What Americans waste!!!

Sitting in my living room flipping through channels and I find the Food Network. Four chefs are doing a special on how much produce Americans waste, after pausing to find out what the episode is about I learn that Bobby Flay, Michael Symon, Anne Burrell, and Alex Guarnaschelli are paired off and sent on a mission to rescue food that would have otherwise been sent to the trash. While watching the show I watched the chefs take food from farms and restaurants that nobody wanted. Why were these places not going to use 30 tomatoes, or 60 pounds of various types of fish?
Because we as Americans have become Spoiled babies, the only reason that these items were going to the trash bin was because they had the slightest imperfection on them. I watched Bobby visit a corn field where a farmer told him that people would not buy the corn from a stalk that had fallen over. How ridiculous does that sound? Because a stalk of corn was on the ground people would not buy it, wasting probably 5-6 perfectly usable ears of corn.
Here are the facts:
•A 2004 study showed that forty to fifty per cent of all food ready for harvest in the United States never gets eaten.
•The United States spends about 1 billion dollars a year just to dispose of food waste.
•Every day, Americans waste enough food to fill the 90,000-seat Rose Bowl.

What can we do to help? Well there is plenty we can do to help reduce our food waste.
“We would just need to redistribute edible but unsellable foods. In other words, harvest all of our crops, encourage donations from food manufacturers and wholesalers, and, where necessary, collect unsold food from supermarkets, restaurants, and industrial kitchens. This would go a long way to feeding the low-income Americans who face food insecurity” (http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/users/spotlight_on_poverty/documents/Bloom_Spotlight_05092011.pdf).
Another idea and something even easier to do, don’t waste your own food. Eat everything on your plate or if you’re cooking use everything instead of using just parts of food that you think can only be used. You can also go on food network yourself and watch the episode and learn more about what you can do.
Sources:
http://www.endhunger.org/food_waste.htm

Nook!!!

For Christmas this year I received a nook color, I had done some research on the nook tablets and had also asked friends which they preferred (nook or kindle)? It was pretty evenly split across the board. The deciding factors in my choice were the facts that I can high light text and buy some of my school books on the nook tablet. When you first turn on your nook there is a helpful video explaining how to get started. The video explains everything from how to charge your nook to how to make a purchase from the Barns and Noble store. The store offers many books, magazines, music, and apps for free which I have taken full advantage of. The only small down fall was that you have to register your credit card even for the free apps. The nook also comes with plenty of directions so you don’t get lost and the website is also available for help. I’m still exploring my nook, but I have not been disappointed thus far.