A TASTE FOR WASTE
FAMILYLIFE
FAMILYLIFE
Continued from page 19 have access to be able to make those choices.” HFFA has worked with and alongside dozens of other organizations and community partners aiming to minimize food insecurity and waste in the area. Together they have helped uncover the same issue within Dane County’s food system confronting communities across the nation: a constant struggle to provide access to healthy and affordable food. According to a 2016 report by Public Health Madison and Dane County, roughly 11.6 percent of Wisconsin households from 2011 to 2014 suffered from food insecurity, which “occurs when food access is insufficient or uncertain for at least one person in the household at some point in the year.” Healthy Food For All drew its name from the United Way of Dane County’s Healthy Food for All Children Community Plan, which in 2013 made a goal to reduce the number of foodinsecure children in the county – estimated to be nearly 19,000 – by 50 percent within a decade. At the same time, its goal is also to reduce wasted food, which, according to research by the EPA, is 30 to 40 percent of the food the United States produces. That means more than 130 billion pounds of food worth roughly $218 billion every year are eventually decomposing in landfills and annually emitting millions of metric tons of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere at much higher rates than carbon dioxide. “There may have been a time in the past where people felt this sort of waste was not significant. As a kid, I remember my mom would say, ‘Eat what’s left on your plate; there’s kids starving in China!’ or something like that. But it wasn’t, ‘Oh, we can’t throw this away, it’s a great, valuable, resource-intensive project,’” Mingle said. “I think people are more conscious of resource depletion issues and how we shouldn’t be wasting stuff without thinking carefully about it.”
Private partnerships
On a recent morning at FEED Kitchens, HFFA crew leader Mark Thomas opened up the lid of a 5-gallon bucket from Epic labeled “buffalo cauliflower” before portioning it into quart-sized containers. “Now that is an unusual soup,” he commented. 20 YOUR FAMILY FALL 2017
up soup and leftover gourmet meals – prepped and packaged up by a team of Epic culinary employees. It then shares the bounty with HFFA. After the food is delivered, volunteers portion and repackage them into smaller containers, label them, freeze them if necessary and distribute them the next day, Brockel explained. Epic sends HFFA recipes the day before, so the group’s volunteers can make labels for the containers before dropping them off at a food pantry, where it can be served well within its shelf life. Meals are also clearly labeled with their ingredients, such as dairy, pork and gluten, so recipients are aware in case they have dietary restrictions. Epic station chef Nathan Schultz, who acts as the liaison between the company and the grouaps it donates to, said “it’s great to be partnered with a really good organization that is combating food waste and nutrition depravity amongst groups in our community.” “Obviously we want to be a good neighbor and give back where we can, and this is one of the ways we do it,” he added.
Working ‘twice as fast’
With a steady addition of new volunteers, Healthy Food For All has gone from processing prepared food once a week to twice weekly, “adding sessions any given week as needed,” Brockel said. It also has been able to
gradually increase the pace of the work after coming in contact with a wide variety of foods. “When we first started (working with) Epic, it would take us all morning to process 700 pounds of food, because we would have to stop and think with each thing, ‘What do we do with this?’” Brockel said. “Now … we have the packaging available and experienced volunteers, and we just know what we’re doing, so we can do it pretty much twice as fast as we were when we first started.” While efficiency has boosted Healthy Food For All’s numbers, a growing influx of donations from vendors working at FEED Kitchens has also made an impact. Many hand over excess food directly to the organization to cut down on waste within the high-traffic facility, and when local farms deliver produce to FEED for vendors, they can drop off some extras for HFFA, as well. “We’re hoping we can reach out to more of the farmers in the county and
ON THE WEB Madison’s food policy council meets the first Wednesday of every month, while the county’s typically meets the fourth Wednesday. For information and meeting locations, visit cityofmadison.com/mayor and click on the Priorities tab, then Food. For online resources related to food systems, visit the UW-Extension’s website at fyi.uwex.edu/danefoodsystem.
CUTTING DOWN ON WASTE AT HOME
Gayle McCredie, left, and Nancy Morgan, right, pick out produce that Healthy Food For All donated to Dryden Terrace apartments on July 27. McCredie said she moved to the affordable housing community a year ago after she lost her home and spouse. She said the food donations are appreciated.
HFFA’s partnership with Epic is one of several with public or private organizations – teamwork that’s helping Healthy Food For All plan to double one of its key benchmarks. After distributing roughly 67,000 pounds of prepared food in 2016, Brockel said the group hopes to reach 135,000 pounds this year. In mid-July, it was already nearing last year’s total
with help from a new donor partnership with American Family Insurance, as well as the ability to transport a much higher quantity of food with a van donated by Dane County last fall. HFFA’s corporate partnership with Epic started in 2015. The Community Action Coalition for South Central Wisconsin, Inc. visits the company’s Verona headquarters each week, picking
let them know, if they have some stuff they would like to see distributed to people who need it, don’t put it in the compost, don’t till it back in,” said Mingle, who now serves as HFFA’s volunteer coordinator. “We’ll figure out how to get it from them and get it to people who can use it.” In addition to the joint effort with Epic, CAC enlists Healthy Food For All to help distribute fruits and vegetables it gathers at the Dane County Farmers’ Market on the Capitol Square in Madison. Each Saturday volunteers split into pairs and approach vendors to ask if they have anything – including produce, meat, cheese, bakery items and even flowers – they’re willing to donate. Gretchen Kruse, of Hickory Hill Farm in Loganville, donated herbs and produce from her stand at the July 1 market. “At one point in my life I had to use a food bank, too, so this is my way of giving back,” she said. Continued on page 22
Americans are among the worst offenders in the world when it comes to wasting food, with a huge portion of that waste occurring in the home. In 2014, U.S. food producers and consumers threw away more than 38 million tons of food waste, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. Dane County is ramping up its own efforts to combat waste. In March, County Executive Joe Parisi signed a resolution declaring 2017 “the year of Food Waste Prevention and Recovery” and committed the county to meeting the U.S. Department of Agriculture and EPA’s goal to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030. “We’re all used to really throwing out a lot of food, and if we can just become conscious of that everytime that happens, and know … there’s an end game for the food we’re buying, not only are we helping save the planet, we’re helping our own pocketbook,” Parisi told Your Family. The EPA publishes online a series of recommendations on what you can do at home to limit food waste, including: • Stick to detailed grocery lists to avoid overbuying
• Take regular inventory to avoid re-purchasing food already stocked in your kitchen • Research food storage methods so your fruits and vegetables stay fresh longer • Freeze, preserve or can seasonal or surplus produce to make them last • Separate fruits and vegetables into different storage areas to avoid decomposition • Store excess bread or meat in the freezer, along with cooked perishable items, like soups • Make casseroles, stir fry, sauces and smoothies to convert past-its-prime produce into a filling meal • Set aside at least one night each week to eat leftovers, and search online for resources on using leftover ingredients in new dishes • Know the difference between “sell-by,” “use-by” or “best-by” expiration dates so you don’t throw out food prematurely For more information on how to avoid food waste at home, visit epa.gov/recycle and click Reducing Wasted Food. FALL 2017 YOUR FAMILY 21