The Ultimate Waste 1-17-10

Anderson, South Carolina

In many indigenous North American traditions it was common practice to thank an animal for making the supreme sacrifice of its body so that members of the tribe could have sustenance, even life, for another few days. Particularly notable was the extreme care then given to ensuring none of the animal’s substance was wasted. The consumption of resources exactly matched needs. Animals were not over hunted and people didn’t waste or horde. There was no recreational hunting of life forms just for target practice or sport. Animals were not stuffed and mounted on walls as trophies. A sacred view of the world and its living beings precluded such a trivialized treatment of our world.

In the early 16th century the ability to present copious amounts of food to guests was considered a powerful measure of one’s wealth and social standing. Henry the VIII wasted no time in having an extension of elaborate kitchens built at Hampton Court just for that purpose. Fifty rooms of some 36,000 square feet employing 200 people processed an inconceivable amount of provisions. Vast amounts of food and large stands of trees were consumed to prepare epic banquets for the 1,000 plus that needed to be impressed. The largest of several bakery ovens was more than twelve feet in diameter.

According to records in the Eltham ordinances, “for a first remove, the kitchens served up 15 dishes from a choice of bread and soup, beef, venison, red deer, mutton, swan (alternating with goose or stork), capon, coney and carp. The remove was completed with a custard or fritters. This was followed by the second remove of nine dishes. These were composed of jelly, spiced wine and almond cream, followed by a selection from practically every bird in the sky - pheasants, herons, bitterns, shovelards, partridges, quails, cocks, plovers, gulls, pigeons, larks, pullets, and chickens. To this was added lamb, kid, rabbit, venison, and tarts. Supper was a variation on dinner, with the addition of a blancmange pudding, butter, eggs and perhaps quinces or pippins in season.”

In the northern latitudes of North America among the First Peoples, the ceremonial giving of lavish meals and gifts became so problematic that it was officially outlawed in Canada in 1885 and the United States in the late nineteenth century, largely at the urging of missionaries and government agents who considered it "a worse than useless custom" that was seen as wasteful and unproductive. People would spend themselves into bankruptcy in order put on what was known as a potlatch. These vast multi-day frenzies of giving easily bankrupted families.

Some groups used the potlatch as an arena in which highly competitive contests of status took place. In some cases, goods were actually destroyed after being received instead of being given away. Sponsors of a potlatch gave away many useful items such as food, blankets, worked ornamental mediums of exchange called "coppers", and many other various items. In return, they earned prestige. To give a potlatch enhanced one’s reputation and validated social rank, the rank and requisite potlatch being proportional, both for the host and for the recipients by the gifts exchanged. Prestige increased with the lavishness of the potlatch, with the value of the goods given away in it. One could buy into community acceptance.

Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona's Bureau of Applied Research Anthropology conducted an eight-year USDA funded study of food waste. He followed food from farms to retailers and into the mouths and trash cans of Americans. He estimates Americans are throwing out more than $100 billion in food each year and that 15% of food is never opened or even touched. 40% of all food produced in the United States is never eaten, amounting to a staggering 29 million tons per year. The study found food waste in fast food restaurants runs as high as 40%. Kevin D. Hall and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Biological Modeling, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, estimate that U.S. food waste accounts for one quarter of all fresh water consumption and 300 million barrels of oil per year. In the United Kingdom a recent estimate suggests 6.7 million tons of purchased and edible food is wasted each year.

It has become a point of competition in restaurants to offer outlandish portions, resulting in much plate waste. Restaurants’ massive portions fill their large plates, our stomachs, and then their dumpsters. Every day American restaurants throw out 6,000 tons of prepared foods. Ever wonder what happens to all that steaming scrumptious aromatic food still on those massive all-you-can-eat feeding troughs five minutes before closing time? Five minutes after closing it will go into a locked dumpster. We don’t want to risk a homeless person looking in it for something to eat on a winter night and then suing the establishment for an upset tummy. 17% of solid waste in landfills consists of perfectly good food.

Non-profit organizations in recent years often promote themselves by putting out expansive larders. The waste I have seen at these events is sometimes stunning. I was at a reception last week. The caterer had set up an entire smoked pig containing about ninety pounds of chopped BBQ as part of an African emphasis month beginning here in town. The patrons were put off by seeing the source of their meat. The result was seventy pounds of very finely prepared meat being left behind.
I made a slightly tentative query about the fate of this meat. I was told it was five minutes from the trash. Could I have it? The caterer was absolutely elated that someone wanted it. We ended up loading the whole critter into a truck for the night - one benefit of cold winter temperatures. The large group medical that sponsored the event is hardly thinking about caring for food and its proper use. I think about it all the time. I’ve seen six year old boys in Haiti weighing nineteen pounds. I wondered about a pig being raised to simply be discarded, no thought being given to his ultimate sacrifice. I wondered about how well those boys were going to do in school, if they ever got there.

Are we doing the next right thing with the right attitude if our actions cause our landfills to be clogged with the life substance that should be going to little boys in Haiti or perhaps those on the other side of our streets? Does it create community for us to do as the First Peoples did in their potlatches; receive something of great value and then destroy it rather than caring for it and giving it to someone else in dire need?

What’s for dinner? A lot of Haitians would love to know?