,

bringing that product into D.C.

Central Kitchen, then turning

that into healthy meals that go

out to city shelters,

transitional homes and most

importantly using that food,

what could be wasted, to change

lives and train men and women to

get jobs in the restaurant and

food business.

How many meals are you serving?

5,000 meals a day to shelters

and transitional homes.

But also employing men and women

who graduate from our program to

do meals in schools.

And you're providing counsel

to non-profits and governments.

Who's getting it right and is

there a role for government to

play to sort of fix this problem

that we have with wasted food?

I think there are a lot of

ways that when you look at food

waste, law comes to
play a big role.

It comes to play a role in

restricting us from doing things

with that food because of food

safety or rules that people

think are about food safety.

So hopefully we'll talk more

about expiration dates and date

labels on food.

It plays a role in not providing

incentives for people to get

that food from a place where the

field where it would get plowed

under, and getting that
to people in need.

So there's a lot of way things

at play here.

We've gotten involved like

finding places like what Mike is

doing and try too figure out

what are the systemic problems

and how can we bring this to the

federal government and state

government and find
ways to make it better.

There's a myth out there that

if you give food, they're

worried about being sued.

There's an amazing good

samaritan law, it's so

protective that we can't find a

case where someone's been sued

for donating food.

So I think the problem is, we

have this law, but there's not a

lot of awareness.

For many companies because

they're not feeling pressure to

do something different, they

would rather play it safe, not

take any risks and that comes

back to what we can
do as consumers.

We could be pushing those

retailers, those restaurants

that we frequent and say, I care

about this.

Sure.

We're always led to believe that

the free market can
take care of this.

But we're wasting
40% of the food.

So inefficient.

Why isn't it working and who is

paying for this?

In some ways, food
is too inexpensive.

When you look at the percentage

of our household spending, no

other nation spends less on food

than we in America do.

Now I can't sit here and argue

that food should be more

expensive with a good conscience

knowing how many struggle to put

enough food on the table.

But I think as things progress

and food becomes more expensive,

as the water drought increases,

most likely in the near future

and the ramifications of our

taxing of the planet come to

bear on our food, prices will

rise and there will be more care

with our food.

If we address the waste,

prices should go down.

We're paying for the
inefficiencies.

The price of waste is built

into the cost of food.

We're paying for it now, we just

don't know about it.

You're clearly -- D.C.

Central Kitchen is leading the

charge feeding hungry people.

We see the characters diving

into dumpsters.

We're not suggesting at all that

this is a way to end hunger.

No.

And we say this all the time.

Although we're incredible proud

of what we do and happy to share

our model and have shared our

model across the country, the

idea that we're using left over

food to feed poor
people is pretty sad.

And we as a country should have

a better solution.

Do you think the solution is

getting to the farms
before it's wasted?

Going to the farmers
and purchasing.

Purchasing the produce that is

aesthetically or gee metically

challenged and that turns out to

be about 40% to 60%
of what they grow.

We buy that, and we're putting

money into those economies,

bringing it back to the kitchen,

putting healthy food out,

training men and women who

doesn't have jobs and employing

them in productive
ways in the community.

So that cycle is incredibly

powerful to reduce waste on many

levels and creates
economic development.

It seems to me, culturally we

weren't always wasting food.

But in the depression, food was

-- we took care of our food, we

knew how to recycle food, we

knew how to use leftovers.

Somewhere along the line in the

'50s and '60s our
culture changed.

What happened in our culture

that we started to devalue food?

What happened?

I think it started from less

people being involved in growing

food, less people involved in

agriculture, and you see people

getting really used to going to

the store and buying things.

Huge refrigerators which we talk

about in the film.

They're enormous, things get

hidden in the back there and you

know, you forget they're in

there, and this ties in a lot

with date labels on food.

Around that time in the '70s

that many consumers said, I want

a date on my food, I want to

know the freshness of it.

And the industry responded.

The free market responded to

that request and started putting

dates on food and fast forward

40 years, people all think that

the dates, that at the time,

everyone knew they
were for freshness.

Everyone now thinks they're

about safety and 9 out of 10

Americans throw food out.

I'm guilty of all of the above.

When we come back, how you can

be part of our food waste

revolution and share your story

on social media.

The bigger picture, why we waste

so much food.

A look at the culture
of waste just ahead.

Stay with us.

Welcome back.

We're talking about food waste

in the United States
and in the world.

How do we tackle this
enormous problem?

How is it that in 2015, we are

wasting so much food and why is

fixing that not a higher

priority, not only at the

government level, but with the

average American?

Is it an issue of awareness, or

is it a policy issue
and how do we fix it?

Emily, you're working on

policy and legislators.

Any anything new
you're working on?

The way we got involved with

this was around
expiration date labels.

This is a really interesting

area, because contrary to the

belief of most Americans, the

federal government doesn't

require or regulate date labels

on the foods, with the exception

of infant formula.

That's the only thing that that

label is mandated on there.

What happens instead, most

companies put date on there,

it's an indicator of the peak

quality and has nothing
to do with safety.

Even more interestingly, a lot

of states have jumped in and

said, we're going to require

dates on foods.

Like my home state of

Massachusetts is one
of the strictest.

D.C. is also very strict,

requiring dates on foods.

So we're thinking, if there

could be a national standard,

one set label that was not

misleading, that was clear to

consumers and that made it clear

that this was about quality,

then we could actually do

consumer awareness
and education.

So are you saying then that

if I eat some food on midnight

on the date stamped on the

package, I'm not taking my life

into my hands?

That's accurate.

And probably not for a few days

afterwards as well.

If you're storing the foods at

the right temperature, they're

going to be good for a few days

after, maybe even more.

Is it time for a new
food waste czar?

The USDA, end of the Clinton

era, I think Joel Berger, who

was in charge of waste
in the country.

And then they did
away with it in 2001.

Wouldn't it be nice to have

one person whose job it was to

think about food waste and try

to reduce the amount of food

we're not using?

Yeah, I would say it's high time

and I would also say that the

tide is rising, the attention on

this issue is
increasing day by day.

The fact that we're having this

conversation here.

The fact that the film has been

shown on national television.

I think that's really

encouraging, but we
have a long way to go.

If that makes people sit up and

listen and say maybe we need to

do something about our food

system, well, that
is a good thing.

And through tax policy --

this is a pleas we have been

really looking at this.

One of the challenges right now,

it was actually at the federal

level, a tax incentive, an

enhanced deduction that

companies can take
when they donate food.

The problem is it is only

available to the biggest

companies, the biggest
in addition chains.

The little guys, the farmers are

already living really at a low

margin and really
scraping to get by.

If they send people out to their

field to pick things that

they're not going to sell and

donate them for free they're not

eligible for the federal tax.

And when congress has extended

it in the past to other

businesses, when they did it

increased more than double and

went up by more than 137%, so we

have been really pushing to

extend it to the farmers, small

mom and pop stores, to everyone

to try to get more of that food

to go in a direction that gets

to people in need.

And I would love to see that

extended permanently.

I mean, there is this year to

year limbo scenario, where the

small people, they're not really

sure if they're going to be able

to take the deductions.

As Emily said, it's people

donating out of the kindness of

their heart, not because their

accountants requested they do.

And let's go back to a

question, around ethics, how it

plays maybe into -- obviously

not a good thing to do, but

maybe from a religious

standpoint, different than a

social standpoint.

How do we address -- I'm not

talking about shaming people,

but is there a higher way or

different way to address waste

that maybe can reach a few

people who are not just going to

kind of open the refrigerator

and try to clean it out and make

it different every day?

Yeah, I mean, whatever your

faith or background may be, the

juxtaposition of 40% waste, with

Americans not having enough to

eat should not and does not sit

well with you.

And I would say it is callous to

live in this country of

abundance and not be
able to feed everyone.

Obviously, this lies in the

scenario, but to squander so

much food, it is stunning, that

scenario, in those
people's faces.

And we really need to do a

better way to be a more morally

just society.

I want to thank my
guests tonight.

Mike Curtain from D.C. Central

kitchen, and Johnathan Bloom,

author of wasted food.

Just ahead, I have taken the

no wasted food
challenge, have you?

I'll tell you right after this.

We could talk about food

waste and how to eliminate it

all night and barely scratch the

surface of the problem.

The film "just eat it" shows us

a picture of the problem, it has

an effect on the water supply

and the atmosphere.

Let's face it, we live in a

wasteful society.

But you can help to make change.

Now it's your turn
to get involved.

We want to see
what you're up to.

What will you do to waste less

food, whether it's composting,

or changing your menu practices

if you're a restaurant owner, it

all counts.

I'm calling my personal pledge

once a week at home I will

actually clean out
the refrigerator.

It's an easy way to make sure my

family is using up food that may

otherwise get passed by, and

helpful in making a
sensible shopping list.

Share your photos with us at

us and good night.