Waste Not, Want Not

One day I was watching the Food Network (My favorite Network...yeah, duh) and there was a special on Waste in the food industry.  The challenge was for 4 chefs (Ann Burrell, Alex Guarneschelli, Bobby Flay and Michael Simon) to create gourmet food with discarded ingredients.  don’t panic, this food was anything but spoiled or ruined. The food they found came from restaurants and supermarkets that threw things out that were literally a day past their expiration dates.  It was a shocking revelation. There was so much food wasted simply because customers don’t want to see a SINGLE blemish on their produce. I know this is kinda muddled but it got me thinking about food and attitudes toward food, my own attitude in particular. Food is pretty important to me and not just because we need it to survive but because I care about food, how it is gathered, grown, and slaughtered. I used dream of being a world class chef and I remember watching the Frugal Gourmet on PBS before the wonderful world of cable television came to my humble little TV set.  His food was pretty simple regarding ingredients but was labor intensive.  If you wanted to cook his food, you had to put in the work. No store bought breads or canned foods went into his meals.  He presented you with a counter full of fresh fruits and veggies and whipped up a meal fit for peasant and king.  I was in love. I wanted to entertain and smile and clink glasses of sparkling water based drinks with a host of fabulous smiling friends. I wanted to be healthy  and happy (the Frugal Gourmet was a spy old fella with a happy voice and a sunny disposition). I wanted to feel cared about and to care about the wellness of others all through food and that is what I saw when I watched the Frugal Gourmet. No pretension, no waste and no unwanted health issues…

The point of this post?  Well, that show on food Waste made me start caring about food and myself again the way I did when I watched the Frugal Gourmet as a kid. 

And my journey began….

Happy Karma
Us!