food waste | 222 million tons

There are few things I like more than a good Indian meal, and one of my favorite curries is saag. When you get it in North America, it’s usually made with spinach, but it can be made with any green or mix of greens – and it’s a great way to use edible greens that typically end up in the bin, like those of sweet potatoes, radishes, carrots, beets and broccoli.

I made a small batch with carrot greens the other night, which I served with roasted carrots and red peppers, tandoori chicken, watermelon rind chutney and turmeric rice – a meal just overflowing with complex spices and aromas.

Carrot green saag (two small servings)

Ingredients

1 tsp cooking oil
2½ oz onion, diced
1 poblano chili, seeded and diced
1½ tsp grated ginger
1 small clove garlic, crushed
¼ tsp coriander
⅛ tsp turmeric
2½ oz carrot greens, coarsely chopped
2 Tbsp yogurt (optional)
⅛ tsp salt, or to taste

Directions

Sauté onions in oil over medium heat until they’re translucent.
Add in the chili, ginger, garlic, coriander and turmeric, and sauté until your kitchen smells good – about one minute.
Add in the carrot greens, and sauté for about 2 minutes.
Add enough water to cover the greens, and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat, and let simmer until carrot greens are tender – about 10 minutes.
Remove from heat, let cool (so you don’t blow the lid off of your blender with steam), and blend until homogenous.
Return to heat, and warm to serving temperature.
Stir in yogurt and salt.

I served roasted vegetables on top of this batch, but you can also stir in cooked potatoes, chicken, chickpeas, paneer (an Indian cheese) – or just about anything else.

…

*Fun facts*
Edible greens rescued from landfill per serving	1.25 oz
Number of servings needed to save 1 pound of edible greens from landfill	12.8
Cost of 1 pound of edible greens which would usually be tossed	$0.00
Cost of spinach at yummy.com as of 1 minute ago	$3.99 for 5 oz
Amount you can save by replacing 1 pound of baby spinach with free edible greens (assuming you shop at yummy.com)	$12.77
Net impact on landfill if everyone in the US eats 1 pound of greens that would usually be tossed	155,000 short ton reduction
Total cost of that 155,000 short tons of green goodness	$0.00

222 million tons — according to a 2011 UN study, that’s how much food consumers and retailers in industrialized nations waste every year, mostly by throwing away perfectly edible food. Just to put that number in perspective: it’s almost equivalent to the net food production in sub-Saharan Africa, and area about two and a half times the size of the United States.

It’s huge.

If you’re the average North American or European consumer, you throw away between 210 and 250 pounds of food each year (if you want to picture that better, 250 pounds is the weight of 1000 Quarter Pounder™ meat patties before they’re cooked — or the weight of over 1300 cooked patties). If you’re the average North American or European consumer, you can do better.

Our neighbors in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia waste less than 10% as much as we do, throwing away an average of 13 to 24 pounds of food a year. That seems like a good target. And helping people reach that target is what this blog, and the 222 Million Ton project, are all about.

In this blog, we will share tips and tools that can help people adopt more sustainable practices, and hopefully spark conversations that will lead us in directions that we haven’t anticipated, and that our team and our readers can learn from.