It's your choice if you want to read it or not.
"Putting expired foods to healthy use; Ex-Trader Joe’s head aims to fight poor nutrition, waste by creating meals for low-income customers" by Jenna Russell and Jenn Abelson | Globe Staff, February 26, 2013
Doug Rauch, the former president of Trader Joe’s who made millions of dollars marketing cheap but chic groceries across America, plans to sell meals prepared with food that is edible but has passed its sell-by date to low-income consumers in Boston.
I'll bet they can put out quite a spread. Yeah, they really care about your health, kids.
Rauch said he knows the concept may at first sound unpalatable, maybe even objectionable, but he’s convinced that his Urban Food Initiative has merit. The idea is to take food “waste” — perishables at, near, or past their expiration date that supermarkets throw out daily — and turn it into healthy meals priced like a McDonald’s Big Mac. Rauch compares the nonprofit’s mission to the work of Goodwill, which resells donated clothing at affordable prices.
Rauch, who is negotiating to open a 10,000-square-foot store in a building owned by the Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, said the Urban Food Initiative emerged from his research into hunger while studying as a fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative from 2010 to 2012.
Although most people have access to enough food, he said, many inexpensive meals are unhealthy, contributing to obesity, diabetes, and other medical conditions that have reached epidemic proportions....
Then why are so many Americans hungry?
The issue of food waste has attracted more attention following alarming estimates of global population growth and concerns about the ability to produce enough nutritional food.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Food Wars
They will kill you over it.
Rauch and others say one way to tackle the problem is to reclaim some of the roughly $47 billion worth of food that supermarkets throw out each year, much of it edible. That amounts to roughly 10 percent of the total food supply at the retail level, according to industry estimates....
I actually have no objection when it expires after I have bought and put in the refrigerator. That's on my hook at my own risk. I'm not so sure about this idea given the track record of food handling by authorities in this country.
Currently, that accounts for a tiny fraction of supermarket sales, but that could soon change. New rules proposed by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection would ban commercial food waste from state landfills, requiring supermarkets and other institutions to find ways to divert organic waste elsewhere.
Related: The Boston Globe Says Wasting Food is Good Money
Boston Globe Garbage Can
Gonna stink!
The culture of US supermarkets is a major obstacle to making better use of past-date food, according to Jose Alvarez, who served as president of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain from 2006 through 2008 and is an Urban Food Initiative board member. Consumers have come to expect large displays of gorgeous fruits and vegetables, requiring grocers to stock far more produce than they can possibly sell.
Look at them shift the blame on to the s***-eating consumer. Can you stomach insults for lunch, folks?
One recent food waste study estimated that US supermarkets on average discard $2,300 worth of out-of-date food per store every day....
That is outrageous.
The Urban Food Initiative is one of several ongoing efforts aimed at improving access to healthy food in Boston....
Is it free of GMOs, pesticides, and other harmful things?
Related: Panera opens nonprofit Hub cafe
Panera Bread plans more pay-what-you-want cafes
No more bread for me, thanks.
--more--"
Next thing you know they will be calling dumpster-diving dinners a delicacy.
So what would you like, meat or fish?
"Ikea drops meatballs in Europe; Meals suspected of containing horse meat" by Karl Ritter | Associated Press, February 26, 2013
STOCKHOLM — Swedish furniture giant Ikea became entangled in Europe’s widening meat scandal Monday, forced to withdraw meatballs from stores across Europe amid suspicions that they contained horse meat.
I was wondering what was in my lunch sack.
Stores in the United States and Canada were not affected, Ikea said.
Yeah, sure.
"Nestle said it was confident that products in the US market were unaffected."
I'm not.
Also see: Alphabet Agency: USDA Dinner
Has their seal of approval!
The company reacted after authorities in the Czech Republic said they had detected horse DNA in tests of 2.2-pound packs of frozen meatballs that were labeled as beef and pork....
Meatballs from the same batch had been sent from a Swedish supplier to 12 other European countries — Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Ireland — and would be pulled off the shelves in all of them, Ikea said.
Later Monday, the company expanded the withdrawals to stores in 21 European countries and in Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Dominican Republic, all of which were getting meatballs from the same Swedish supplier.
But it hasn't reached you, American. If you believe that, I've got another war to sell you.
Ikea spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said that included most European countries, but not Russia and Norway, which use local suppliers....
Ikea’s North America branch said the US stores get their meatballs from a US supplier....
Ikea is known for its assemble-it-yourself furniture but its trademark blue-and-yellow megastores also have cafeteria-style restaurants offering Swedish dishes such as meatballs served with boiled or mashed potatoes, gravy, and lingonberry jam.
European Union officials met Monday to discuss tougher food labeling rules after the discovery of horse meat in a wide range of frozen supermarket meals that were supposed to contain beef or pork. So far those foods include meatballs, burgers, kebabs, lasagna, pizza, tortelloni, ravioli, empanadas, and meat pies, among other items.
Authorities say the scandal is a case of fraudulent labeling and does not pose any health risks....
Isn't that a crime though?
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Related: Mediterranean diet shows key benefits, study finds
No meat there.
You ladies make sure you drink your milk now.
I'm trying to cut back on the fear so I had only intended to link the agenda-pushing article (along with a second helping), as if cutting a bit of the bloated federal budget will bring the sky crashing down.
Hey, I'm opposed to the social spending austerity because the real solution is the contraction of empire and the freeing of the nation from the private central banking Ponzi scheme. But that's not what is behind my newspapers apparent concerns, sorry to say. There are other intere$t$ and agendas involved.
Hey, at least someone is getting fat off hunger.
