Brace yourself for an unpopular opinion—but when I enter Leutner or Fribley Commons, I’m excited for the fiesta of flavors that awaits. It might be a mediterranean-style bowl heaped with roasted chickpeas and hummus one day, a pasta bowl loaded with marinara sauce and vegetables another. The options are near endless, and even as a vegetarian myself, I never fail to leave the dining hall on an empty stomach. But when I scan the overflowing compost bins or sweep a glance over at the dining tables to find plates heaped with uneaten food, I come to think I may be one of the very few who steadfastly believes Case Western Reserve University’s dining hall food tantalizes my taste buds.
When I came to CWRU, I was shocked at the amount of perfectly good food being tossed out. Plates upon plates I would find loaded with food, half of which, if not more, were sporadically picked at or remained untouched entirely—only to disappear in the compost bins or to find trash tucked away in the alcove of the dining hall’s dish turnaround machine. That is not to say we are the only contributors to food waste. According to Ensia, the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment media outlet, worldwide, one in every three bites of food produced never even makes it onto our plates. A great deal of food is lost in harvesting, storage, transportation and distribution, amounting to a whopping 46% of food lost by the food industry annually in the United States, as stated in a report by the non-profit Feeding America.
Still, we must look no further than ourselves to find the ultimate culprits in the food waste dilemma: More than double the food is wasted by consumers than retailers, says The Wall Street Journal. Every year, 80 million tons of food are thrown out in the United States—that translates into approximately $218 billion and more than 325 pounds of food waste per person annually.
What’s more, these numbers may not even come as a surprise; the severity of food waste has been a point of longstanding concern, and urgent calls to reduce the amount of food we toss out are unceasing. The source of food waste might be the supermarket culture that places convenience at the forefront of every consumer purchase. We become disconnected from the ins and outs of how food is made, grown, harvested and processed—and we’re prevented from rethinking whether we should throw out the apple just because it’s got a brown spot. Perhaps “food waste” is also being reduced to a trend, a label we conveniently plaster on our lifestyles to claim a stake in the “sustainability,” “going green” and “social advocacy” arena, but rarely end up committing to.
Either way, the paradox remains unmistakable: If we so frequently feel guilty for wasting food, why do we throw out half of our burger from Leutner’s grill table or slide the leftover heap of rice from Fribley’s bowl station into the compost?
Perhaps the serving was too big, or the flavors were lacking. But these are easy problems to fix. Ask the chefs for a smaller serving, and verbally remind them when to stop heaping toppings into the sizzling pan. Alternatively, split your plate with a friend, and when serving yourself, don’t load your plate with food. Instead, help yourself to seconds. Also, forget bland food; the dining hall is the right place to get creative. Add a dollop of yogurt and peanut butter to your oatmeal, drizzle lemon juice and olive oil over your rice bowl, experiment with the selection of sauces at the salad bar or hot sauce stand. All of a sudden, a new world of flavor combinations begins to unfurl in front of you, and you are left to your own devices to explore them all.
Most importantly, however, it’s about time we start changing our mindset towards CWRU’s dining hall food. Sometimes, amidst comments about “disgusting smoothies” or “dry chicken,” the awareness of the amount of energy required to feed an entire college campus, along with the hard work of chefs and dining staff to deliver nourishing meals, seems to get lost. Agreed, not every meal is top-notch restaurant quality—but does it have to be? If it’s filling and healthy, and we can use our own creativity to spice up the flavor profile, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t take much to become more appreciative of the food we eat if we begin considering it an elemental step in eliminating our food waste. And maybe next time, you’ll walk out of Leutner with your taste buds tantalized, too.