close to half the food produced in the united states goes to waste. according to the author, each american discards 190,000 pounds of food a year even when many face rising grocery costs and shortages are being reported in food banks across the country. jonathan bloom discusses his book at regulator bookshop in durham, north carolina. the program is close to an hour. ...

then we will do the book gives away. everyone should hopefully come in with some questions and we will get a good discussion going. i have the working on this topic for so long it is really nice to get out there and hear some things, what people a thinking about the topic and have a back-and-forth. i am looking forward to that. i have been researching food race for about five years. at the beginning people were really enthusiastic about the topic and i would talk to people and they would say what are you researching so i would say food

waste. almost every time the response was really positive and resonates with people. most folks had a story or an anecdote they wanted to share. people wanting to come about their mother or grandmother. a definitely talk about my mother and grandmother and the impact they have had. but that said there was a conference where i had the chance to meet a guy named jack rosenthal, a managing editor at the new york times and basically i told him i was researching wasted food and he said something like this sounds interesting but why should i care? what is the big deal? if i want to throw it out as did my business? and i didn't have a great response. i was kind of dumb struck and it was the first time anyone had

really provided any opposition what i've talked about a topic. it is not like there are many people love their who are pro food waste. so anyway when jack said that to me it was constructive criticism because i had to go back and really think about how to craft an argument and do so in an intelligent way. i wanted to tell him just because. the reason it is wrong is because it is but that doesn't exactly fly. so what i did was to think about that and if you see in the book, dedicated an entire chapter to answering that question. why food waste matter is. why we should care. and i details the economic environment and ethical reasons why we should care. so for the first selection of wanted to read to you a little

bit from the ethical arguments and it is me trying to figure this whole question out. it is called on ethics. when i began this research and new was wrong to waste food but i just couldn't tell you wind. it least i couldn't make a coherent ethical argument against it. after researching the topic for a few years i was confident the environmental consequences alone made it immoral to waste food. and ethical case against waste without mentioning methane was a bit more difficult. i had a sense there was more to than that. the number of americans who don't have enough to eat made it unethical to waste food for example but of wasn't sure how to express that idea. how should the argument be framed? to better understand the facets of waste, moral implications, i continue to seek other views. with that motive i contacted paul, director of the emory

center for ethics at emory university. he grew up as the rabbi outside philadelphia. two of his three brothers followed in their father's footsteps trending to joke that he is the black sheep in the family. i became an ethicist. he said he would not go as far as wasting food as shameful but he did think it was morally wrong. his logic sounded downright rabbinical. the reason is wrong to waste food is because it leads to what the western religious world calls a hardening of a heart. it treats food cavalier the. leads to a lack of appreciation of the importance of food. the fact that some go without it. the suffering of animals, the card worse among us are willing to tolerate to eat our food. as a profound lack of appreciation for all that eating food represents.

i spoke with an author and sociology professor at st. david's, pennsylvania who is also a pastor with a strong social deficit bank and advised bill clinton and spiritual matters. given that skill set i should is in sight would pass muster. he called funding of food irresponsible but not surprising. when you talk of our wasting food you're talking are society that wastes everything. almost as though food is just one symptom of an overall problem. many of the ethical implications surrounding food waste stem from the idea that millions of americans and more than a billion people around the world don't get enough to eat. some even starve. as someone who appreciates and reviewers food, generally started shaping the influential berkeley california theory. she also established an edible

schoolyard program at a local middle school to better connect kids with their food. when i asked for her take and the juxtaposition of waste and hunger she told me it is shameful to be wasteful when someone else is hungry and we all know it. so pretty heavy stuff. i promise the entire book is not that heavy. when you start throwing around a word shame it definitely gets serious. and that was the case with some of these folks. so from that beginning, let's die down a little bit and learning of things up a tiny bit. i wanted to talk a little bit about the kind of journalism that i did in this book and it is a bit of a mixed bag. traditional journalism, interviewing sources that

referring to statistics and primary sources that i did some other journalism as well where i actually went out and works jobs in the food industry and we will touch on that a little bit later but i also did some experiential journalism which is a fancy way of saying a went out to eat with a buddy of mine and got to write about it. the next passage is along those lines. and this is from a buffet restaurant. is called all you can waste. plate size isn't the problem at golden correll. the bus a chain has reasonable size crockery but an excessive friday of offerings. i visited the golden corral near my home to get a firsthand look that the array of items. on entering be during restaurant located across a massive parking

club from target i expected a sizable number of options but wasn't prepared for six kinds of fried chicken and seven varieties of seafood. the buffet stretched more than 100 feet from the greenhouse to the salad bar to the girl house which had steaks and other proteins wrapped in bacon. through the chocolate fixation station, and in accuracy as it set aside our kinds of cravings, not just chocolate. accounted 81 hobart choices not including condiments and there were 52 salad bar items and 29 dessert choices. to be fair golden corral isn't alone in offering that wide a selection. predictably the abundance on display had 4 choices. i tried to be disciplined but found it difficult to exercise restraint. in my first go around i served my plate with fred to let the,

catch fish, turnip, broccoli, lasagna, blake care to illegal cornbread stuffing and a giant biscuit. what was the thinking? in part i wasn't. i was just following my misguided instincts as i had recently enjoyed the same food and other better restaurants or maybe just have less restrained than most. then again, my fellow researcher collected a stake we both knew with a bad idea. . in addition to variety the limitless of a food makes seem less valuable. we are more likely to waste a piece of lukewarm meet at an indian restaurant of this a steaming canister on display. if you ordered extra cost you would be more likely to keep the indian bread. deal you can eat policy at buffets dooms us to waste food. 1-size-fits-all price

incentivizes to over each. we feel we have gotten our money's worth. in addition buffets prompt the machine gun method of food selection where we try a little of everything. chicken or teriyaki. as a result we end up with plenty on our plate that doesn't quite meet our fancy and leave it for the waiter to clear and because most eateries require a clean plate for every trip to the buffet our plates are wiped clean with every return to the spread. in addition to between rounds plate waste there is the final round of squandering. since few buffets allow you to take anything home the food left is trashed. some all you can eat sushi restaurants especially in hong kong and elsewhere charge a penalty for leaving any roles. a nigerian restaurant in london charges two pounds for

unfinished food which the restaurant donates but in america we think it is our right to waste. when i finally waved the white flag at bowlen correll i have a cookie, brownie and peach cobbler. i was pretty sure -- i decided to ask my waiter if i could have a box. he said i could a fun wanted to pay $5.39 per pound takeout charge. he apologized but said other was customers would take advantage of the situation and load up on their last plate. did a perfect sense but hard to accept a wool resulting in some any items ending up in the crash. he suggested by wrapping michael keaton and at the which i intended to do. it is tempting to use a

container to liberate food. really tempting. so tempting that i may or may not have rescued some cut fruit on my next and final visit. so buffet restaurant certainly among the worst offenders in the restaurant world. that doesn't mean sit-down restaurants are guilty of a fair amount of waste of their own. there is a fair amount of stuff that get wasted in the kitchen and then the plate waste from customers as well. what i found in researching and talking to chefs is if there is a flexibility in the news, that is when chefs can really reduce the amount of waste that they do have but simply paying attention to the topic and being cognizant of food waste can go along way and even further, chefs for

restaurants are creative and have some outside the box thinking they can do really well. so when i was in berkeley, california i met up with a guy named aaron french. he has a number of initiatives in his restaurant where she tries to cut down on waste. this next passage is basically me going to aaron's restaurant and seeing his strategies in action. we start off the biggest restaurant is located in albany, calif.. we start with the early times in albany, calif.. albany, california, came into being in 1908 when a group of shotgun shooting wind halted the import of garbage from nearby

berkeley. apparently the residents of berkeley viewed their northern neighbors and inc. settlement as a dumping ground which didn't fit well for those who live in albany. before the incident the albany man meant to discuss their option. the women took matters into their own hands. as horse-drawn garbage wagons approached the intersection of san pablo and buchanan and the women confronted boat survivors with a 22 caliber rifle. the driver is retreated back to berkeley with their garbage in tow. by the women's defiance of any residents inc. their settlement shortly thereafter. it is fitting that less than a mile away chef aaron french today attempts to prevent dumping in albany only in his case shooed from being treadway at the sunny side cafe. created a menu with an eye on avoiding food waste, in most restaurants. for example his breakfast and

lunch cafe serves french toast a bit thicker than usual. the menu lists it as orange french toast made with poppyseed but upon questioning, he is happy to divulge customers eating yesterday's hamburger buns. these are not generic white burger roles. they are baked, high-quality bonds. half an inch to the top and bottom allows as i recall it is delicious in flavor. wind french began his tactic it was cleary with using rolls customers complained about the shape. i think our culture teaches us even in this day and age that it is wrong or dirty. not even sure they knew what they were making a big deal about. people equate freshness with

good. even though it is french toast for the bread isn't as good. especially dipping it in batter. then he found a girl press to flan them into french toast. few customers noticed. aside from a few poppyseed he would never guess it was yesterday's hamburger bun. more like french toast from texas test. is investors opened a second location in the former garbage exporting hubble of berkeley but remains humbled by his credentials. in terms of waste that restaurant i feel that most of what i do in that regard is common sense or ancient wisdom. things that chefs a century ago would not dream of not doing he wrote in an e-mail. now we have an option to be

wasteful. it takes extra work not to be. i am not reinventing the wheel. just looking back to the way things were. okay. said that is my friend and the french and his french toast. working and that section with french toast with a friend named french was really tedious. i asked him to change his name but he was not interested. if you are either in the area stop by. it is a nice restaurant. the sunny side cafe. if you order the french coast do me a favor and don't complain about the shape of it. maybe you can. earlier on i talked about

emersion journalism and working in a few places. i worked a small organic farm. i work for a catering company. a small restaurant called mcdonald's. and a supermarket not too far from here. had a really fun time working at the supermarket. my wife likes to say my happiest time. there is something to that. i like supermarkets. the reason i did that was because i was having a tough time getting good info from supermarket executives. this was a way to get behind the scenes. the definitely got behind the scenes. this next section is a story from my first day of work. my first day of work in a

supermarket produce department began at 8:00 a.m.. ten minutes away i was throwing away food. orientation would come later. first we had the out of code products. that demanded another employee and i to look through all the baggage produce and remove anything with a syllabi date that day or before. the manager handed me an apron. my name tag with also have to wait. and pointed me to the refrigerated wall of package produce. yanking containers of cut fruit and letters from the cold case i couldn't ignore the obvious. these items were perfectly edible. i collected sliced mushrooms, peppers and onions. seven varieties of salads and trays. based on their container waste, 24 pounds of package watermelon, pineapple and cantaloupe junk. most items would last another week and there was a printed

date by four day is past the cell by date but the store went by the latter. i worked on calling the pre cut and wrapped produce. moses combed through the loose stuff for imperfect items. when he was done, fruits and vegetables looked like could have restocked restaurant buffet. i headed into the back room where gary, the programs manager, was soaking them to revise the leaves after their cross-country journey. i asked what i should do with my cart full of products. hoping it would be used by the deli department or salvaged some other way. without looking up, take it to the dumpster. later on my first day of work i had the pleasure of watching the entry-level produce a soviet training video. it included this passage -- if

you ever have a question whether a product should be called, remove it and discuss it with your manager. whatever i ask my manager about an item he would invariably say toss it. in other words guilty until proven innocent. by my fourth week at the supermarket of wasn't any closer to finding answers as to why the grocery industry is so fine with food waste. every day on the job i threw out some pretty nice stuff. this was especially disheartening considering that it was the cream of the crop. items that were not the right size, shape or cover were weeded out whether by nature or conditioning consumers come to expect fruit like grapes year-round. wherever you live, wherever you shop will have them unless you live in or near california, likely traveling long way advancing through many turtles

perhaps as far away -- independent grocers are more remote -- resourceful but the exception, a six market chain in maryland with one of those expected. the start strive to throw away as middle as possible. the stuff that will be garbage, but whatever can be used gets used but something with a bad spot will cut it up. taylor sliced open snack packs, cool cuts and baby carrots. 27 two out packages into large clear bag and later her employees would incorporate these perfectly good carrots at the veggie tray is. there is an example of a store being resourceful with what they have. they a lot of their own products. fruit treys and veggie tray is

essential the salad bar with lettuce, paperbacks with a cell by date, it is perfectly good but so many stores don't do that because they don't have a use for it or feel like bothering or some other reason. anyway, one little anecdote i've always enjoyed telling about my time in the supermarket was pretty close to how i started i was working in the produce department and ran into a college buddy of mine and came to find out -- he moved to chapel hill and starting a ph.d. program in genetics and i was loading bananas on to the display. that was a bit of an awkward moment. it was the one time i broke cover and told him what i was up to. for everyone else i've played it close to the vest and didn't tell people what i was up to.

i work hard. my first month evaluation was surely positive. i think i put it up on the fringe. supermarkets. check them out. we all had some exposure to food waste. supermarkets and restaurants, kitchens and homeless. tried to add some things to the book that would be novel and new and to get people thinking about how broad the topic is and about the more radical ways people go about saving food to reduce waste. this next section, i think fits that description of being novel. i doubt many of you are eating leftovers off of others plates

in cafeterias. if that is true -- okay. if you lived in portland you might be doing that. there's something called scrounging. quite an excess of practice at reed college going on since the 60s. essentially that is what it is. students who scrounged or decide to not get a meal plan and they are going to eat off of the leftovers of their fellow students. when i heard about this topic, it was a question of when, not if i would go visit. when in rome you have to take part. the last section here, my time scrounging. after ten minutes of scrounging it feels completely normal.

like asking a family member are you going to finish that? i tried to wade in slowly taking advice when no one else has but matched by other examples my rumbling stomachs, my inhibition faded and i began eating like a veterans grounder. i joined the scrounge for lunch and dinner on another sunny portland day in september of 2008. my lunch looks like one bite of quesadilla, two cherry tomatoes and browns salad, four cucumber slices, numerous bights of pizza crust and one plate. letters from a different salad, half of a banana and a filling for a man asian chicken wrapped. it was a more complete lunch than i would normally eat and i enjoy the variety. my compliments to the chef and those who bought my meal. there is a reason why the scrounge tables are located on the path to the trey return.

some paying customers drop food off at the scrounging table. other times grounders politely ask if they can have the dinner remains of an approaching students. when an item arrives the modus operandi is to take a bite and pass it along. when everyone had their fill it is usually in the middle. grounders go back for a forkful if the donation is slow. after 30 minutes, one of these grounders usually takes upon him or herself to bring them the return. believe it or not even the scrounge table has waste. when i was talking to a junior from los angeles who was catching up on some reading while scrounging someone dropped off an apple chewed on all sides. i mentioned surely no one would stoop to be in a glorified apple core. russell said give it time.

it will get eaten and within a few minutes of females grounder started working on it. scrounging tends to be a bit of a grazing process and take a while to fill a. in a break between plates i read through the principles of the scrounge which were handwritten on massive hanging banner. this was an informal version of the scrounged commandments published annually in the student paper. dictums like now shalt not covet the trays of those who have not yet eaten have maintained the tradition. a rumble of excitement interrupted my reading. someone dropped off a burger with two cartoonish we perfect byte. few items create as much excitement as those with protein or fat. that means french fries and pieces of pizza that are more than crossed are quite popular. here comes a trey of fry's one announced. four five students drove in. for the most part students

sharing was impressive but occasionally this grounders matters faded. in the face of a particularly desirable item or a particularly mean he'll. at its core, it is a free-for-all for free food explain the junior from sacramento and an editor of the school newspaper. so scrounging. if you are ever in portland, definitely recommend it. certainly a topic that gets people talking. it is not a solution for reducing waste in real life but it is fascinating to think about how much excess is on most people's plates especially all you can eat locations. my book definitely has some more realistic solutions for reducing waste. i don't want to give the impression it is all out there

like that. but certainly there are some more vigilante examples that exist such as replacing which is the idea that if you have leftovers from a restaurant you will bring them home. instead you leave them out for someone hopefully to claim. there's a lot of controversy because a lot of people say that is a public health menace. there are many ideas on how to do perfect food. and the odd ones i tend to be drawn to. but practical solutions on how people can cut down waste in their own life. with that, i would like to transition into questions. we will do questions for a little bit and then announce the big book winner. so any one want to talk about

anything? >> any plans for a documentary? pbs or michael more? >> i get that question a lot actually. will there be a documentary? i am a journalist. i am a print journalist. i am willing to think about that but as far as i know if there's anything in the works it is not with me. there is a great film out there called dives about dumpster diving. it is by a guy named jeremy siebert. i recommend checking that out. it is another of those extreme ideas on how to reduce waste were people eat what they get out of the dumpster. >> you said the scrounge for 08 food. they talk about we waste so much food that even when you are taking waste you end up with so much that you throw stuff away. my question, did you meet anyone

along the way that talked about the amount of energy we put into food and the amount of food waste we produce in terms of energy independence, oil and national security? >> a great question. chris, you watch the video. one of the benefits of doing a local book reading. i learned a copy. anyway. there is a tremendous amount of energy embedded in the food we waste, the environmental reasons why it matters, that is the main environmental reason. there are a couple estimates on how much energy that represents. the published estimate is 2% of u.s. energy consumption goes into food we throw out but that is really conservative based on

old estimate for what we waste so i put it at 5%. when you think about all the oil that represents it is pretty crazy. the statistics someone gave me to help visualize it is think about the gulf oil spill. each year 70 times more oil goes into growing the food we throw out. some pretty grim food for thought. in the back? >> did you find out anything about the toxic environmental hazard of food being in landfill? [talking over each other] >> i did not talk about that and that is great. that is the other main environmental factor in food waste. the methane from landfills. basically when we send food to the land fill it decomposes and aerobically and produces methane

which is a greenhouse gas 20 times as potent a heat trapper as co2 which is another way of saying food waste contributes to climate change. that is the main reason and also another concern could trickle-down through the land fill. if it is not sealed quite right, it will get into the groundwater. that is a concern. >> in terms of producing change and bringing down the percentage of wasted food seems like a lot of levels it could happen like changing individual behavior, businesses you mentioned, internationally that have policies paying for the plate bringing up level of public policy. so is there a particular level that you think has the most hope for starting to bring down that number? >> so where in the food chain is they're the most room for

optimism? the good news is households actually produce the most waste when you look at all levels of the food chain. that reads really startling when i saw that statistic. it is based on one study in a county in new york where they looked at all the different parts of the food chain and found homes represented 40% of that food waste. pretty staggering. that is good news and bad news. the bad news is we as americans are extremely wasteful. the good news is we can have a large impact and play a real role in reducing the amount of waste out there. yes? >> what have you done in your own home to help eliminate waste? >> good question. hy from everything out. this is hard wired in me. part of why i got into this

topic. nothing is too small to keep. i started composting and that is my main contribution for keeping food out of a landfill. buyer should say i am not good at composting. i compost and it does okay. sometimes i get something out of it but my goal is to keep it out of the landfill. i am not a great, poster just to say it is not intimidating or shouldn't be intimidating. it is not that difficult. you don't have to be an expert to do it. many folks are trying it now and

investing. >> i noticed in the index, whole foods mentioned a couple times. can you comment on the mansion in the book? >> whole foods, what i would say the most visible example of perfection in our food and other this idea that food has to look beautiful and there is a student superficiality in that. as a result of that way of thinking a lot of food gets throw out before it reachedes the supermarket or in our homes where we want things to look just so. helped me to pick on a whole foods specifically or they are not the sole example of this but the leading practitioner of this. they certainly do some other things like composting but at the same time i think they are

leading the charge and really valuing appearance over taste. that is why i try to get people to look at what they see at a farmers' market and what you see in your backyard garden and food doesn't have to look perfect. good question. >> the grocery store you work that was interested or could they or are they allowed in durham county to donate produce that was being thrown away to -- >> great question. they are allowed to donate and by the end of my time there we had started to donate. i don't want to take too much credit but put two people in touch with each other and got them to think about it. it is saving them money on their waste disposal bill and

obviously the food pantry getting all this fresh food that isn't perfect but still perfectly edible. they can donate and most supermarkets actually do donate food. it is more a question of what kinds of food they are donating. pretty much every store out there will give you their stale bread. there is no real liability. it is based secret of the food bank world that there is a a much bread that they have to throw it out. it is more the proteins and fresh produce that they have a hard time getting a hold of. >> so places like wal-mart donating their foods to food banks? >> it varies from store to store that no chain wide policy around here in orange county there is a fair amount of donating. that is where i began this

research. walmart, just announced they are going to trim food waste 10% to 15% so they're starting to think about it and when walmart does something it tends to have a ripple effect. anyone else have any questions? in the back? >> what about pumpkins? >> a very timely question. being right before halloween. funny you should ask that. i was just talking to researcher. there was a study that was going to come out at the end of the year about household food waste and the epa is sponsoring this study. basically pumpkins are the most wasted food in homes. my first response to that was -- d

duh! but my second response was i can't get worked up about that because people harm -- carve them a bit use them as point lander ands. some people will use the seeds and make a pie but a lot of people don't. but boards of all shapes and sizes, never thought i would say that kind of thing. they serve their purpose. >> from a global perspective what are the countries that are really taking the lead on this issue that you have come across? >> the country i had the most experienced in outside the u.s. is great britain. i took a trip there.

one of the chapters holding up the uk as an example where we can go, they have recognized food waste has environmental implications and they are dead set against wasting so much food. they have a long way to go. they waste a fear of all food that comes into their homes and in the u.s. probably around that but the official estimate is more like 25%. there are other nations out there. other european nations that are doing a great job in terms of not having landfills, waste to energy in particular. those are not english-speaking countries so i did not visit them. i had to decide where to go. i don't want to give the impression that the u.k. is the only place doing innovative things but compared to the u.s. they put us to shame. >> with the downturn in the

economy, has lessened some waste and american home's? >> the downturn in the economy is interesting. supposedly erased prices. we have all seen that. when we look at that it should have an impact and it will. i don't think it has kicked in yet. food is still cheap. the cost of food in relation to income is at an all-time low. i am sure it has gone up the little bit. it is only 10% of households spending. not only is that the lowest it has ever been but less than any other nation. that is of big reason we are among the world champions in wasting food. to put a positive spin on it.

>> in your talk about scrounging, how much did you go into that? seems like a lot of people don't have any problem sharing with family or friends but those people become strangers. i was wondering if you found anything like -- is it pretty safe? >> so the health implications of scrounging. the people i spoke with said that it actually helped them. made their immune systems more robust. i don't know if that was just spin or not. i didn't get sick the day i a there. they actually -- i do talk about it a bit in the book. there is an informal rule that if you are sick you don't give it to this grounders. they have clues than they used.

they turn their plates upside-down to let them know they shouldn't take that food but it is interesting. the board of health tried to shut it down-he wouldn't do it and doesn't recommended but it is not illegal because of what he said. >> i noticed you have three major religions of christianity, judy is a man is long mentioned in the index. any comments on those lines?

>> that form the ethical questions. i talked to pastors and there's a fair amount from the old testament implications and from the koran. i definitely tried to look at those institutions as the historical basis for y. wasting food is wrong and the historical solutions people have had. the idea of gleaning is something that is in the judeo-christian bible. originally you leave the edges of your field unharvested so that the port could come and collect food. it takes on a different meaning nowadays. usually volunteers going out to a field and picking when a

farmer isn't going to harvest but the same end goal of getting food to those who need it. any other questions? maybe we will take one other question and then have our big winner. yes? two other questions. >> you hear about a lot of other cultures and countries where meals are a more communal experience and take your time enjoy it wear typically in the united states they are more a quick process. could the speed at which we eat in this country and the fast-food mentality, factor in to our decisions? >> i think that does play a role. having quick meals and not eating together can actually lead to more waste. from my personal experience with having communal meals teaches an

appreciation of food and i think that will go along way toward reducing waste. and conversely when we speed through or when we lead such busy lives we often turn to convenience foods and basically getting take-out or ordering pizza we fall into these bad habits where we will buy fresh food and we know that is right thing to do. we know what is healthy and what we should be cooking and want to make nice meals for our families but realistically we don't have the time so we get ourselves into trouble at the supermarket where we bar too much fresh food. get off work at 6:00 or 7:00 and there is no way you are going to cook it. that might sound familiar. basically you have those fresh foods that get pushed back and it is always tomorrow. then tomorrow never comes. that might be a james bond

movie. that definitely does play a role. >> what can all of us take home and reduce our amount of food waste starting tonight? >> you will make me choose one tip out of the many in there. one good one. basically, if you are only going to do one thing i would say shops smarter. that could mean you don't like supermarkets and only go once a week he really plan your meals well and create that detailed shopping list and stick to because when we stray from that list we stray too much. if you like supermarkets and i am one of those people and go a fair amount that is great too. if you make frequent small trips you are probably going to not have as many things getting

pushed to the back of the fringe. was there one more question? if you want to ask one more question, fine. if not, i will conclude here. i will conclude and and we will have the winner. i almost forgot. as we talked about this, we are a pretty wasteful country but there is room for optimism. this is the kind of issue that once you think about it, judge a picture of waste, you will have no choice but to reduce it in your own lines. it is not the most important or glaring social problem in america is the easiest one to fix and we all have a role to play in fixing it.

thanks. [applause] >> my friend jerome has been keeping a close eye on the food donations. i will build a drama. i asked everyone to give a can of good but the person who brought the most would win this certificate so how many cans and who was the winner? >> thank you for inviting us. and thanks to everybody who brought something. anybody out there emptying their pockets? we have a runaway winner.

right here. the person here as well. [applause] >> i should thank the regulator for donating gift certificates for the american waste land. thank you very much. i will give that to you. and i am going to head over there and if people want i will mark up your books for autograph. thank you very much for coming. i appreciate it. [applause] >> for more on jonathan bloom and his books visit wastedfood.com. >> richard rhodes winner of the pulitzer prize in his

recent challenges, new dangers, and the prospects for a world without nuclear weapons," richard rhodes, realistically speaking is there a prospect for no nuclear weapons on the planet? >> i think so. really lost the utility since the cold war costing $50 billion a year. president obama announced u.s. policy that -- is just a matter of working out security relationships that are standing in the way. >> with regard to those relationships will we come to agreement with countries like north coriander iran who seem to be on the path to making their own nuclear weapons? >> they do because that is the only way they can defend themselves against a major nuclear power like the united states but each of them has security needs. if we can find a way to satisfy them north korea would like very much to be an ally of the united states. they have been saying that for 40 years. they would like to build a nuclear power plants to replace

the electricity we destroyed in bombings during the korean war. >> you talk about iraq's secret bomb program under saddam hussein. how did the story of this bomb program grow and even if they didn't have bombs have we found bombs so far? >> we went into the first gulf war arguing they had a bomb program which we did not have at the time but afterwards when inspectors in the united nations and international atomic energy agency wind and they found a huge effort to enrich uranium to make material for a-bomb and they cleaned out and so did the iraqis. they were tired of having our people walking around the country so they blew up their stuff. they didn't keep record and when the second. came along with an interest in resolving that and settle in their country down and getting rid of saddam hussein there was no proof they happened reconstituted their program but it was fully cleaned up by 1998.

>> you talk about the scramble for what was left over of the soviet nuclear arsenal. >> wasn't so much the arsenal. loss alamos director said to me they have serial numbers just as our bonds due. but it was the material used to make the bomb that was scattered at all labs all over russia. there was no way to get stuff out when the wall came down so they were like us and we went in and spent a lot of money with real effort on our part to help them begin to put their materials under lock and key. a former senator estimates 60% of those nuclear materials are carefully guarded and accounted for so the job remains to be finished. >> you had a presentation at the national book festival. tell us about that and during

the question and answer period, what was foremost on the minds of people asking questions. >> i went through my "the twilight of the bombs: recent challenges, new dangers, and the prospects for a world without nuclear weapons" and spoke about some of the serious issues but also the amazing cops and robbers stories that came out of inspecting iraq after the first gulf war. ultimately what i talked about was the very serious question of can we get rid of nuclear weapons. there was the usual question what about iran? a country that has not figured out how to build a bomb is as much of a friend as a major power like the united states which has at least 1200 or maybe 5,000 bombs still in our arsenal. we think we are the good guys so that makes it okay but a basic imbalance in the world that we maintain large nuclear arsenal but say other countries can't. that was the issue are discussed

in talking about how to get to >> the book "the twilight of the bombs: recent challenges, new dangers, and the prospects for a world without nuclear weapons". its author, richard rhodes. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. forty-eight hours of nonfiction books beginning every saturday at 8:00 a.m.. here is our prime time lineup for tonight's. starting at 7:30 p.m. paul kantor, political science professor and gross city college says new york progressives have assisted america's adversaries. the profiles high-ranking government officials that he says were duped by foreign governments. at 9:00 p.m. republican gov. rick perry of texas argues against national government intervention and what the governor contends are issues that can be better solved by individual states. in his book fed up, our fight to save america from washington.

at 10:00 p.m. afterwards with no loss altman on the career of franklin roosevelt and supreme court appointees. robert jackson and william douglas. mr. feldman talks about his book scorpions, the battles and triumphs of fdr's supreme court justices with the senior editor and supreme court reporter for slate. that is all tonight, prime time on booktv. ..