Food Waste

Most of us are familiar with the phrase “clean your plate” and the concept of not wanting to let food go to waste. I also like the phrase that “you can let food go to waste or to your waist”. The hard part is finding a way to keep all types of waste in check.

I am not going to argue that food waste is not a major concern, particularly when a recent report by the Natural Resource Defense Council stated these disturbing statistics:

• Americans trash 40 percent of our food supply every year, valued at about $165 billion
• The average American family of four ends up throwing away an equivalent of up to $2,275 annually in food
• Uneaten food accounts for 23 percent of all methane emissions in the U.S.
• Just a 15 percent reduction in losses in the U.S. food supply would save enough food to feed 25 million Americans annually

Given the corresponding major problem with obesity, simply asking people to eat the food that they might otherwise throw away is obviously not a good solution, either. What, then, might people do to cut back on the amount of food going into the garbage?

The first and most obvious solution is to buy and prepare only what you truly need. Portion size is a large problem in restaurants, but also in the home, since we’ve gotten used to being served much more than we can eat. If we’re preparing food ourselves, though, we have no reason to do this. Serving only enough to satisfy your hunger without overeating would help with both waste and waist.

Even then, some food scraps are simply inedible. Chicken bone, anyone, or nectarine pits? We also have peels and random other scraps that, even if we’re only eating what we need, will inevitably pile up, especially if you’re eating your daily suggested amount of fruits and vegetables. 

So another option is composting, turning some of those scraps into wonderful compost. Of course, not everyone has the space or inclination to have their own compost heap or bin, although even in apartments, worm composting is an option. (Having recently gotten my own worm composting bin, I have to say it’s pretty cool.) 

Other places are getting more creative. For instance, here in Portland, ME, a new non-profit called Garbage to Garden has started. For a minimum donation of $11/month, they’ll provide you with a compost pail and will do weekly curbside pickup of all your household compost. This includes meat and dairy, something that’s more difficult for home composting. And in return, you can get compost for anything you want.

For those who are interested in lots of fresh eggs and have the space and inclination, raising chickens is also another approach. They’ll eat just about anything you want to feed them, and I know a woman who said she felt much better about leaving food on her plate sometimes, knowing she could give it to her chickens.

So we do have ways to help this unseen problem. With the recent droughts and rising food costs, reducing food waste is all to the good - and depending on how you approach it, you might be able to satisfy both that inner voice to “clean your plate” and help your own waist.

Eating and Exercise

I’ve been thinking recently about the difficulty I sometimes experience balancing eating and exercise. It’s something I run into every year when I do serious hiking at Baxter State Park, and I know someone else who’s running into this a bit as part of doing the Couch to 5k program.

The problem, at least for me, is that if I start exercising more than my usual amounts, I find that I’m eating more for three possible reasons:

• I need to, since I’m expending more energy
• I feel like I should, since I’m expending more energy
• I see something yummy that I want to eat because, well, it’s yummy, and I feel justified in doing so because I’ve been exercising and expending more energy, so I can afford it, right?

It also doesn’t help that I’m often around people who say things like, “Load up now - you’ll need it later.”

Except it doesn’t quite work that way for me, since my body is rather annoyingly efficient about energy usage. Even if I’m preparing for a big hike, if I eat a lot beforehand, more than I need at that time, I just feel miserable and overfull and low energy, more inclined to take a nap than to go out and tackle mountains.

After I’ve hiked for a while, though, I do start needing to eat more, having that empty spacey feeling that is a bit dangerous when you’re climbing over rocks and worrying about tripping on tree roots. I know then that I need to eat something to give me a boost, but the question is, how much?

At those times it’s really easy to say, “I’m hiking a mountain - I can eat whatever I want,” or “I really should eat more since I’m doing all this exercise.” And for some people, this seems to be the case. Sadly, it’s not for me. I still need to pay attention to what my body truly needs. I’ve learned the hard way that in these times it’s much better for me to eat just a little at a time and then see how I feel. If I overeat, again, I become somewhat uncomfortable and disinclined to start moving again.

Plus, eating too much can have the somewhat bizarre result of making me feel hungrier. I still don’t know why this is, but I remember a few years ago, I had a big supper the night before, much more than I needed, and then a big breakfast, and then I couldn’t stop eating on the trail, to the point that I wondered if I would run out of food. By the time I stopped, I was far past full and regretted it.

This past year I finally felt like I got the right balance. As a result, I was more focused and energized and generally enjoyed it more. I experienced normal hunger, and while I did eat more than usual, it was because I needed it, and I didn’t eat as much as I might have. 

For anyone else in a similar situation, my suggestion would be to go cautiously and pay close attention to why you feel like eating more. Of course it’s certainly a valid choice to eat something because you feel like you’re entitled to it after exercising, but just remember that if your goal is to lose weight, making that choice might make your goal more difficult.

Stressed Men an Excuse to Eat?

I recently saw an article on CNN.com titled “Stressed-Out Men Find Heavier Women Attractive.” Curious, I read it, and I was intrigued to see that the likely reason for this is the same reason that larger women have often been considered more attractive in other cultures and times: “because their bodies signify the ability to survive in hostile environments. In today's world, that threat can be as simple as the possibility of unemployment.”

But what really caught my attention was the implication in the first line of the sentence, which stated that if your male significant other is stressed, then we women should “[f]eel free to indulge in that brownie.” It seemed to indicate that it’s okay to eat more than you need as long as it means that you’re attractive to your partner, and that the best way to make sure that happens is to have that partner be worried. 

I have a few problems with this. The most obvious, of course, is the idea that what women eat is only about their appearance, not about how they feel. Yes, it’s nice to get complimented on how you look, and to feel pretty, but if you’re tired all the time, can’t do the things you want, and feel like you’re going to die if you climb a flight of stairs, is that really the most important thing?

It also ignores a lot of the other things that go along with perceiving beauty. We’ve all likely heard that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but how you present and feel about yourself has an impact on the beholder. If you feel attractive and pretty, and act as if you are, other people are more likely to view you that way even if they wouldn’t by looking objectively at a photo.

But then there’s also the part about needing a partner to unhappy in order to find heavier women attractive. Constant stress is not healthy for anyone, and certainly not for a relationship. So even if it makes your partner view you differently, if you’re fighting all the time, or not talking because he’s too worried about something else, again, how much does it matter?

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this. But from my perspective, while this may be an interesting result to a study, it is not an excuse to change how you eat or view yourself. That should be much more about what works for you and makes you happy and capable of doing the things you want. That may include eating a brownie now and again, but it’s probably not a reason to have them on-hand all the time. 

Eating at Baxter State Park

Note: This is a little later than my usual post, since this past Sunday I was at Baxter State Park near Millinocket, ME, camping and hiking and enjoying a vacation from technology.

It’s always a fascinating experience to see how your eating patterns compare to those of others, especially when you’re so used to doing things a certain way that you can’t even quite conceive of something else. Camping at Baxter this year proved to be one of those times.

For those who might not know, I’ve been going to Baxter State Park every summer since I was ten. Not always the same weekend, and not always with the same people, but we have always eaten quite well. When I went with my parents, we had a fairly set menu: one night of pasta and salad (before hiking), another of burgers and cut veggies and chips (after hiking). Breakfasts were usually some combination of bacon, sausage, eggs, homefries, pancakes or ployes, and we always had fresh fruit, as well as cookies for dessert.

When my brother and I started going on our own, meals became a little more elaborate, especially with my brother, who liked making stir-frys at camp. This involved bringing lots of pots and pans and cooking oils and ingredients, cutting vegetables and protein of choice, and starting things at different times so it would all finish at once. We also got more creative with breakfasts when a friend who’s gluten-free joined us, doing things like parfaits instead of anything wheat-based.

This year, though, my brother couldn’t join us, and I decided to see if I could keep things simpler. For me, that meant doing much of the preparation ahead of time - chili, frittata, bacon, burgers, blueberry spice whoopie pies, gluten-free pancake batter - and generally avoiding lots of preparation apart from cutting vegetables. It hadn’t ever occurred to me that having lots of salads and vegetables while camping isn’t usual until my friend commented that her family never did that, given the preparation and also how expensive it was in a family with five kids. It’s not something I’d likely change, since I like my veggies, but it was good to get that different perspective.

I got another dose of perspective when I saw what the rest of our group did and realized my version of simplicity came nowhere close to theirs. They were five people (including two teenagers) who came up from Massachusetts and needed to fit everything into a single hatchback, without a carrier. They were able to do this by using a single pot, a tiny back-packing stove, and using lots of one-pot hiking recipes that involved mostly dried ingredients to start with. They did a lot of things like sausage, hot dogs cooked over the fire, potato pancakes with pepperoni, oatmeal with freeze-dried blueberries, etc. - lots of focus on carbs and protein for energy while hiking.

It all made perfect sense, but it wasn’t anything I’d ever considered. While I liked the food I brought, I’ll have to consider if I’d want to do something less involved in future years. But even if I don’t, at least it will be more of an informed decision.