Six hundred seventy pounds: the amount of food wasted daily by UCLA students from one ““ count it, one ““ dining hall. But what about the food that never makes it out of the kitchen?
Last year, “Waste Watchers,” a UCLA student group, set out to educate students about wasteful dining habits. As startling as their statistic is, there’s an even greater amount of food that never makes it onto our trays ““ the untouched and unserved food.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, about “27 percent of the food produced in the U.S. goes to waste each year in America” ““ an upsetting figure even in a country of such excess. So what is UCLA doing to alleviate Los Angeles’ hunger problem? Well, pretty much nothing.
With over 40,000 people, our potential to help is enormous. With large catered events, ceremony receptions and dining halls serving thousands of people daily, think of all the leftover food going unserved each day. Although UCLA Dining Services makes an effort to reuse unused food, like recycling today’s uneaten peaches into tomorrow’s cobbler, there are perishables left over everyday which could be donated.
In 1981, while munching on a potato skin appetizer, Helen Palit, a philanthropist, had a similar thought. She wondered about the fate of the remaining parts of the potato she was eating. And to her surprise, the owner had a surplus of 30 gallons of cooked, unused potatoes ““ about the size of your average sofa ““ left over every day.
Palit, who at the time was running a soup kitchen at Yale, realized there was an untapped resource, noting how “the soup kitchens and shelters are pretty good with packaged and canned foods but nobody had done perishable foods.”
A year later, New York’s City Harvest was born. It is a program dedicated to picking up perishable foods and delivering it to shelter programs for free. Palit’s ingenuity and countless volunteers helped the program flourish, and by the end of the first year, more than a million meals had been “rescued” and given to surrounding food centers.
Twenty-six years later, Palit’s brainchild has spawned 947 programs worldwide based on the simple idea of “neighbors feeding neighbors.” Attributing her persistence and devotion to her mother’s “no waste” mantra, Palit chuckles: “I guess I’ve taken it to an extreme.”
This economical and conscientious organization is readily available and should be utilized. With Palit’s basic manual, which outlines legal logistics and establishes a general operating foundation, the Harvest program can be adapted to a community’s specific needs and resources.
Due to her no-nonsense approach to the pick up and delivery of meals, Harvest programs operate at a total cost of 26 cents per meal. Palit thinks of her efforts as “a free taxi service between the source and the need.”
Angel Harvest, City Harvest’s Los Angeles counterpart, is committed to helping the city’s growing hunger problem. Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year, Angel Harvest trucks are on hand to receive donations from private events, like weddings and bar mitzvahs, or commercial galas, like the Grammys or the Oscars.
UCLA used to be regularly involved in Angel Harvest but is now only an occasional contributor. “Whether it’s because there is new staff” or lost contact information, Palit insists she would “love to refresh the relationship” between Angel Harvest and UCLA.
It’s downright irresponsible for UCLA to not be regularly involved in donating its surplus food. It’s our responsibility as a public university and, moreover, as people to provide aid to those who need it.
So at the end of this quarter, don’t swipe for two measly water bottles; make use of the money you paid for your meal plan and donate to campus food drives providing Rieber pizza and Bruin Café meals to the homeless in Westwood. Or for those of you who ever wondered if you could swipe a homeless person in for a meal, I’ve checked and you can.
But for whatever’s left over from those efforts, I’ll be making sure one of Angel Harvest’s trucks will be carting it away to others in need.
E-mail Tran at dtran@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.