Food Waste Isn't a Thing. Wasted Food Is.

Language matters

Mar 30, 2023

Every good marketer understands the power of language. In the case of waste, word choice helps normalize an unnatural take-make-waste linear system of production. The pedantic editor in me would like to update a few misleading terms that validate this unsustainable system.

Food Waste vs Wasted Food

The term “food waste” sounds like a natural stage of food production—sowing seeds; tending crops; harvesting and processing food; distributing food; and finally, sending hundreds of millions of pounds of that food to an overburdened landfill.

When I chatted with Carol Shattuck, the CEO of Food Rescue US in spring 2021, she pointed out that food waste does not exist. After all, waste is something unwanted and unvalued. No doubt the 828 million people affected by hunger globally would see value in the 17 percent of the world’s food that homes, restaurants and stores combined dump outright annually. Another 14 percent of food is lost after harvest and never makes it to market.

Rather than a food waste problem, we have “wasted food” problem, in that we waste something of value—food—by dispatching it to the waste stream.

I’ve been using the term wasted food much more since that talk with Shattuck. But the term food waste still sometimes sneaks into my social media posts, in part due to the tyranny of Instagram hashtags (568,000 #foodwaste posts compared to 5,100 #wastedfood posts).

And please note that composting does not reduce wasted food as the marketing of some compost machine companies suggests. Compost serves as a crucial last resort when food goes to waste—which does happen. But whether food languishes in a landfill, where it emits methane, or becomes compost, which sequesters carbon, that edible (or previously edible) food both represents a lost opportunity to nourish someone and squanders the resources that produced it.

Go here for 23 easy ways to reduce wasted food.

Food Scraps vs Food

I’ve included recipes on my blog and in my cookbook that call for food scraps—vinegar made from apple peels and cores, candied citrus peels and pasta made with turnip tops, for example. But just as weeds are plants, scraps are food. To call them scraps rather than simply “food” demotes them, which helps normalize tossing them in the trash.

The easiest way to use all the parts of a vegetable is to cook all those parts at once. Beet greens separated from their root, for example, may simply wilt in the refrigerator while they await their final destination in the waste stream. This borscht recipe, on the other hand, calls for all the parts of the beet—the beets, the greens and the thick stems of those greens.

You might not eat some bits such as onion skins or avocado pits but these can make beautiful dye.

Waste Management vs Resource Management

My daughter MK works in waste management. Perhaps we should refer to her industry in its current state as “resource management” because so much of what we send to landfill has life left in it and also because “management of resource mismanagement” sounds too clunky. Many items that go to landfill can be reused or repaired or recycled. And if they can’t be reused or repaired or recycled, their design needs to be retired.

If we think of everything as a resource, we will (a) throw fewer resources in the trash and (b) accumulate less stuff because, now that we no longer throw these resources in the trash (see a), our cluttered homes would become unlivable and impossible to navigate.

Disposable vs Landfill

Merriam-Webster defines the term “disposable” as follows (in addition to its meaning in regards to income):

2: designed to be used once or only a limited number of times and then thrown away
disposable diapers
Replace the disposable razor when the blade becomes dull.

According to M-W, 1643 marked the first use of the word but the world wasn’t burning through over half a billion plastic bottles every year in the 17th century. The second meaning—to be thrown away—really kicked in with the introduction of disposable everything after World War II.

The marketing term “disposable” leads us to believe that we are “able” to “dispose” of the flimsy goods industry creates, sells and expects consumers to clean up. But how? As Annie Leonard, founder of The Story of Stuff and now co-Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, once explained, “There is no such thing as ‘away.’ So, when we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.” That somewhere is the natural environment or a near-to-capacity landfill, polluting incinerator or developing country.

We could call these nondurable items “landfill in transition” but “landfill-in-transition razor” is a mouthful so perhaps “landfill razor” will do. Tacking on the word landfill might prevent at least some of these items from ever reaching one. The term sounds so unappealing—and unmarketable.

The answer to everything

In this outstanding and amusing video, economist Partha Dasgupta and actor Alexander Skarsgard explain why economics must take nature into account. I think you will agree that it’s worth five minutes of your time.

Earth Month is almost here!

I have several in-person events coming up in April in California.

April 15th: Sunnyvale Library, author talk. Go here for more information on the library’s Earth Day event.
April 16th, 11 am to 2pm: Rainbow Grocery. I’ll sign books and sew cloth produce bags in the store to hand out.
April 22nd: San Mateo Library induction cooking demo. I’ll be on hand at 10:30am cooking a zero-waste dish. Go here for more info.
April 22nd: Menlo-Atherton Love Earth Festival, induction cooking demo. Go here to find out more about this free event and to register. I’ll cook at 2pm.
April 27th: Mammoth Lakes Library, author talk. Go here to register for this free event.

The bi-monthly or so free sourdough starter Zoom class I scheduled for April filled up very quickly. If you’d like to find out about the next one as soon as I schedule it, please follow me on Eventbrite to receive notifications. And if you’d like to book me for a talk, please email my bookings manager, Cecil Ang.