By Matthew Kondrat, News Editor
The Bellarmine Food Recovery Network (BFRN) watched the documentary “Just Eat It,” with special guest Jonathan Bloom, author of the award-winning book “American Wasteland” and discussed the problem of food waste in America on Feb. 2.
“Just Eat It” emphasizes the massive amounts of edible food wasted and discarded in modern society.
The documentary followed a Canadian couple, Jen and Grant, as they attempted to spend six months eating only food that would be otherwise wasted. Throughout their six month journey, which included dumpster-diving and eating food past its sell-by date, they learned about the food that is wasted every day.
For example, in one dumpster outside a supermarket, they find hundreds of chocolate bars thrown away simply because of a labeling error. Bloom said he remembered receiving some of these perfectly fine chocolates during the filming of the documentary.
The documentary also included expert commentary from Bloom, whose research taught him about the scale of wasted food in the developed world.
After the film, Bloom praised the efforts of BFRN, and discussed the problem of food waste and what Bellarmine students can do to help reduce the problem.
He elaborated on what food recovery networks did, saying they are “basically getting the excess food from campus to those in need in the community.”
Bloom also talked about his personal path to his advocacy against food waste.
“For me, it’s been a bit of a convoluted path, or at least an unorthodox one, but the engagement of my activity in wasted food reduction and activism really stems from a love of food, and that is the fundamental part, the root cause of my involvement here,” Bloom said.
Bloom’s experiences working in a Washington, D.C. food recovery program first opened his eyes to the amount of food being wasted daily.
“So from that point, I just started asking questions and writing about this issue more and more, that led to creating my site, wastedfood.com, which ultimately led to writing my book, ‘American Wasteland,’ and since that time of publication I’ve had the good fortune of being able to travel around and visit campuses and speak at conferences and just do this kind of general awareness raising,” Bloom said.
Bloom described how his experience working at supermarkets while he researched his book opened his eyes to the prevalence of waste.
“In fact, on my first day in the supermarket, before I even got a name tag, my boss pointed me to the wall of refrigerated produce, bagged salads and baby carrots, and all of those packaged goods, and told me to pull off anything with a sell-by or use-by date of that day or earlier,” he said.
Despite his hopes that the food would be used elsewhere, Bloom was told to throw out the food.
He also debunked myths about donating food, such as companies’ being afraid of lawsuits. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act protects individuals and companies from lawsuits that stem from donating food.
Austin Adam, BFRN co-founder, said the organization’s goal is to reduce Bellarmine’s food waste by recovering and educating the community about how to reduce food waste.
Adam said BFRN is recovering food from Café Ogle and the University Dining Hall (UDH) and would like to expand to off-campus locations.
The recovered food goes to Wayside Christian Mission and Volunteers of America, which are local homeless shelters.
Adam also said that BFRN has recovered over 4,500 pounds of food since October 2014.
“It’s a really relevant topic to each one of us,” Environmental science professor Dr. Martha Mazur said. “There’s a very personal note to food waste and our impact on society, on environment, and our own responsibility for improving those things and food waste really speaks to all of those.”
Mazur also said that she hoped more students in the campus community would join BFRN and learn how food waste and water usage have an impact on climate change.
Anyone interested in learning more may contact BFRN at aadam01@bellarmine.edu or search Facebook or Instagram for Bellarmine Food Recovery Network.