Finding Solutions Restaurants and cafeterias are also looking for solutions. Dismayed by the amount of food their customers waste, TGI Friday’s now off ers smaller portions. Students are also learning to prevent food
waste. By removing trays from their cafeterias, many U.S. colleges have cut the amount of food that students waste by 25 percent. Students only take what they can carry on a plate and eat, nothing extra. In some U.S. schools, children dump up
to 40 percent of their lunches in the trash. To combat this, some schools are making big changes. Scheduling recess before lunch can reduce waste by as much as 30 percent. Kids are hungry aſt er recess and eat more of their meal. Giving kids more time to eat makes a diff erence, too. Extending lunch periods from 20 to 30 minutes reduced food waste by nearly one-third. T ere are other solutions, too. Many schools are setting up sharing tables. Students can swap food with other students. Or they can serve themselves portions they know they’ll eat.
A New Way of Thinking Individuals can help, too. T ey can begin to “eat ugly.” Many grocery stores won’t sell fruits and vegetables if they’re imperfect. Yet if people are more willing to accept these “flawed” foods, growers will be more likely to sell them. In England, where the government has
made food waste reduction a national priority, a group called Feeding the 5000 is making its mark. It collects high-quality produce from farms and packers that has been rejected by supermarkets. T en it cooks the food into delicious lunches served to 5,000 lucky diners— for free—to raise awareness and to celebrate creative solutions. For food that isn’t edible, a growing
number of cities are off ering programs to donate it for animal feed or to compost it. T ere’s no one solution to the problem of
food waste. But there are many actions we can all take. By taking small steps and working together, perhaps one day everyone will have enough to eat.
A chef in Paris used donated “ugly” vegetables to create a vat of curry that fed more than 5,000 people.
WORDWISE
developed nation: a nation with a highly developed economy and infrastructure; people living there have a higher life expectancy, higher levels of education and income
developing nation: a nation with a less developed economy; people living there have a lower life expectancy, lower levels of education and income
22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER
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