WASTED!!

On Tuesday 4/17/18 I attended a conference/professional development that informed me on food waste and how much of a problem it is in our country. Many people spoke at this event, people from DEC, and local community famers. Dr. Michael Olivette did a great job putting an image in my head on how much food waste fills the earth by saying if we took all the food waste and filled tractor trailer trucks and parked them side by side, they would circle the earth one in a half times. That is insane! 
All of these speakers stressed how they work towards stopping food waste by recycling, or making new foods. Foods that are unused can be brought to food pantries, can be composted, or made into different things for people to consume.  For example, unused lettuce and other veggies can be given to pigs because they will eat anything! Or, like the movie showed, the ends of the loaf of bread that people don't use can be made into beer! A drink that mostly everyone enjoys :) The movie that was shown was Wasted! The Story of Food Waste and if you click on the link you can watch it! This movie taught me the simple things we can do to prevent food waste. The food that we waste can be going into the mouths of truly hungry people in poorer countries, or into farm animals that also produce food for us. Supermarkets throw away a crazy amount of food that is not used, or the "sell by" date is up or the "use by" date is up. It is unreal, because that food can still be eaten or used for something else and not enough people are educated about this so they automatically throw away foods with "dates" on it that they bought from the store. Another way to stop food waste is through composting.  If you throw unused parts of fruits or vegetables into a compost bin, you are making extremely fertile soil that can be used for the garden! I would love to get a compost bin for my house! I also want to start recycling. These are some simple ways that I am going to start helping this huge issue in the world. 
Dr. Smirnova also spoke at this event! She spoke about the sensory garden that is being build at Bishop Dunn, right on campus! This is great because it is teaching young children the importance of gardening, growing food, and the benefits it has to life in general. 

Below are some pictures from the event!