Can Do! (Stop Wasting Food, For Your Own Good and the Planet’s)

Between years spent in service to the Siren, being a parent, and now working at a food bank, I seem to spend my whole life surrounded by food.  I’m not complaining; I’m bragging. 

But one question seems to come up again and again.  And again.  And it’s one of those things that I’ve come to slowly realize I’ve been completely wrong about my entire life.

Do me a favor.  Go into your kitchen, take a look in the cupboard, or look through your fridge.  Find some food that is expired.

You know, food that’s past the date printed on the package.  Expired.  No good.  Dangerous.  Something that you need to throw out right now before it gives you botulism.

I know you have some.  We’ve all got some.  Because none of us ever eat all the food we buy.  We always buy that extra can of soup, because it was on sale and we thought, “Hey, I might be in the mood for soup one day.”  Or your daughter begs you to buy those breakfast granola bars, only instead of eating those for breakfast she insists that you make her chocolate chip pancakes.  And like a sucker, you do.  (Just me?  Tell me it’s not just me.)

So, grab something, anything, that expired yesterday, or last week, or last month.  (Or last year…)

Now, don’t throw it out. 

Because, it’s not expired.

I’ve believed my entire life that the dates on food packages are expiration dates.  And I’ve believed that food past this expiration date is suddenly gross, unhealthy, even dangerous to eat.

I’ve been wrong.

Before I really dive into this, if you don’t mind, all this talk of food is making me hungry.  And I just made myself some noodles which I mixed with a little hoisin sauce and this spicy chili-garlic sauce that expired five years ago. 

I’m going to have a few bites.  If I die, this will be a very short essay.

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(Sorry, guys, no such luck.)

Because no matter what the date on the bottle might say, the food inside is probably just fine.

Those dates on the cans and bottles and boxes that we buy contain good information, no doubt about it.  But no one has ever bothered telling anyone who doesn’t spend their entire life working with food exactly what that information is.  And at the same time, those dates actually hide a terrible reality about our food supply that we are very, very good at overlooking:

We throw out too much food.

How much are we throwing out, exactly?

While no one is weighing it all, the USDA estimates that between wilted lettuce, uneaten leftovers, and canned goods left in the closet for a generation, Americans throw out about 300 pounds of food every year.  Each.  That’s every single person in this country.  And most of that 300 pounds you threw out was probably still edible, even probably still delicious.  (Maybe not the lettuce.  I’ve never described lettuce as delicious.)

Picture it this way: You go to the grocery store, buy three bags worth of groceries, and on your way out the door, you drop one entire bag in the garbage

That’s how much we’re throwing away.

“No way,” you’re saying.  “Not me.  I don’t throw that much out!”

Maybe you don’t. Or, maybe you do.  I’m not sure because I’m not watching your every move, paying attention to every meal you eat.  That’s Facebook’s job.

But on average, estimates of the value of wasted food work out to roughly $1,600 for an average American household per year.

That means you’re probably throwing out $1,600 every year.

And every can of food that is thrown out is not just a can of food, it’s also all the resources that went into growing the food, processing the food, packing the food, transporting the food.  Every single piece of food that we consume (or don’t consume) has a carbon footprint attached to it.  Now, estimates of exactly how much food waste contributes to global climate change vary, based on methodology, but the variations are somewhere between “really bad” and “even worse,” so the wide variance doesn’t really matter.  Under the study done by Project Drawdown, it turns out that changing our habits to reduce our food waste is the third most effective means of reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

(Yeah, I know.  Every time I mention Global Climate Change, someone has to chime in that it’s all a hoax by the Chinese, the climate changes according to natural cycles, and there is no scientific consensus about whether or not humans are causing climate change.  I’m just going to leave this here, and go back to talking to the grown-ups in the room:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/may/23/john-oliver-best-climate-debate-ever)

And it’s not just that we throw out tons of food every year.  We also have a problem with food insecurity.  At the exact same time that we fill our garbage bags with food, millions of people, families, children, retirees, have so little food and so little access to food that they often have to make terrible choices, like buying food or buying medicine, or feeding themselves or feeding their kids.  These are decisions no one should have to face.

Let me say this again:  Our country is throwing out billions of pounds of food.  And we are letting people in our country go without enough food.

It doesn’t make any sense, does it?

This raises a massive moral question: Are we so pre-occupied with income and profits and capitalism that we will let people go hungry because they don’t have enough money to buy food, even when we have plenty of extra food that will likely just get tossed out after it “expires”?

But even people who are food insecure will look at the date on a can of beef stew, see that it is past date, and throw it out.  It has been so ingrained in us, from an early age, that you need to look at expiration dates on food, that someone who is forced to regularly choose between buying food and buying expensive prescription medicine will throw out past-date food instead of eating it!

So you have economics, physics, and morality, all telling you the same thing:

Stop throwing out so much food!

And the solution starts with that date on that can of stew.

What does this date mean?

The date that ends up on a can of stew or a can of tuna or a jar of Grey Poupon is placed there by the food manufacturer.  

But of course.

There is no standard as to what these dates mean or how they are arrived at.

In practice, most shelf-stable food (packaged food that requires no refrigeration) could, probably, survive until our country becomes a Mad Max movie after our society collapses because we threw out so much perfectly good food.  BUT, leaving food on the shelf of a grocery store for years waiting for someone to buy it doesn’t make the money flow in, so manufacturers have to have some way of getting food to be taken off the shelves so stores have to buy more food to refill those shelves.

Now, this is probably more than a little cynical, but it seems like they fully expect us consumers to do the exact same thing in our homes.  Oh sure, I want milk in my coffee, but that milk was dated for yesterday.  Throw it away!  Go to the store and buy more milk!

The thing is, food dates, be they called Best-By, Sell-By, Use-By, have nothing at all to do with food safety.  Food that has been sitting on a shelf for too long is not, by nature, unsafe.  The factors that contribute to making food unsafe have nothing at all to do with the amount of time the food is properly stored.  Food becomes unsafe only when something wrong happens to that food.  For example, if a pathogen is introduced into a food at any point in the manufacturing process, like salmonella, listeria, E. Coli.  Or if something in the manufacturing process goes wrong, like a can is not properly sealed.  Or if food is not properly stored, like if canned food is frozen, damaging the integrity of the can.  These things can make food unsafe, and it really doesn’t matter what the date on the package says in these cases.  The food is just bad and should not be consumed under any circumstances. 

How long does properly preserved shelf-stable food actually last?

A long time.  Canned food, including oysters, tomatoes, and mixed vegetables, were recovered from a steamboat called the Bertrand, which sank in the Missouri River in 1865.  They were opened in 1974.  No foodborne pathogens were present.  The food was still safe to eat.

Again, we are separating the idea of food quality from food safety.  Would century-old food taste good?  Probably not.  (Nobody actually ate the food from the Bertrand; they only tested it for bacteria.)  But about a quarter of the fresh food I cook at home doesn’t taste good, either.  (More, if you ask my kids.)  The point is that the food is safe.  It will not make you sick.  Will it taste funny?  Maybe, but that is why you have hot sauce. 

So, this whole issue around Best-By dates seems to have a simple fix, right?  Just get rid of the dates!

Not quite.  Best-By dates serve a legitimate purpose.  A couple, in fact.  In the event of a food recall (think salmonella-contaminated peanut butter), they can help consumers identify and dispose of unsafe food.  And yes, food will generally taste better if eaten before the Best-By date than it will if eaten, say, five or six years after the Best-By date.  Though, not THAT much better.

But we still call them expiration dates.

That’s what needs to change.  Not the language on the cans, but our language, our understanding, our mental attitude toward preserved food.

Because these are not “expiration” dates in any meaningful way.

My point here is simply this:  Before you throw out food, stop and ask yourself if you really need to throw it out?  Does it look funny?  Does it smell bad?  Is the can bulging like a squirrel trying to fit one-too-many acorns in its cheeks?  

If the answer is no, there is a very good chance that the food that you are about to throw out is safe, nutritious, and tasty. 

We’ve been conditioned by the food manufacturers to think about food in terms of freshness and expiration dates.  We need to learn to ignore dates and think about food in terms of social, environmental, and economic impacts.  Food is vital to health, it is energy, it costs money, and access to good food is a basic human right.

Worried about getting sick?  Practice good food safety in your home: wash your hands, wash your counters, store food properly, and don’t forget to wash your hands.

And the next time you catch yourself looking at a date and saying (or even thinking) the word, “expired,” stop and say, out loud, “It isn’t expired.”

You know those cans of “expired” food you pulled out of your pantry?  Don’t throw them away.  Instead, save yourself money by turning them into dinner.  Don’t be afraid.  They’ll taste fine.

And when you’re done, take the money you would have spent on buying new food and donate it to your local food pantry.  They can use it to save more food that would otherwise end up in a landfill and give it to someone who needs that food but can’t afford it.  Save money, save the planet, save another human being, and enjoy a delicious dinner while you’re at it. 

Expired has never tasted so good.

Never Underestimate the Maltese

The news cycle is a strange, fascinating, even scary place.  Especially these days.  What will it be today?  International nuclear crisis?  Foreign cyberattacks on democracy?  Terrorism?  Humanitarian crisis on the border?  The presidential election?

With the election coming soon, one name we seem to be hearing more and more is Mayor Pete.  We keep referring is this guy from South Bend, Indiana as "Mayor Pete" because no one, even in South Bend, has any idea how to pronounce Buttigieg.

That's because its Maltese.

It's actually a pretty common Maltese surname.  The Maltese probably have no idea why we're having such trouble pronouncing it.  Although, to be fair to Mayor Pete, if I was mayor, I'd insist people refer to me as Mayor Dave.  And no one has ever mispronounced my last name.  Literally, ever.

But that doesn't change the fact that we have a Maltese name making big news.  In a nation of immigrants, this shouldn't be a surprise, but it makes me realize how little I know about Malta.  I know it's famous of its...um...falcons?  And, um, Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin met there, right?  Oops, no, that was Yalta.  So, falcons.  Given this lack of knowledge, I started reading up on the history of the little island in the Mediterranean Sea.  If you think that's odd, then, Hi, my is Dave and we've obviously never met.

Maltese history, it turns out, is incredibly interesting.  It is mostly a history of invasion and occupation and foreign influence and perseverance.  This small island, less than half the size of Rhode Island (insert Rhode Island size joke here), has been invaded and occupied by the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Catholics, French, and British, among others. It is featured in the Bible and was the site of a key siege and standoff during the Second World War. Being right in the middle of a major trading route, and right between Africa and Europe, it has been a place of great strategic importance since the dawn of history.

Through it all, the Maltese people have adapted yet held onto their own identity.  They have endured, and their culture has endured.  Which is why Buttigeig doesn't sound French or English or Italian.  It is distinctly Maltese.

But I didn't actually want to talk about those Maltese, the actual people of Malta.  No, I wanted to talk about a different Maltese.

This one.

That's Tobey.  Tobey is a Maltese.  Okay, well, if we're going to get all lineage and pedigree about this, he's a Maltese-Silky cross, but hey, I'm an Irish-Scottish-French-German-Italian-Welsh-Virginian-Yankee cross, so I'm not one to split hairs.

The Maltese breed takes its name from being known as the preferred breed of choice for the royal families and nobles of Malta, going all the way back to the time of the ancient Greeks.  They were so popular there, they became synonymous with the island.  Like the island, itself, they tend to be small, somewhat overlooked, and almost always underestimated.

A few years ago, my wife called me at work one day to ask what I thought about adopting another dog.  With two kids in the house, including a super-active toddler, I was nervous about that idea.  It would have to be a pretty special dog: patient, gentle, easy-going.  I didn't think we would find a dog like that.  I was against the adoption.  Then, she told me his name was Tobey.

Toby, it happens, was my grandfather's dog when I was a little kid.  If you're the kind of person who believes in signs, this would seem to be a big one.  I'm not, but I said, Okay, let's meet the dog.

(Sidebar: I want to address the spelling of Tobey vs. Toby.  I liken it to whiskey or whisky: if there's a glass of it in front of you, who cares how it's spelled?  There, now let's move on, shall we?)

Tobey wasn't exactly like the other dogs we've rescued over the years; abused, abandoned, age unknown, medical history unknown, emaciated and starved.  Tobey was a loved, well-cared for, healthy (somewhat tubby) dog whose owners were in the impossible position of not being able to care for him anymore.  I think he liked us right from the beginning.

We needed to find a pretty special dog, and, it turns out, we had.

Tobey was constantly kind, patient, protective of Leo, alerting us to strangers coming into the house (or near the house, or driving by the house, or...), asking for belly-rubs, and cleaning up after us if we accidentally dropped any food on the floor.  His gentleness around the kids was nothing short of amazing.  He had the patience and gentleness of...well, let's just say I think most saints have the patience of Tobey.

Then, a few weeks ago, we noticed a change in Tobey.  He seemed to lose his energy.  And we thought, maybe he's getting old.  Then, he seemed to lose his appetite.  That was a bad sign.  We took him to the vet, who took some blood and told us Tobey was diabetic.  They wanted to start him on insulin, and to make an appointment for next week.  The next day, he refused to even drink water.  We took him to Tufts Veterinary Hospital, where they said he was in the middle of the diabetic ketoacidosis crisis.  None of those words sounded promising.

I can't say enough about how incredible everyone at Tufts was.  They called us, kept us informed of what was happening, how he was doing.  They talked to us when we visited him.  They took the time to get to know Tobey.  They treated him, stabilized him, and Tobey seemed to be on the mend.  Then, an ultrasound revealed some further complications:  It wasn't just diabetes.  Tobey had a tumor on his adrenal gland, spreading into his vascular system.  And he also happened to have a massive blood clot that could break loose at any time and cause a fatal stroke.  Three for three on the "How Bad Can It Be" checklist.

The vet took the time to explain how to give him his insulin.  I didn't bother explaining that my mom is diabetic and that I knew the drill pretty well.  Though when she asked if I knew what low blood sugar looked like, I kinda chuckled.  I also flashed back to a memory of being maybe five or six and my dad waking us up in the middle of the night and driving us to the hospital, with my mom acting weird and slurring her words until the doctors could take care of her.  Yeah, I'm familiar with it.

Finally, Tobey was home, on insulin, blood thinners, antibiotics (did I mention the pneumonia?) and anti-nausea medication.  But at least he was home.

But, we noticed, he still wasn't eating much.  His energy level was still way down.  He refused all food.  I pureed his food and spoon-fed it to him.  I had to force food and medicine into his body, hoping to keep him alive.  He actually, for the first time ever, bit me.  (I deserved it; I'd try to bite someone with their hand down my throat, too.)  Nothing was working.  He needed to go back to the hospital, get another ultrasound, see if they missed something.  And all I could think was the cancer was spreading, and that we'd need to soon say goodbye to our Maltese.

The ultrasound found his stomach full of liquid and his digestive system had become stuck.  They admitted him for a few more days, put him on some new medications, and Tobey, incredibly, bounced back.  Again, the doctors and staff at Tufts were amazing.  And considering the amount of money we ended up spending, I'm awaiting the invitation to the new hospital wing that they'll be naming after Tobey.

He's home again, now, on no less than eight medicines, but eating normally, barking whenever the door opens, pooping in the house, all the normal Tobey things that Tobey does.  And we're so glad.  Plus, he got a cool electronic sensor that tracks his blood sugar, which I'm pretty sure makes him a cyborg.

I thought the little dog was gone, too sick, too tired, too weak.

But I underestimated him.  I should have known better.

Usually, when I write one of these long, emotional posts that have nothing to do with beer, its ends on a downer.  I'm glad this one has a happy ending.  Tobey's doing fine and looking forward to going out on our new canoe a few more times this summer.

Never underestimate the Maltese.