What's the hidden ingredient in "pure" maple syrup? FIND OUT HERE.

Can you believe it's actually zero food waste!?

written by

Marie Reedell

posted on

November 6, 2020

In case you didn’t know, Miller’s Bio Farm is a zero food waste facility. I didn’t realize the extent to this conviction until I visited the farm last week.

My family ate dinner with the farmer’s family, and I was helping clear the table. There were maybe 5 beans left in a pot, so I asked the farmer’s wife Rebecca if I should put it in the compost. She said “Oh I’ll save it and put it in some soup.” She put the 5 little beans in a tiny container in the fridge.

This level of zero food waste astounded me. I had always considered composting food as not wasting it. This is not so in the farmer’s Amish community. They are taught as little kids not to waste food.

It actually relates to their Christian religion. According to the Bible (which the Amish read in High German), food is wasted by the foolish.


At the farmer’s table, each child serves themself. They are expected to eat ALL of their food. And, by all of their food, I mean scraping their plates nearly clean.

On the farm, no food is ever wasted. Extra food is shared with family and friends. Skim milk and curdled milk are fed to the pigs. Any meat that’s too old to sell is fed to the dogs. Extra produce is canned or fermented. They do have a compost pile for food scraps from cooking, but it’s small.

Oh how I wish all of America would catch onto this. America may not be a leader in many regards, but it certainly is a leader in food waste! Here are some stats:

  • 80 billions pounds of food (that’s $161 billion worth) is thrown away each year in the US.
  • 40% of the US food supply is wasted every year.
  • 219 pounds of food is wasted per person in the US each year.
  • $1,600 worth of produce is discarded per American family each year.
  • 21% of landfill volume is food waste.

While 37 million people in the US are suffering from food insecurity, why are we wasting food!?!? It’s a combination of culture and our failing mainstream food system.

Culturally, many Americans are confused by “best buy” and “sell by” labels and throw away perfectly good food. Americans may tend to be impulsive with food buying and only pick “the best” looking produce or meat. And, since many foods are so darn cheap, it makes food seem disposable.

Our food system itself is not set up for zero food waste. Have you ever checked out a dumpster at a supermarket or school or restaurant? And what happens on a producer level if there is oversupply?

Sure, we can legislate the heck out of this. But, I really think the change needs to come through education and personal action. 


Check with your food sources and find out more about their food waste practices. Avoiding the supermarket and buying direct from farms is always a good step in reducing food waste.

Check your personal practices at home (I know I am!). Some ideas - find ways to creatively use leftovers, get better at sizing portions, meal plan so you don’t overbuy, and preserve food by canning, freezing, and fermenting. If you have more ideas, I want to hear them!

At least one thing’s for sure. If you buy food from Miller’s Bio Farm, you can be assured you are supporting a zero food waste facility.

Opinion

Farming Practices

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Food web vs food chain. I'll use the crazy egg recall as an example.

At Miller's, we're building a food web. This is a lot different than the modern food chain most Americans rely on. A food chain is a factory-filled engine.  Here are the links that usually make up the food chain. Mega feed mills and fertilizer plants --> mega factory farms --> mega processing plants --> mega distributors --> mega supermarkets. And in between all of those things are mega supplies and transportation companies.  When one link breaks, the whole chain goes down! Sure, it's made food more affordable. But, it's also made our food system fragile. Let's use the egg recall that's happening right now as an example. It's a conventional egg recall (NOT our eggs, which we have plenty of btw). The current salmonella outbreak has sickened at least 89 people to date. It's affected 1.7 million cartons of eggs in 9 states, starting in March. Hundreds of thousands of people have eaten contaminated eggs. Wow, I mean, that's awful on such a big scale. But, here's what's interesting to me - there are 29 different products affected. How could that be? How could they be related? Well, those products come from 10 different egg brands who all have their eggs packed at 2 facilities. Talk about mega ag! Now, I don't know this for sure, but I would bet that all of those millions of eggs come from one mega-farm that has a salmonella outbreak inside one of its mega buildings. Keep in mind that a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) is defined as having a minimum of 82,000 laying hens. In other words, it's plausible for those millions of eggs to come from one "farm". And the saddest part? All of those hens were likely culled to stop the outbreak quickly. One last note here -- the egg recall example is actually a small one. It's even worse with beef. Did you know that 85% of all grain finished beef is processed by just 4 companies? Geez! And, I mean, we all saw the food chain break during COVID.  On the flip side (and gosh, I'm happy there's an alternative), a food web is a collection of small feed suppliers, farmers, processors, etc.  They are all independent, and each has an important role in getting your food to you. When one intersection in the web breaks, it's fairly easy to repair it and find someone else to fill in. It's a resilient way to produce food. The downside to a food web is that the food does cost more. Let's take our egg farmers as an example. They work in small "pods". They all get their feed and cartons from the same place. They all follow the same farming practices. But, other than that, they work independently in "pods". Right now, we have 2 egg pods. A "pod" consists of 1-5 family farmers with small flocks (no more than 3,000 birds each). And that group of farmers has their eggs packed at one small family egg packer. If we need more eggs, then we need to start another pod. If one pod (or a part of a pod) goes down, another can likely fill in.  What do you think? Is it worth it to pay more for food from a resilient food web? Do we need the food chain to supply affordable food? What does our food future look like? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required) or contact us 😊 ----- PS: Did I mention we have plenty pastured, honest yolk, corn & soy free eggs right now? There's no outbreak or shortage for us! ----- Sources Eggs sold at Walmart, other grocers in 9 states recalled amid salmonella outbreakExplainer: How four big companies control the U.S. beef industry

Hidden ingredient in pure maple syrup? Yup, a defoamer! Ours is PUFA free.

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