The environmental studies department hosted a panel discussion late Tuesday afternoon in Carroll Auditorium titled “Urban Food Waste: Environmental, Social and Spiritual Dimensions,” which was open to the public.
The panel consisted of Jim Conklin, the board president of Cultivate Food Rescue (CFR), Karim Tinoco, sustainability foods and kitchen programmer, Fr. Dan Horan, professor and director of the Center for the Study of Spirituality and Abbie Kawalec, a junior and Care for Creation coordinator for the Center of Faith, Action and Ministry. Sally Geisler, assistant professor of environmental studies and Justice Education served as the panel’s moderator.
The event showed various clips from the 2014 documentary, “Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story,” to spark discussion between the panelists. After an hour of documentary clips and the panel discussion, the floor was open to audience members for questions.
The panelists first discussed the standards and set expiration dates created by legislation, retail stores and the general public for the quality of fresh food.
“Something that’s not talked about enough in the food waste conversation is the responsibility our retail stores have, not only to change their standards that they have at the moment, but what they do with that food waste afterwards,” Tinoco said. “I am a strong believer that we should hold these institutions and these companies accountable for their own ways and how [the food is] discarded. Yet, as a general public, we haven’t done that.”
In addition to the abundance of food waste, Tinoco said it’s also important to pay attention to the waste that begins at harvest. Much of the produce originally harvested is thrown away or discarded due to its appearance and appeal for general consumption. If, for example, a fruit had scarring or bruising on the surface, most grocery stores wouldn’t allow it to be stocked, so the harvesters throw the fruit away before it’s packaged to be sold.
Conklin agreed with Tinoco.
“I would back up a step and say they’re our standards at the grocery stores," she said. "We create the standards as consumers. So as an American consumer, we look for abundance and perfection. We're not going to shop at the grocery stores that are light on the shelves or their produce doesn't look the highest quality.”
Kawalec explained how Saint Mary’s Sustainable Farm helps prevent food waste caused by harvest. The Sustainable Farm provides fresh food to nearly 30 food-insecure families during their growing season. Any food leftover is sold at the weekly farmer’s market, which is open to the tri-campus and South Bend community.
She points out a trend of customers finding produce with scarring, bruises or malformations as “more endearing” than they likely would at traditional grocery stores, which highlights the difference of consumer standards based on where they purchase their produce.
Horan introduced poet and environmental activist Wendell Berry’s belief that advanced economic societies are “disengaged and disconnected from the source of the food that we consume” in that inhabitants are prone to ignorance of the “sense of connectedness to the earth.” He applied this concept to how people allow themselves to willfully discard edible food because of their removal from the harvesting process.
Clonkin later explained how CFR is currently in conversation with a local congressman about the Food Date Labeling Act of 2023, which aims to better regulate the “best used by” or “sell by” dates to extending the shelf life of produce. According to Clonkin, versions of this act have been introduced in Congress eight times since the 1980s, and none have passed.
“We need food date labels that are clear to the consumers. States vary. Some states have zero regulation on standards, and some states have more. But all states are radically different on what they require,” Clonkin said. “So as a food manufacturer, you're actually producing different dates, depending on the state that you're shipping into. So there really should be some business reason to pass this legislation, but some lobbying effort in Congress … has really stopped this formula shape legislation for a long time.”
The conversation then transitioned to the environmental impacts of food waste around the globe. Kawalec explained how agriculture's rapid expansion has created a scarcity of important resources such as phosphorus, which provides nutrients to crops in the soil. She emphasized the difference between poor and healthy agricultural practices, pointing to alternative methods for sustaining the environment and preventing climate change.
“So to destigmatize agriculture, it's not always bad. There are ways that we can engage in healthful farming practices that can not only benefit our communities but also benefit our Earth,” Kawalec said.
Tinoco states that agriculture accounts for approximately 30-34% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, making food the second leading contributor. He further explained how current agriculture practices are the leading cause of deforestation, soil acidification and eutrophication.
Tinoco said he doesn’t believe these outcomes were intentional, however. Many of the herbicides and pesticides developed for agriculture were invented after World War II, at a time where the global population was booming and quick innovation was necessary in order to feed such an fast-growing population. Tinoco added that history can no longer excuse current agricultural practices.
“These techniques are kind of necessary in order for us to produce at the rate we are producing now. But just like we were able to innovate then, it's time for us to innovate now and find ways that kind of go back to the way nature does things automatically,” Tinoco said.
Bringing in a lens of spirituality, Horan mentioned a concept Pope Francis included in his 2015 encyclical letter known as integral ecology, or the idea that everything is connected. He compared this to Tinoco's descriptions of agricultural causes to climate change, and how feeding the human population negatively effects the environment.
“The hubris of human persons, especially in very wealthy, very affluent, very comfortable societies such as our own is that we are beginning to believe our own kind of delusions about our separateness, that we think we are above and over and against the rest of creation,” Horan said. “We need to produce more because so much more is being wasted, and that produces even further waste ... When we think about everything being connected, we can think about ourselves as part of an ecosystem of integral sets, as Pope Francis said, embracing an integral ecology.”
