The best part? Each and every one of the fruits and vegetables that I receive would have been rejected or thrown out with the trash if they weren't rescued by Hungry Harvest.
Did you know that between 20% and as much as half of the fruits and vegetables in the United States never reach the store because they aren't pretty enough according to standards set by the grocery industry?
All that waste translates to some 6 billion pounds of fruits and vegetables left to rot in the fields or rejected and tossed into the trash, from the United States alone.
This ugly tomato from my garden was delicious all the same.
Nature does not intend for fruits and vegetables to be perfectly spherical, or super straight, or absolutely uniform. Nature comes with variation, but finicky people and grocery stores have decided that only the most uniform, perfectly shaped, and immaculately colored vegetables and fruits should be sold in the stores. But a tomato that is bumpy and a mushroom that is oval instead of round have the same nutrition and flavor as their perfectly round and smooth field-mates, and the mis-shapen or under-colored produce deserves a home too. Thankfully, companies like Hungry Harvest have decided to come to the rescue and save the fruits and vegetables that are too 'ugly' to make it into stores.
When an orange is a little too small to fit in with the rest of the crowd, Hungry Harvest rescues it.
When a carrot is crooked, Hungry Harvest reroutes it.
When a farmer grows too many onions, Hungry Harvest swoops in and recovers them.
You get the point. For whatever reason, perfectly good and nutritious fruits and vegetables are wasted every day all over this world. Hungry Harvest's goal is to save the produce and deliver it to a home that doesn't mind if the zucchini has a blemish, or the cabbage is on the small size, or the farmer just grew too many cantaloupes.
I love opening my delivery each week. For $25 per week, I get the full harvest delivered right to my doorstep filled with delicious produce for the week. For a family of 4, I hardly need to supplement with trips to the grocery store for produce. Hungry Harvest also offers smaller and larger sized boxes, in addition to fruit-only boxes, veggie-only boxes, office boxes, and all-organic boxes. They even have weekly add-on items like recovered fresh bread and other pantry staples that would otherwise have been rejected or tossed away. Here are a few quick snaps of my 3 most recent harvest boxes:
Another awesome thing about Hungry Harvest is that for each item I receive in my weekly delivery, they provide the reason why it was included in the delivery; why it was rejected or not pretty enough. They even donate a box to a family in need for every box that is purchased. Three cheers for Hungry Harvest, saving the world one crooked carrot at a time!
Hungry Harvest isn't the only company on a mission to save the ugly and unwanted, when it comes to produce. Imperfectly Delicious is a program launched by Compass Group USA and Bon Appétit Management Company to combat food waste and get the imperfect produce, also known as 'uglies', into kitchens around the country. Here's a clip from Imperfectly Delicious's website:
CHARLOTTE, NC (March 19, 2015) — Pity the unpretty potato and the twisted turnip. Millions of tons of perfectly edible, wholesome fruits and vegetables get wasted every year because their size, shape, or color don’t exactly match the food industry’s stringent cosmetic standards. Some are left in the fields to rot or get disked under, or are rejected later during processing. But when you’re slicing, dicing, chopping, and cooking, flavor matters a lot more than looks. To fight food waste and support local farmers, Compass Group USA, the nation’s largest food service company serving 8 million meals a day, and Bon Appétit Management Company, its award-winning subsidiary, have together launched a groundbreaking program, Imperfectly Delicious Produce, to rescue and incorporate these fruits and vegetables into recipes served in their thousands of kitchens.
Starting in May 2014, the two companies successfully piloted the program at locations in California, Pennsylvania, and Washington State, and are now rolling it out in Oregon and Washington, DC, with plans to expand it to the rest of the country. More than 10,000 pounds of 31 varieties of fruits and vegetables, from misshapen organic carrots and leeks to loose kale leaves, were recovered during just the first few months of the pilot program.
Imperfect Produce is another company, based in California, that is taking on the noble task of recovering ugly produce and getting it into hungry bellies, and at 30%-50% less cost than grocery store prices!
In a 2015 story, NPR reported on companies aiming to reduce food waste by saving produce that is not cosmetically perfect enough to make it into the grocery store. The hope of these companies is that possibly someday, buyers and grocery stores will begin to see the beauty in the uglies.
Browse the internet to see whether recovered produce delivery is available in your area. If enough people join in on the movement, it can change the way we see food and eventually reduce waste and hunger in a major way.
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