>> we're going to take care of that a little bit later. just to give a brief overview of tonight, i'm going to read a few passages from the book jumping around here and there, and i'll kind of talk a bit between them. then we will take questions, and then we'll do the book giveaway. so everyone should, hopefully, come up with some questions. we'll get a good discussion going. and i've been working on thiscoe topic for so long, it's really nice to get out there and hear some things, what people are thinking about the topic and actually have a back and forth.w so i'm looking forward to that. okay.d-fo so i have been researching fooda waste for about five years. and at the very beginning in particular, people were reallybo enthusiastic about the topic. and i would talk to people andre

they'd say what are you t researching, and so i'd say, food waste.ar and almost every time the response was really positive, and it really seemed to resonato with people. most folks had a story or an anecdote that they wanted to share. other people wanted to tell me about their mother or their grandmother, and if anyone's read the introduction, i sto definitely talk about my mother and my grandmothers and the impact that they've had. but that said, there was a conference where i had the chance to meet a guy named jackd rosenthal who was a managing editor at "the new york times." and, basically, i told him thatt i'm researching wasted food, and he said something like, okay o, yeah, that sounds pretty interesting, but why should i care? what's the big deal? i bought food, and if i want to throw it out, isn't that my business?an and to be perfectly honest, i

didn't have a great response. i was kind of dumb struck, and itki was the first time anybody really provided any opposition when i talked about the topic.dn it's not like there are manyc. people out there are actually pro-food waste. which thank good. [laughter] so anyway, jack said that to me, and it was really constructiveod criticism because i had to go back and really think about how to craft an argument and to do g so in an intelligent way. i kind of wanted to tell him, you know, just because the reason food waste is wronged t because it is. but that didn't exactly fly.g is so what i did was think aboutacl that, and if you'll see in the book, i've dedicated an entire chapter to answering that question. why food waste matters, why weae should care. and i detail the economic, environmental and ethical reasons why we should care. and so for the first selection i want to read to you a little bit

from the ethical argument, and it's kind of me trying to figure this whole question out. it's called "on ethics." when i began this research, i knew it was wrong to waste foodt i just couldn't tell you why.an or at least i couldn't make a coherent, ethical argument against it. after researching the topic for a few years, i was confident that the environmental consequences alone made it immoral to waste food. building an ethical case againsm waste without mentioningwa methane, however, was a bit mort difficult. i had a sense that there waswi more to it than that, but the number of americans who don't have enough to eat made it unethical to waste food, for example, but i wasn't quite sure how to express that idea. how should the argument be framed? to better understand all theea facets of waste's moral implications, i sought and bet continue to seek others' views.s with that motive i contacted

paul, directer of the emery center for ethics at emory university. he grew up as a rabbi's sonsity outside of philadelphia. two of his three brothers followed in their father's footsteps prompting paul o joker that he's the black sheep of the family. quote, i just became an ethicist. he said he wouldn't go so far at classifying food as shameful, w but he did think it was moral awrong. his logic sounded rah bin call. the reason it's wrong to waste food is because it leads to thee hardening of the heart. to treat food cavalierly leads to the a lack of appreciation of the importance of food, of the fact that some go without it, om the suffering of animals that the carnivores among us are willing to tolerate to eat our food.of it shows such a profound lack ow appreciation for all that eating food represents.ro

i spoke with tony campolo, an hour and a sociology professor at eastern university in pennsylvania. he's also a pastor with a strong social justice bent, and he advised bill clinton on spiritual matters during some of his harder times. given that skill set, i figureds campolo's insight would past muster. -- pass muster. when you talk about wasting f food, you're talking about a society that wastes everything,h said campolo. it's almost as if food is just one symptom of the overall problem. certainly 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. alice waters is someone who appreciates and even reveres food. she not only started the

influential berkeley, california, eatery, she also established the ediblebe schoolyard program at a local school to better connect food.alh their when i asked waters for her take the juxtaposition of waste and hunger, she told me it's wasteful around food when someone else is hungry, and i think we all knoww it. whoo, so, pretty heavy stuff there. i promise that the entire book isn't quite that heavy --mise [laughter]ok but when you start throwing around the word shame, it definitely gets serious. and that was the case with some of these folks. so i thought from that beginning let's dial it down a little bitl and lighten things up a tiny bit. i wanted to talk a little bit about the kind of journalism to that i did in this book. and it's a bit of a mixed bag. there's a fair amount of traditional journalism,

interviewing sources and referring to statistics and primary sources. and then i did some immersionrcs journalism as well where i actually went out and worked some jobs in the food industry. and we'll touch on that a little bit later. but i also did some experiencial journalism which is basically a fancy way of saying i went out w to eat with a pudty of mine -- buddy of mine.wr so the next passage is along those lines, and this is from a buffet restaurant. it's called "all you can waste." plate-sized isn't the problem at golden corral. the nationalte buffet cape hasbm reasonable-sized crockery but an excessive variety of offerings. i visited golden corral near my home to get a firsthand look at the array of items.ral

upon entering the restaurant located across a massive parking lot from sam's club and target,r i expected a sizable number of options, and i wasn't prepared i for six kinds of fried chicken and seven varieties of seafood.s the buffet stretched more than 100 feet from the greenhouse, the salad bar, to the grillhouse which had steaks and other proteins wrapped in bacon to thr chocolate fixation station -- an enaccuracy as it satisfied all kinds of cravings, not just chocolate. i counted 81 hot bar choices not including sauces and condiments. and can -- then there were the 52 salad bar items and 29 dessert choices. toba be fair, golden corral isnt alone this offering that wide of a selection. predictably, the abundance on display prompted some poorn. choices. i tried to be disciplined, but i found it difficult to exercise restraint.cipl

in my first go round, i filled t my plate with fried tilapia, fried catfish, turnip greens,my broccoli, a lasagna slice, baked carrots, cornbread stuffing and a giant cheese biscuit. ill [laughter] what was i thinking?nd well, in part i wasn't. i was just following mying? misguided instincts as i had recently enjoyed these same foods at other, better restaurants.e fo then again, my fellow researcher, matt, selected a steak we both knew was a bad idea. [laughter]th k in addition to variety, the sheer limitlessness of the food makes it seem less valuable. we're much more likely to waste a piece of lukewarm nan at an indian restaurant if we know there's a steaming canister of them on the buffet. if you ordered it from the menu at an extra cost, you'd be morey likely to eat the indian bread. the all you can eat policyde

almost dooms us to waste food. the price incentivizes us to overeat so we feel we've gottenl our money's worth. we take too much, then can't eat it all. in h addition, buffets prompt te machine gun method of food selection where we try a littlea of everything.d bourbon chicken orer the yaki? yes. [laughter] finish as a result, we often wind up with plenty on ourken plates that doesn't quite suit our fancy, and we leave it for the waiter to clear. and because most eateries require a clean plate for every trip to the buffet, our slates are wiped clean with everyn pl return to the spread. in addition to the betweenn roundsto plate waste, there's te final round squandering.en since few buffets allow you to take anything home, the food left when we call it quits is trashed. some all you can eat sushi f restaurants, especially in hong kong and elsewhere in this asia, charge a penalty for leaving

uneaten rolls. a nigerian restaurant in london charges for unfinished food which the restaurant then donates to oxfam. but in america we deem it our right to waste. when i finally waved the white flag at golden corral, i had a cookie, a brownie and some peach on my plate. i was pretty sure what he'd say, but i decided to ask my waiter - if i could have a box.id he said i could if i wanted toe pay the $5.39 per pound be takeout charge. he apologized but said otherwise customers would take advantage of the situation and load up on their last plate. that makes perfect sense, but it's hard to accept a rule ha results in so many items endingt up in the trash. my waiter also suggested i could covertly wrap my cookie in a napkin which, of course, i'd already planned to do. [laughter] wouldn't you? but that doesn't work so well when the remains are cobbler.

it's tempting to sneak in a container to liberate foodskeat toward the end of the night. really tempting. [laughter] so tempting that i may or may not have rescued some cut fruitm on my next and final visit. so buffet restaurants certainly among the worst offenders in thi restaurant world. buf but that doesn't mean that sit-down restaurants aren'tra guilty of a fair amount of waste on their own. there's a fair amount of stuff that gets wasted in the kitchen, and then the plate waste from customers as well. so what i've found in researching it and talking to some chefs is if there's a flexibility in menus, and that's when chefs can really reduce the amount of waste that they do have. but simply paying attention to the topic and really being cognizant of food waste can go a long away.

and then even further if chefsan or restaurants are creative and have a little outside the box thinking, they could do really well.rest so when i was out in berkeley,th california, i met up with a guy named aaron french who goes by the name the ecochef.forn and he has a number of little initiatives in his restaurant where he tries to cut down onas waste.in and this next passage is, basically, me going to aaron's restaurant and seeing some of his strategies in this action. and we start off in, well, the restaurant is located in albanyn california, and we start with the beginnings, the early times in this albany, california. of alalbany, california, came into

being in 1928. apparently, the residents of gar berkeley viewed their northern e neighbors' unincorporated settlement as a dumping ground. before the incident, the albany men met to discuss their options. the women, still without the vote, took matters into their own hands. as horse-drawn garbage wagons approached what's now the intersection of san pablo andtes buchanan, the women confronted the drivers with two shotguns and a.2 rifle.ed the t drivers, no fools, retread back to berkeley with theirthe garbage in tow. 'em worldenned by the women's defiance, the residents incorporated their settlement shortly thereafter. it's fitting, then, that less than a mile away aaron french prevents -- attempts to prevent dumping at his diner in albany.m he's created a menu with an eye

on avoiding the food wastean common at most restaurants. for example, his breakfast and lunch café lists french toast as orange french toast made withts poppy seed bread, but upon questioning, french is happy to divulge that customers are eating yesterday's hamburger buns. lest anyone get the wrong idea, these aren't generic white burger rolls, they are locally-baked high quality buns. he slices off a half inch from k the top and bottom to allow thea bread to soak up the batter and yet when he began his tactic and it was clear that he was using rolls, customers complained about the french toast's shape. i think our culture teaches us even in this day and age that reuse is somehow wrong or dirty, french said. i'm not even sure they knew themselves why they were making a big deal out of it.

people equate newness and freshness with being good and something that's old with being bad even though with frenche toast the fresher bread isn't a. good.ugh dryness is better, especially when you're dipping it in batter and grilling it. after some searching, french found a wooden griddle press to place atop the buns, flattening them so they looked more like regular french toast. few customers really notice.an aside from a few poppy seeds, you'd never guess your orange french toast had beene yesterday's hamburger bun, french said. french and his investors recently opened a second location in the formertexa garbage-exporting hub of berkeley.d a but he remains humble about hish eco-credentials.ubt in terms of the waste at therema restaurant, i feel that most of what i do in that regard is common sense or perhaps ancient wisdom. things that chefs a century ago

wouldn't dream of not doing, french wrote in an e-mail. now we have the option to bee wasteful, and it takes a little extra work not to be.n but i'm not reinventing the wheel, just looking back to the way things were. okay. so that is my friend aaron french and his french toast. and i have to say as a writer working on that section about french toast with a chef named t french was really tedious.g [laughter]anith and i actually thought about asking aaron if i could change his name or he'd change his name, but he was not interested. [laughter] so such is the life of a writer. anyway, so i should say if anyone's ever out in the bay area and the east bay in particular, you should definitely stop by, it's a really nice restaurant, the sunny side café. if you do order the french toast, do me a favor and don't complain about the shape of it. actually, maybe you can.

that's fine. so earlier on i talked about immersion journalism and working at a few places. so i worked at a farm, a small organic farm. i worked for a catering company, worked at a small restaurant called mcdonald's -- [laughter]mp and at a supermarket not too far from here. and i had a really fun time working at the supermarket. as my wife can attest, she likes to say it was my happiest time. [laughter] and there's something to that, but then again, i like supermarkets. but the reason i did that was because i was having a tough time getting any good info from supermarket executives, and this was kind of a way to get behind the scenes and i definitely got behind the scenes. g so this next section here is a story from my first day of work.

my first day of work in a supermarket produce department began at 8 a.m. ten minutes into it, i was throwing away food. orientation would come later, is was told. first we had to cull all the out of of of code products.orie that meant that another the employee, moises, and i were to remove anything with a sell by date of that day or before.ov the manager handed me an apron. my john name tag would also have to wait. and he pointed me to the refrigerated wall of packaged produce. yanking containers of cut fruit and washed lettuce from the cold case, i couldn't ignore the obvious: these items were perfectly edible. i collected sliced mushrooms,er cut peppers and diced onions. i pulled several varieties of bagged salads and veggy trays.a i tossed 24 pounds of packaged watermelon, pineapple and

cantaloupe chunks that first morning. the veggy trays had a printed a enjoy by date of four days past the sell by date, but the storeb went by the latter.y while i worked on culling the precut and wrapped produce, moises combed through the loose stuff for imperfect items. when he was done, his tray ofap culled fruits and veggies looked like it could have restocked asn restaurant buffet. i headed to the back room where gary, the produce manager, was crisping some lettuce, soaking them to revive the leaves after theirth cross-country journey. i asked him what i should do with my cartful of out of code products holding out a sliver of hope that it would be used by the deli department or salvaged in some other way. without looking up he said, take it to the dumpster. later on many my first day of -- on my first day of work i had a chance of watching the industry level produce associate training video.

it included this passage: if you ever have a question about whether a product should be culled, remove it and discuss it with your manager. whenever i've asked my manager about an item, he'd invariably say, today it. in othered words, guilty until proven innocent. by my fourth week at the supermarket, i wasn't any closer to finding answers as to why the grocery industry seemed so fine with food waste. every day on the job i threw out some pretty nice stuff. this was especiallyy on disheartening considering that what reached our store was the cream of the crop. items that weren't the righting size, shape or color had already been weeded out whether by nature or by conditioning, consumers have come to expecteth sweet, ripe fruit like grapes year round. so wherever you live across our vast country, the store where you shop will have them. unless you live many or here to california, the grapes will most likely have traveled a long way advancing through many hurdles, possibly from as far as away at

chile. some independent chains are more resourceful with their produce, but they're the exception. growls, a six-market chain in maryland, is one of those exceptions.n, a when donna taylor, the produce manager, said that the storeh strives to throw away as little as possible, she meant it. the stuff that's going to be garbage, there just is, taylor said. but whatever can be used gets used. if there's something with a bad spot, we'll cut it up and use the parts we can. as we talked, taylor sliced opet snack packs of cool cuts baby carrots that had just reached their sell by date. she emptied packages into aan large, clear bag. b later her employees would incorporate these perfectly good carrots into the store-made veggy trays. so there's an example of a store really being resourceful with what they have, and that story was fascinating. they made a lot of their own

products, and they would make fruit trays and veggy trays ande actually fill the salad bar with lettuce straight from bags that had a sell by date of that day on it because why wouldn't you? it's still perfectly good. but so many stores don't do that because they don't have a use for it or they don't feel like bothering or some other reason. anyway, one little anecdote that i always enjoy telling about myn time at the supermarket was pretty close to when i had started. i was working in the produce t department, and i ran into aed college buddy of mine. and come to find out he had just moved to chapel hill, he was starting a ph.d. program ine genetics. and i'm loading the baa bananaso the display. so that was a bit of an awkward moment. [laughter] and that was the one time where i broke cover, and i told him what i was up to.i br but with everyone else i

definitely played it close to the vest and didn't tell people what i was up to. and i worked hard, and my month, my first month evaluation was fairly positive. [laughter] i think i put it up on the eidge. so anyway, supermarkets. check 'em out. we've all had some exposure to food waste. this book certainly gets into hd some topics and some areas that are familiar to people. supermarkets, restaurants, our kitchens, our homes. i've tried to add some things to the book that would be novel and new and to get people thinking pote about how broad the -- both about how broad the topic is and about some of the more radicalbk ways that people go about tryina to save food and reduce waste. so this next little section, i think, fits that description oft being novel. i doubt of you are eating theon

leftovers off other's plates in cafeterias, and is that true?le [laughter] yeah, okay. all right, no one out there's doing it. well, if you lived in portland and you went to reid college, you might be doing that. there's this thingif calls scrounging, and it's quite ant e accepted practice at reid college. it's been going on since the '60s. and, essentially, that's what it is, it's students who scrounge or they decide to not get a meag plan, and they're going to eatsh off of the leftovers of theiran fellow students.ff so when i heard about this topic, it was a question of when, not if i'd go visit. and, of course, you know, when in rome, you have to take part. so here's this last section here is from my time scrounging. after about ten minutes of

scrounging, it feels completely normal. it's like asking your family member, are you going to finish that? fee only with a family of, say, 1500. i tried to wade in slowly, taking bites where nobody else had.u go yet nudged by others' examplesav and my rumbling stomach, by inhibitions faded.s, m i joined the scrounge for lunchg and dinner on yet another sunny portland day in september, 2008. my lunch looked like: one bite of quesadilla, two cherry tomatoes from a ranch dressing-drowned salad, numerous bites of pizza crust and one near-whole slice, lettuce from a different salad, half a banana and a filling there an asianan chicken wrap. on the whole, it was a much morm complete lunch than i'd normally eat -- it's true -- and i certainly enjoyed the variety. my compliments to the chef and

the boarders. some paying customers drop food off at the scrounging tables. other times scroungers politelya ask if they can have the dinner remains of an approachingr student. when the item arrives, the modus operandi is to take a bite and pass it along. when everyone's had their fill, the plate is pushed to the middle. scroungers will go back for a forkful if donation's slow, andf after items languish for 20 or 30 minutes, one of the scroungers usually takes it upoe him or herself to bring them toa the dish return. even the scrounge table has plate waste. while i was talking to russell mayhew, a junior from los angeles who's catching up on some econ reading, someone drop off an apple chewed on all sides. i mentioned that surely nobody would stoop to eating what was essentially a glorified apple

core. russell said, give it time. [laughter] it'll get eaten. within a few minutes, a female scrounger started working on iti scrounging tends to be a bit of a grazing process as it can take a little while to fill up. in a break between plates, iwhil read, i read through the principles of the scrounge which were handwritten on a massive happening banner. this was an informal version ofn the scrounge commandments that are published annually in the student paper. dictums such as thou shalt not covet the trays of those who have not yet eaten helpsot c maintain the tradition from year to year. a rumble of excitement interrupted my reading. someone had dropped off a burger with just two cartoonishly-perfect bitesoppe missing. few items create as much excitement as anything with protein or fat.ms that means the meat, french fries and pieces of pizza that are more than just crust are quite popular. here comes a tray of fries, one

scrounger announced. four or five students dove in. for the most part, the student sharing was impressive. occasionally, though, the scroungers' manners faded, and in the face of a particularly desirable item or if it had been a particularly lean meal. at its core it's a free-for-all for free food, explained jose, a junior from sacramento and an editor of the school newspaper. so scrounging.e if you're ever in portland, iew definitely recommend it.ver it's certainly a topic that geta people talking and not a solution for really reducing waste in real life, but it is fascinating to think about how much excess is on most people's plates and especially all-you-can-eat locations. so my book definitely has some more realistic solutions for reducing waste.

i wouldn't want to give the impression that it's all kind od out there like that, but certainly there are some more vigilante examples of of giving that exist such as replating which is the idea that if you have leftovers from a restaurant, you're going tou bring them home. instead you leave them out for someone to cleanin them. and that's brought a lot of controversy because a lot ofhope people say, well, that's actually just a public healthles 9/11 ace. anyway, there are many ideas on how to repurpose food.e ar those are some of the odder ones which i tend to be drawn to.do but the book is filled with practical solutions on how people can cut down on waste in. their own life. so with that i would like tothei transition into some questions, and we'll do questions for a little bit and then we willti announce the big book winner. [laughter] okay.

so anyone want to talk about anything? yes. >> any plans for a documentary, pbs, michael moore? [laughter] >> with i, i get that question a lot, actually, you know, will there be a documentary. i am a journalist, i'm a printum journalist. i'm willing to think about thatt but as far as i know there isn't anything in the works. well, with me. there's a great film out there called dive which is about dumpster diving, and that's by a guy named jeremy siefert. dumpster diving's another of those extreme ideas on how to reduce waste where people just eat off what they get out of th dumpster. yes. >> especially interesting that you said the scroungers end up throwing away food, too, because in dive they talk about we waste so much food that even when you're just taking waste, you

still throw stuff away, you get choosy. but my question, did you meet anyone along the way that talked about the amount of energy thatt we put into food and the amount of food waste we produce in terms of like, you know, energy dependence, reducing dependence on foreign oil, national security? anyone that goes into that kind of realm? >> that's a great question. before i answer i guess, chris, you've watched the video i loaned you. one of the pen fits of doing a --vi benefits of doing a locat book reading. anyway, i loaned chris the copy of dive. anyhow, there is a tremendous amount of energy embedded in thc food that we waste, and ith believe i mentioned the environmental reasons why it matters. and that's really the main environmental reason. so there are a couple estimates on how much energy that. represents. the published estimate is that 2% of all u.s. energy consumption goes into food thatt

we then throw out, but that is e really conservative. it's based on an old estimate for how much we waste.is r so i'd put it at 5% be. and when you think about all the oil that represents, it's pretta crazy. the statistic that someone gave to me to help visualize it is you think about the gulf oil spill. well, each year 70 times more oil goes into growing the food that we throw out.oe so there's some pretty, pretty grim good for thought. yes, in the back. >> did you find out anything about the toxic environmental hazard of the food being in the landfills, having all this organic matter? >> yeah. >> i'm sorry, i came in a little late. >> no. no, i did not talk about that, and that's great because that's the other main environmental factor in food waste is thetal methane that comes from landfills. basically, when we send food toi

landfills, it decomposes anaerobically, and that's why i emits a greenhouse gas that's 0 times for -- 20 times more potent a co 2, trapper.wa also leechingy is another concern, stuff that could a trickle could down through theii landfill, and if it's not seale quite right, it'll get into the groundwater. so that's a concern. yes. >> in terms of producing change on the issue and bringing downn. the percentage of wasted food,>> it seems like there are a lot or different levels it could happes at be it changing individualls behavior, groups such as the scroungers, you know, evenn businesses that you mentionedani internationally that have policies where you're paying for leaving food on your plate or even up to the level of public policy. so is there a particular level that you think has the most hope for starting to bring down that number and produce change on thish -- the issue?n th

>> so where in the food chain it there room for the most on thetism? -- optimism? households produce the wastese when you look at all the levels of the food chain.ll and that was really startling when i saw that saw the -- statistic. it's paced on one study in a t county in new york where they looked at all the different parts of the food chain, and they found that homes represented 40% of that county's food waste. so it was pretty staggering there. it's both good news and bad news. the bad news is that we as americans are extremely wasteful. the good news is that we can have a really large impact and play a real role in reducing the amount of waste out there. yes. ma'am. >> what have you done in your own home to help eliminate waste? >> oh, good question.ou [laughter] i just throw everything out. well, so i was -- this stuff's

kind of hard wired in me. the part of -- that's part ofre why i got into this topic. i definitely grew up in a house that was leftover-friendly, and if you looked in our fridge when i was a kid or if you look in our fridge today, it's the same thing. there's con tainters of all sizes -- containers of all sizes, and nothing's too small to keep. but since starting this project i've started composting, and that's really my main contribution for keeping foodep. out of the landfill. i haven't been as well, and if a should say i'm not a good composter. it does okay, but my main goal is just to keep it out of the landfill. i say i'm not a great composter to let people know it shouldn't be intimidating.g o it's not that difficult, and you don't have to be an expert to do

it.be a i'm sure many of the folks here are trying it now and can back me up there. yes. i noticed in the index that whole foods was mentioned a number of times. could you, please, comment on their mention in the book? >> sure. well, whole foods is what i would say the most visible example of the cult of w perfection in our food and this idea that food has to look beautiful. and there's a certain superficiality in that. as a result of that way of thinking, a whole lot of food gets thrown out before it reaches the supermarket or eveng in our homes where we want things to look just so.s so, you know, i don't mean to pick on whole foods specifically or they're not the sole example of this, but i definitely think they're the leading practitioner of this cult of perfection. and they certainly do some other

things like composting, but at the same time i think that they're leading that charge and really valuing appearance over taste. so that's why i try and get people to look at what they see at a farmer's market and, you know, what you see this yourth backyard garden. and food doesn't have to look perfect to taste good.arde that's a good question, though, hanks. thanks. yes. >> was the grocery store that you worked at interested or could they or are they allowed, the government body of durham county, to donate the produce that was being thrown away to shelters?e >> that's a great question. they are allowed to donate and, actually, by the end of my time there we had started to donate.e i don't want e to take too much credit, but i basically just put two people in touch with each other and got them to think about it.n and from the store's perspective, you know, it's saving them money on their waste

disposal bill and, obviously, for a food pantry they're m getting all this fresh food thaa isn't perfect, but it's stillal perfectly edible.ha so, yeah, they can donate it, and most supermarkets actually do donate food. it's more a question of what kinds of foods they're donating. pretty much every store out there is going to give you theid stale bread or the day-oldy do bread. there's no real liability worries there. and so it's sort of a secret of the food bank world that there's just so much bread out there that sometimes they have to throw it out.ere it's more the proteins and fresh produce that they have a harder time getting ahold of.he p >> are places like walmart donating their breads and foods to food banks? >> it really depends. it varies from store to store. there's no chainwide policies. around here in orange county there's a fair amount of

donating. that's where i began this research.moun but walmart i should say just nouned that they're going to -- announced that they're going to trim food waste 10-15 president in their -- percent many their stores, and when you all know when walmart does something, it tends to have a ripple effect. anyone else have any questions? yes, in the back. >> what are your thought on ornamental foods like pumpkins, prince? [laughter] this time of year? >> that's a very timely p question, it being right before halloween. v [laughter] funny you should ask that. i actually was just talking to a researcher. a there's a study that's going to. come out at the end of this year about household food waste and the epa is sponsoring the study. sorry, the usda. but, basically, pumpkins are the most-wasted food in homes. [laughter]

now, my first response to thated was, duh. it's kind of obvious. and my second response was, i can't really get too worked up about that because people are bringing the pumpkins home and carving them up and using them as jack-o'-lanterns. a so, you know, some people, surem are going to use the seeds orema maybe make a pie out of it, but. a lot of people don't.ee so in terms of ornamental gourds of all shapes and sizes -- never thought i'd be saying that kind of thing -- but in terms of ornamental gourds i would say they're serving their purpose, and it's not really to be consumed as food. so i can't get too worked up about it. yes. >> from a global perspective, what are some l of the countries that are really taking the lead on this issue that you've come across in your research? >> >> sure. well, the country that i have had the most experience in outside of the u.s. is greatry

britain, and i took a trip there.ex and one of the chapters is kind of holding up the u.k. as an example of where we can go. they have recognized that food waste has environmental implications, and they're reall dead set against wasting so mucl food. that said, they have a long way to go.ti they waste about a third of all the food that comes into their homes and in the u.s. it's all probably around that, but the official estimate is more like 25%.ti so there are other nations out there, other european nations that are doing a great job in terms of not having landfills,in waste to energyg in particular. unfortunately, those are notg english-speaking countries, so i did not visit them. [laughter] i kind of had to decide where t go. i but i don't want to give the impression that the u.k.'s theto only place that is doingiv innovative things, but compared to the u.s. they kind of put us

to shame. >> do you know if downturn ind o the economy has maybe lessened some of the waste in americane homes? >> the downturn in the economy,w it's interesting, and it's supposedly raised prices, right? i mean, we've all seen that.esti and i think when you look at that, it should have an impact,h and i think it will. i don'wht think it's quite kickd inve the yet.on the reason i would say that is because food is still tremendously cheap. when you look at the cost of food in relation to our income, it's at an all-time low. at least the latest figures -- i'm sure it has gone up a little bit, but it's only about 10% of our household spending, and not only is that the lowest it's ever been, but it's less than any other nation spends on food. i think that's a big reason why we are among the world champions in wasting food. put a positive spin on it.h

yes. >> i'm interested in your talk about where you were talking about scrounging, and i was wondering how much did you go into the health implications of that? because it seems like a lot of people don't have any problem, like, sharing with their family or friends, but as soon as those people become strangers, kind of like, ooh. you know, you suddenly think -- [inaudible] all that kind of stuff. i was wondering if you actually found anything like did thatf happen or is it pretty safe to share food between random people? >> sure. so the health implications of scrounging. the people i spoke with, the scroungers i talked to said tha. it actually helped them. i s it made their immune systems i more robust. act [laughter] now, i don't know if that wasma just spin or not, but i didn't get sick the day i ate there. i tended to believe them, in all seriousness. they actually -- i do talk about it a bit in the book. there's kind of an informal rulh that if you're sick and you've

bought food, you don't give it to the scroungers. they have little clues that they use. i think they turn their platess. upside down to let the scrounge know that they shouldn't take that food. but it's interesting.side the board of health tried to shut it down in the past. it was kind of teetering on the edge, but the person i spoke with there at the board of health said, you know, he wouldn't do it x he doesn't recommend it -- and he doesn't recommend it, but it's not illegal, basically, because of what you just said. yes. >> a question from the index. w i notice that you have the three major religions of christianity, judaism and islam mentioned in t the index and just any comment along those lines of the role hd they play in -- that they play in your book. >> can you expand the question a little bit? what exactly -- >> well, just religious institutions in general that

you, their, the role that they play in your book. >> okay. sure. well, they pretty much inform the basis of the ethical questions, and so the section i read there there was mostly talking to pastors, well, who os the three folks that i read about. but then there's a fair amount from kind of the old testamentrs implications and a bit from the koran. so i definitely tried to the look at those institutions as kind of the historical basis for why wasting food is wrong and some of the historical solutions people have had. and so the idea of gleaning isli something that is in the judeo-christian bible where, you know, originally it was you leave the edges of your field unharvested so that the poordg could come collect food.ie come to take on a slightlyou different meaning, nowadays it'.

usually volunteers going out to a field and picking what a farmer isn't go ipg to hard -- isn't going to harvest. but it's the same end goal of getting good to those who need it. o so any other questions? maybe we'll take one other question and then we can, we ca? have our big winner. yes. oh, okay. >> that's okay. you hear about a lot of other cultures where meals are a more communal experience and kind of take your time and enjoy it whereas stereotypically in the united states it's more kind of a quick process. could the speed at which we eatt in this country and kind of the fast food mentality not only eating out fast food but even at home factor into our decisions to waste? >> i think that does play a role. having quick meals and not eating together can actually lead to more waste. i know from my personal

experience having communal mealt teaches an appreciation of food, and i think that will go a longc way to reducing waste. and then conversely when wego speed through or when we lead such busy lives, we often turn to convenience foods. and, basically, getting takeout or ordering pizza. a lot of times e we fall into these bad habits where we'll buy all these fresh foods, and, you know, we know that that's the right thing to do. we know what's healthy and what we should be cooking, and we want to make these nice meals for our family, but realistically we don't have the time. f so we kind of get ourselves intl trouble at the supermarket where we buy too much fresh food, gett off work, it's 6 or 7 and there's just no way you're going to cook it. so that might sound familiar. [laughter] and, basically, you have those fresh foods that just get pushed back, and it's always tomorrow,

tomorrow.at g and tomorrow never comes. i think that might be a james bond movie. t [laughter] anyway, so i think that definitely does play a role. okay, yes.init >> so what is your favorite tip out of the book that all of us can take home and reduce our amount of food waste startingf tonight? >> so you're going to make me choose one tip out of the many in there.of >> just pick one good one. >> okay, one good one. well, basically, if you're only going to do one thing, i would say to shop smarter. and that could mean if you don't like supermarkets and you're just going to go once a week, that you really plan your mealsn out and create that detailede a shopping list. and really stick to it. because a lot of times when we stray from that list, we buy too much. if you do like supermarkets, and i am one oft those people, and can you go a fair amount, then that's great too.t

if you make those frequent, small trips, you're not going to have as many things just getting pushed to the back of the fridge.ti okay. well, is there one more question? i'm kind of easy. if you want to ask one morehe question, it's fine.? [laughter]if y but if not, i will conclude here. i will -- well, i'll conclude and then we'll have the winner. i almost forgot that.ll c so as we've talked about a little bit, we are a pretty wasteful country, but there'sbot definitely room for optimism. i think that this is the kind of issue that once you think aboutf it, once you really start to picture waste and see it everywhere, you'll have no choice but to try and reduce ite in your own lives. and while it's not the most important or the most glaring. social problem in america, i think it's the easiest one toan fix, and we all have a role to play many fixing it.s

thanks. [applause] okay. so my friend, jerome, from the interfaith food shuttle has been keeping a close eye on the food donations. [laughter] and i'm going the build the drama. so i asked everyone to give a canned good, but if you wanted to bring more -- the person who brought the most would win this certificate for a free book. so, jerome, what are the results? how many cans, and who is the winner? >> we have -- thank you, john, for inviting us. thank everybody who brought something. we have 18 cans -- 17 cans. anybody got some this their pockets?y ou

[laughter] we do have a runaway winner.g i think betty right here. she brought in six cans. she was actually the first one here as well, so -- has. [applause] >> thank you. and i should thank the regulator book shop for donating this gift certificate for a free copy oftn american wasteland. so thank you very much. i will give that to you. and i am going to head overe there, and if people want, i will mark up your books. a little autograph. so thank you very much for coming. i really appreciate it. [applause] >> for more on jonathan bloom and his work, visit the author's web site, wastedfood.com. >> harold varmus is the author

of the art and politics of science. welcome to the program and tello us, how did you come up with the title of this the book? >> i knew a book given a scientific title would not be attractive, and secondly as a scientist i know that science has artistic features, and it's strongly linked to politics. my own life has been engaged no only this science, but in the arts and in the politics of doing science. so what is interesting to most people about what i do is the way in which science is conducted and the way in whiche the political process influencec science. and those are topics that i'veth been engaged in and thought the public would enjoy readingi about. >> you went to ham herself as an english major, describe your transference to a scientist.r to >> it's a complicated thing, but i was originally intending tocae become a doctor. went to college, fell in love with literature, thought i'dnt t become a literature professor, started graduate school.

became disenchanced with that, went back to medical school ando at the age of 28 was compelled to provide some government service which i did at theervi national institutes of health where i learned that research is even more exciting than medicine.ven and then devoted my life to science after that. >> what will fans of science learn about politics from theree reading your book, and what will fans of billion ticks -- politics learn about science? >> well, that's a good question. i think people who simply admire the scientific process will begin to realize how important, interesting and difficult the interface between science and the public that cares about it and pays for it and congress that oversees it can be. those who are interested in politics will see that politicai action does influence the scientific process. science at one time wasoes dependent on the largess of royalty and wealthy people. it still depends on wealthy people to a certain extent, but it depends much more heavily on the way the government supports

and pays for science, and that's a political process that we have to f encounter directly all the time whether it's stem cell research or thinking about how to improve nations' health or simply providing funds for s scientists at the nih or the national science foundation or elsewhere to do their work. >> your book is laid out in fous parts; becoming a scientist, doing science, political science and continuing controversies.iet tell us, why did you lay your book out that way?ontr >> well, i thought that the things that people would care about would be, first of all, why are you a scientist. and be, in fact, what i'm trying to point out in that sense is that you don't have to thinko you're a scientist from thee a third grade. you can have, you know, americae is forgiving. it allows a prolonged adolescence, and i think people need to understand you can become a scientist even in your late 20s as i did. then the trickiest part of my book was how much to say about the science i've done. i know it's technically complicated, and i didn't wantmi

to insult the audience bydien watering it down, but i wanted to take a thread ask follow it looking at one aspect of my career that was, frankly, t important because it led to a award of a i nobel prize and the discovery of genes that are important in cancer, a disease c people care about. i traced both my own activities as a scientist and linked thatei to a very important social problem, namely cancer. and then because in a sense there was a chronology to this, that is i did most of mygy t scientific work but not all of f it before i became a government leader, i wanted to talk aboutve what it was like to bern the directer of the nih, to run ator large agency in the government, to try to do science with the public's money and explain what the conflicts are between society and science and how they get resolved.ety so in the last section the reason i moved some of those issues out is i wanted to spend some time talking about how we publish our work, how the stem

cell controversy arose, how we are approaching the development of science and better health in poor countries, and those all became sectored out as essays that address in greater depth than i could have done in narrative about myself issues that all scientists must think about. i >> yours mom had breast cancer, and can i want you to tell usncr how that influenced you as a researcher and a scientist.ell >> well, you know, there certainly was an influence in that i was at the nih working on the genetics of bacteria. very important problem, it'sge where i learned that model organisms like bacteria can teach us about human disease.li but i also as a doctor and the son of a mother battling this disease, i wanted to feel my research was going to bet somewhat more connected to anect problem. now, i don't think that my, that that was the only reason -- it certainly wasn't the only reason that i chose to do work that was about cancer, but i saw ank opportunity in my thinking about

cancer as a problem, namely we didn't understand how a normal cell became a cancer cell. and there were a couple of new tools, some having to do with how we measure dna and rna, some of it having to do with viruses that cause cancer in animalsviru that led me to believe this huge medical problem -- one that happened to affect my family like every other family -- woulw be amenable to some solutions by taking advantage of these new opportunities to do interestingg science. >> this book is based on ao in series of lectures that you gavs back in 2004 at the new yorks yo public library. tell us a little bit more about those lectures, and then how did they morph into the book? >> that's a fun question. a famous biographer asked me to give those lectures, and i didn't really read the finectur print.idn the lectures sounded good, but then i sound that w.w. norton which was sponsoring the lectures actually had signed a contract with me, and i had to turn the lectures into a book. i thought, okay, we'll just publish thea lectures. but, of course, as anybody findt

out, three lectures don't make n book. so i then labored away. i'm a fairly busy guy, i wasirly running a cancer center. but i finally found the time after four years to take theim lectures as starting points and to write a whole lot more, go into more depth about many issues that i found interestingd the process ended up being good, it was just, you know, it was hard on me at times, but i'm very glad now that i was given this, the contract which i signed without fully appreciating its implications. >> the book is called "the art and politics of science." the author, harold varmus, has been talking with us. thank you very much. >> thank you. ..