11 ms·

A Restaurant with No Leftovers

75 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

dangus 7y ago
A lower climate impact is almost like a luxury item. Sure, a fancy expensive restaurant can afford to do this, and the best part for them is that the whole thing can be sold as part of the dining experience. That’s not exactly a solution to the dives and street food joints that couldn’t operate without some form of disposable containers or cutlery. And more importantly, that’s not a solution to the customers of those dives that can’t afford anything more expensive. On the other hand, I imagine that a portion of waste reduction can simply be a change in habits and doesn’t necessarily cost anything. I was once trying to explain this sort of idea to a climate change denying acquaintance. I said, forget the environment or the turtles, even if you don’t believe this is harming our environment, why are we using these devices designed to be immediately thrown away? Why do you need a straw with your water/soda but not with your beer? Where does that habit come from?
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > why are we using these devices designed to be immediately thrown away? I mean, the answer is pretty easy: people have a strong preference for options that help reduce their cognitive load. People prefer restaurants that provide take out containers rather than require they bring Tupperware. People prefer grocery stores that provide bags rather than require they bring their own. This isn't true of everyone - conscientiousness is normally distributed - but it is true for most people most of the time.
  - dangus 7y ago
    That’s something I’m trying to get at, the wealthy and/or upper middle class have the luxury of having time for that cognitive load of certain “conscientious” activities like that. The upper middle class and wealthy who already harm the environment more by flying frequently or driving a brand new 25MPG Audi instead of a 40MPG 10 year old Nissan Versa aren’t going to save the planet by going to a zero-waste fancy restaurant, and they might be eating at that restaurant to alleviate their own guilt because they know they’re using more than their fair share in the first place. For every one of them there’s 15 people working two jobs and eating at a fast food joint with disposable cutlery because there is no other option that fits their schedule or budget. But they might be less wasteful anyway because they don’t have the money to buy a few thousand pounds of jet fuel.
    - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
      > For every one of them there’s 15 people working two jobs and eating at a fast food joint with disposable cutlery because there is no other option that fits their schedule or budget Very US-centric though, people in most european countries eat at home.
      - phonypc 7y ago
        People in the US eat at home too. Do you mean to suggest Europeans eat at home more often? I could believe there's a small difference, but although Europe might not be covered in fast food chains at the same rate as the US, I'd guess smaller eateries more than make up for that.
        nationsobviou 7y ago
        I, and everyone I know from my European cultural background, cook basically every day. OTOH I have some US friends who I am not even sure know how to cook
        JohnFen 7y ago
        I, and nearly everyone I know here in the US, also cooks pretty much every day.
        nationsobviou 7y ago
        This both enlightens and pleases me :-)
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        > Very US-centric though, people in most european countries eat at home. I'm in the US, and 95% of the time, I cook my own food and eat it at home. So does nearly everyone I know.
    - NovemberWhiskey 7y ago
      > driving a brand new 25MPG Audi instead of a 40MPG 10 year old Nissan Versa I know this is not your substantive point but ... The extent to which CAFE standards have improved mileage even over the past 10 years should not be ignored, and you should check your assumptions about fuel economy. e.g. 2020 Audi A4 gets basically the same combined mileage as the 2010 Nissan Versa. https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=29866&id=42220 https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=29866&id=4...
  - narag 7y ago
    That seems a cultural thing. In Spain disposable cutlery would be unthinkable except for McDonalds. Any menu-of-the-day cheap blue-collar bar will have real cutlery and fabric.
    - shantly 7y ago
      It’s mostly for fast food and take-out places in the US, too.
  - Pigo 7y ago
    I find a lot of the bags and boxes I'm forced to use annoying. I buy one thing at the pharmacy and they print out a receipt that is sometimes 8 feet long (dead serious) and put it all in a bag that I would immediately throw away. I tell them I don't need the bag, but I'm still stuck with these ridiculous receipts full of coupons I don't care about. Purely from an annoyance standpoint, this bothers me a great deal. I know the company/cashiers assume it's expected of them, but to me it's like the gallon sized drinks at fast food chains. It aggravates me that anyone thinks it's necessary. The Amazon packing and boxing situation is a whole other level of annoying.
  - glenneroo 7y ago
    > People prefer grocery stores that provide bags rather than require they bring their own. Definitely cultural, AFAIK most Europeans brings their own bags for groceries and it's just automatic. Otherwise you have to buy a new bag at check-out.
    - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
      That's because they stopped giving them for free: ~10 years ago we still had plastic bags everywhere in France. Make people pay for their waste, usually it helps reducing them.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    At the risk of... whatever: Disposable items (properly disposed of, ie landfilled) can be, and often are, more environmentally friendly than reusable items. Especially if you look at actual real life use, as opposed to projected or design use. Look at a UK LCA of shopping bags: A cotton tote needs to be reused ~173 times without being washed to break even with the efficiency of a single use HDPE bag. (Edit: other alternatives, like LDPE, paper or woven plastic, are also listed as low as multiplier of 2x vs HDPE. I didn't intend to mislead.) If you're not doing a whole load of dishes, it can be more efficient to use plastic or paper plates for a meal, and trash them. The cost of just washing something can be relatively and unreasonably high, environmentally speaking. The green movement has been over reliant on emotional programming (reuse = always good, plastic = always bad, etc) and needs to invest more in actual education. Landfills have gotten an especially unearned negative connotation. Hopefully the new generation of college graduates are getting proper training in conducting proper Life Cycle Analysis'. Not saying reuse is always bad or that we shouldn't be analysing these things, just that they need analysis, and not a collective gut reaction. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
    - nradov 7y ago
      Banning single use plastic bags is more about reducing litter and water contamination than about energy efficiency. Lightweight plastic bags are particularly bad because the wind blows them everywhere and they often end up in oceans or rivers. This causes serious harm to aquatic environments.
      - beerandt 7y ago
        Yes, and that's fine, but it's also somewhat a different problem. One that is better solved with a deposit scheme, redesign, or some other method than tax and ban. (Edit: or the obvious- using biodegradable additives in HDPE at a marginal cost.) Make them twice as thick. Melt a weight into the seam of each one to prevent flying and floating. You'd still be a magnitude ahead of the alternatives. There are alternatives besides banning. They have their problems, but people don't realize what a damn miracle of engineering HDPE bags are. And other disposable paper and plastic items, to a lesser extent.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Sure, a fancy expensive restaurant can afford to do this Looks like a pretty humble vegetarian bistro to me? Far from fancy. And I would have thought someone best places to have a huge impact here might be someone like McDonalds, with their supplier clout they could force suppliers to meet high standards and with their scale it could have a huge impact.
  - dmos62 7y ago
    Why are you looking to businesses to initiate change? Rally for state regulation.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      Does the state have any expertise in how to reduce food supply waste? Not sure why you’d task them over people who know the problem intimately.
      - close04 7y ago
        The state doesn't have to tell you how, just to mandate it. See pollution standards where the point isn't to come up with a technical solution but with a measurable expectation.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - macintux 7y ago
      Setting aside the philosophical question around whether government should be compelling businesses to make these sort of changes, change has to come at all levels, from personal to organizational to government, and businesses can implement change with much more immediacy than government can. E.g., McDonald's shifting to cage-free hens for egg purchases. Regardless of the reasons, that was expected to have a huge impact on egg farming.
      - 7y ago
- narag 7y ago
  ...a portion of waste reduction can simply be a change in habits and doesn’t necessarily cost anything. My father had a restaurant long ago. He hired a professional and prestigious cooker (the the title "chef" was not so common then) and the first thing he noticed is that everything was used. There were a thousand tricks to plan the menus so meat not served were reused for broth and so on.
  - hobs 7y ago
    This is the old way of cooking - waste means you have to go pull it out of the fields or kill it yourself. Honestly, its a sign of a great (and often family or locally run) restaurant when I see they are rolling their menu into the next day in a circumspect way - its a sign to me that they understand their menu very well and know the best ways to present it.
- soneil 7y ago
  Being a luxury isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s some cost to being a trailblazer, but it opens the trail for others to follow. In this case, being able to pick and choose suppliers who can accommodate their needs is a luxury, but once the suppliers are tooled for that, it’s easier for others with less clout to follow. A lot of changes are chicken and egg scenarios, where the market can’t move without the supply chain, and the supply chain can’t move without the demand. If someone has the means to kickstart that, more power to them. For example, 10 years ago smartphones were a luxury - now I know homeless people who use them to access public services. And I don’t see how we could have got to this point, without starting at “luxury”.
- gumby 7y ago
  > That’s not exactly a solution to the dives and street food joints that couldn’t operate without some form of disposable containers or cutlery. And more importantly, that’s not a solution to the customers of those dives that can’t afford anything more expensive. Street vendors could dispense into your container or charge you for a disposable one.
- GuB-42 7y ago
  I don't see it as a solution, more like an experiment. Zero waste is impractical. But having a zero waste restaurant showcases possible solutions for more practical waste reduction.
- dublinben 7y ago
  >A lower climate impact is almost like a luxury item. Only from the perspective of a citizen of a wealthy country trapped in a mindset of consumerism. Inhabitants of wealthy countries on average consume multiples of what inhabitants of poorer countries do.¹ The easiest way to lower your climate impact is to simply consume less. This doesn't cost anything, and in fact saves you money. ¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- derekp7 7y ago
  You generally don't have ice in your beer. Because ice makes beer gross (I'd like to find the scientific reason why, but it just does). Soda and water are typically served with ice, and it is difficult to drink it without a straw. Especially crushed ice. Now if you had a lid on the cup similar to car coffee mugs (where the top is indented with a small hole for the liquid to flow through), then that could be a solution for the straws.
noogler67 7y ago
Overweight people are more likely to gain weight without leftover. I wonder the health influence and environment issue, which is bigger. The food are disposable anyway, it’s the plastics electronics that matter
- amdavidson 7y ago
  How do you contend that overweight people are going to gain weight by not having leftovers? The article did not suggest that the restaurant forces people to eat everything on their plates. They just compost whatever food is left behind and don't throw it away.
  - jbarberu 7y ago
    Also, taking home leftovers is a very American thing. Most places in Europe serve portions that you're actually able to finish.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Overweight people are more likely to gain weight without leftover. The article isn’t really about leftovers from portion sizes - it’s more about suppliers and packaging.
spodek 7y ago
People have sent me this link because I've reduced my food packaging to filling less than one load of trash per year (which I blog about http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2) and my diet has become more delicious, cheaper, more social, healthier, and more accessible for people in food deserts, who have invited me to help them cook this way. People also keep suggesting I start a restaurant since the food tastes so good and is so easy to make. I'm waiting to meet the right person with experience starting restaurants. I'm posting because while everyone who knows the numbers considers the amount of food waste and packaging we create unconscionable, what I don't think people realize is that what the food industry purports to solve -- that industrial food is more convenient or tastes more appealing -- is all wrong compared to once you learn to cook. Then from scratch is faster, cheaper, more delicious, more convenient. The backbone of industrial food is ignorance and lack of skill. In places with tons of fast food restaurants but no farmers markets or fresh produce, the best solution is more cooking from scratch to teach people to demand fresh. The transition is hard, but doable and a great project for enterprising people who want to help people improve their lives and communities. I find it tremendously rewarding.
- close04 7y ago
  Read your blog post and there are 2 remarks I'd like to make: > You just go to the store, buy food without packaging, and don’t buy food with packaging. This is kind of a truism and a circular reference. You avoid food packaging by not buying food with packaging. I don't have the option of buying any fluid dairy product (or anything fluid more or less) in anything but a carton or plastic bottle/cup. And that's just an example, many other items simply don't come in a non-packaged form, or it's lower quality when bought in bulk, even if it's cheaper. If it's cheaper and better I think it's a no-brainer that people would go for it. > the farm I get most of my summer and fall vegetables from [...] how much more flavor they have than what stores sell It's great if you have this option of buying from a farm but it's not a sustainable one for most. In the countries that could make the biggest difference with food packaging very few have no access to such a farm. And the supply of "wholesome, farm grown, bio" food is limited. Either the price would skyrocket due to the huge demand, or they would be less "wholesome" and more "supermarket". It's the same as when you hear that "everybody should buy second had stuff because it helps the environment and it's cheaper". There's a bit of hidden paradox in there.
close04 7y ago
The description seems a bis disingenuous. There are are plenty of leftovers they just don't end up in a classic trash bin. I was hoping to read how they developed a method to serve perfectly sized portions or continuously adjust the size so there's no food thrown away. It's probably a holy grail in the restaurant industry. In reality could operate without any trash pickup translates to compostable waste is composted, non-compostable waste is recycled, other waste is donated. Recycle and compost. Which is great but not really "no leftovers". Is recycling paper worse than composting it? Recycling glass worse than reusing it? > a dishwashing setup that converts salt into soap I have to admit I don't understand this one. Converting salt into soap? Are they talking about actual saponification of fats from leftover food or something else?
- eloisant 7y ago
  Before getting to the "perfect size portion", US restaurants can start by cutting the portion size in half. Really, you guys servings size are really crazy. Maybe offer free refill for customers really hungry (AFTER they're done with their initial serving).
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >you guys servings size are really crazy Maybe it depends where one eats. I hear people saying this and I eat out all over the US and Europe and I guess I don't see this large and systematic difference in portion sizes that people claim--especially of the main/protein ingredient.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      Mainly because Europe has caught up, as evidenced by many peoples' waistlines this side of the pond.
    - greeniron 7y ago
      this is key insight - large portions tend to be mostly massive quantities of cheap carbs like rice and potatoes. the expensive proteins tend to be very "sensible" portions lol.
Havoc 7y ago
Been giving this some thought too. Because my plastic output on food is completely unreasonable. Basically every meal equals 2-3 plastic containers because its all single portions salad etc I could hit the local market. But that would mean sacrificing lunch hour to go shopping (market hours =biz hours) Gonna try and make an effort this year anyway
- dublinben 7y ago
  You should try to shop ahead of time and prepare food at home to bring to work. You can even save time if you follow the "meal prep Sunday" model of making the week's food all at once.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I don't know if this would work for you, but here's how I do my food shopping... For things that are relatively nonperishable (shelf life of a month or so), I do a single massive shopping trip every month. Then I have an entire month that I don't have to to that. For the things that have a shorter shelf life (produce, dairy, etc.), I buy on an as-needed basis. This typically means I stop by a store every other day on my way home from work -- but since I'm just buying what I need for a day or two, that shopping trip is very brief.
fallingfrog 7y ago
Must be an extremely full dad somewhere in the back mumbling about not letting perfectly good food go to waste
Mikeb85 7y ago
So they're composting and recycling? The city I live in mandates all restaurants in the downtown core do this... (Of course we also have one of the largest composting facilities in North America)
JohnFen 7y ago
I wish that more restaurants would dial back their portion sizes to something that isn't insane. I am seeing that more and more, and that's a good thing, but the odds are still good that I'll be served more food than most people can eat in a sitting, and I always feel bad when I see so much leftover food heading for the trash.
- dawnerd 7y ago
  I’ve always kind of wondered how it’s even legal for a restaurant to have menu items that go over 2k calories a serving. Even some marketing healthy restaurants can push 1500 easily.
  - GuB-42 7y ago
    Calories are not unhealthy. You just need to match your average intake with what you burn. 2k calories isn't even that much if you are a big, active man. And even if you aren't, as long as you don't eat that every meal, that's fine. There is no reason to ban large servings, but what could be done is to make smaller, cheaper options mandatory, especially for products that can't be taken home easily (ex: ice cream).
- greeniron 7y ago
  not sure where you're from, but i LOVE huge portions in restaurants because that means i have leftovers to take home for the next day. do most people not do that?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I'm in the US. I don't know. I don't do that, though. Mostly because if I'm eating out, it's usually a prelude to night doing other things -- and the last thing I want to do is have to cart around a bag of food. Also, I used to routinely take leftovers home. It was a habit my parents had, and I just did it unquestioningly. Then one day I noticed that I rarely actually ate the leftovers (they tend to not be terrific the next day) and would throw them away anyhow.
dmschulman 7y ago
Here I am thinking this article would be about a restaurant reusing the food they haven't sold to help solve the problem of food waste. Instead the problem being solved is packaging waste, and they solve it by putting the onus on their vendors (bakers, butchers, etc) to deliver in reusable containers. Commendable, but isn't the larger problem the amount of food being wasted by kitchen across the country? Sure, they compost any left over food that can be processed, but that food could have fed hungry communities.

75 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

A lower climate impact is almost like a luxury item. Sure, a fancy expensive restaurant can afford to do this, and the best part for them is that the whole thing can be sold as part of the dining experience. That’s not exactly a solution to the dives and street food joints that couldn’t operate without some form of disposable containers or cutlery. And more importantly, that’s not a solution to the customers of those dives that can’t afford anything more expensive. On the other hand, I imagine that a portion of waste reduction can simply be a change in habits and doesn’t necessarily cost anything. I was once trying to explain this sort of idea to a climate change denying acquaintance. I said, forget the environment or the turtles, even if you don’t believe this is harming our environment, why are we using these devices designed to be immediately thrown away? Why do you need a straw with your water/soda but not with your beer? Where does that habit come from?

nordsieck 7y ago
> why are we using these devices designed to be immediately thrown away? I mean, the answer is pretty easy: people have a strong preference for options that help reduce their cognitive load. People prefer restaurants that provide take out containers rather than require they bring Tupperware. People prefer grocery stores that provide bags rather than require they bring their own. This isn't true of everyone - conscientiousness is normally distributed - but it is true for most people most of the time.
- dangus 7y ago
  That’s something I’m trying to get at, the wealthy and/or upper middle class have the luxury of having time for that cognitive load of certain “conscientious” activities like that. The upper middle class and wealthy who already harm the environment more by flying frequently or driving a brand new 25MPG Audi instead of a 40MPG 10 year old Nissan Versa aren’t going to save the planet by going to a zero-waste fancy restaurant, and they might be eating at that restaurant to alleviate their own guilt because they know they’re using more than their fair share in the first place. For every one of them there’s 15 people working two jobs and eating at a fast food joint with disposable cutlery because there is no other option that fits their schedule or budget. But they might be less wasteful anyway because they don’t have the money to buy a few thousand pounds of jet fuel.
  - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
    > For every one of them there’s 15 people working two jobs and eating at a fast food joint with disposable cutlery because there is no other option that fits their schedule or budget Very US-centric though, people in most european countries eat at home.
    - phonypc 7y ago
      People in the US eat at home too. Do you mean to suggest Europeans eat at home more often? I could believe there's a small difference, but although Europe might not be covered in fast food chains at the same rate as the US, I'd guess smaller eateries more than make up for that.
      - nationsobviou 7y ago
        I, and everyone I know from my European cultural background, cook basically every day. OTOH I have some US friends who I am not even sure know how to cook
        JohnFen 7y ago
        I, and nearly everyone I know here in the US, also cooks pretty much every day.
        nationsobviou 7y ago
        This both enlightens and pleases me :-)
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      > Very US-centric though, people in most european countries eat at home. I'm in the US, and 95% of the time, I cook my own food and eat it at home. So does nearly everyone I know.
  - NovemberWhiskey 7y ago
    > driving a brand new 25MPG Audi instead of a 40MPG 10 year old Nissan Versa I know this is not your substantive point but ... The extent to which CAFE standards have improved mileage even over the past 10 years should not be ignored, and you should check your assumptions about fuel economy. e.g. 2020 Audi A4 gets basically the same combined mileage as the 2010 Nissan Versa. https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=29866&id=42220 https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=29866&id=4...
- narag 7y ago
  That seems a cultural thing. In Spain disposable cutlery would be unthinkable except for McDonalds. Any menu-of-the-day cheap blue-collar bar will have real cutlery and fabric.
  - shantly 7y ago
    It’s mostly for fast food and take-out places in the US, too.
- Pigo 7y ago
  I find a lot of the bags and boxes I'm forced to use annoying. I buy one thing at the pharmacy and they print out a receipt that is sometimes 8 feet long (dead serious) and put it all in a bag that I would immediately throw away. I tell them I don't need the bag, but I'm still stuck with these ridiculous receipts full of coupons I don't care about. Purely from an annoyance standpoint, this bothers me a great deal. I know the company/cashiers assume it's expected of them, but to me it's like the gallon sized drinks at fast food chains. It aggravates me that anyone thinks it's necessary. The Amazon packing and boxing situation is a whole other level of annoying.
- glenneroo 7y ago
  > People prefer grocery stores that provide bags rather than require they bring their own. Definitely cultural, AFAIK most Europeans brings their own bags for groceries and it's just automatic. Otherwise you have to buy a new bag at check-out.
  - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
    That's because they stopped giving them for free: ~10 years ago we still had plastic bags everywhere in France. Make people pay for their waste, usually it helps reducing them.
- beerandt 7y ago
  At the risk of... whatever: Disposable items (properly disposed of, ie landfilled) can be, and often are, more environmentally friendly than reusable items. Especially if you look at actual real life use, as opposed to projected or design use. Look at a UK LCA of shopping bags: A cotton tote needs to be reused ~173 times without being washed to break even with the efficiency of a single use HDPE bag. (Edit: other alternatives, like LDPE, paper or woven plastic, are also listed as low as multiplier of 2x vs HDPE. I didn't intend to mislead.) If you're not doing a whole load of dishes, it can be more efficient to use plastic or paper plates for a meal, and trash them. The cost of just washing something can be relatively and unreasonably high, environmentally speaking. The green movement has been over reliant on emotional programming (reuse = always good, plastic = always bad, etc) and needs to invest more in actual education. Landfills have gotten an especially unearned negative connotation. Hopefully the new generation of college graduates are getting proper training in conducting proper Life Cycle Analysis'. Not saying reuse is always bad or that we shouldn't be analysing these things, just that they need analysis, and not a collective gut reaction. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291023/scho0711buan-e-e.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
  - nradov 7y ago
    Banning single use plastic bags is more about reducing litter and water contamination than about energy efficiency. Lightweight plastic bags are particularly bad because the wind blows them everywhere and they often end up in oceans or rivers. This causes serious harm to aquatic environments.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      Yes, and that's fine, but it's also somewhat a different problem. One that is better solved with a deposit scheme, redesign, or some other method than tax and ban. (Edit: or the obvious- using biodegradable additives in HDPE at a marginal cost.) Make them twice as thick. Melt a weight into the seam of each one to prevent flying and floating. You'd still be a magnitude ahead of the alternatives. There are alternatives besides banning. They have their problems, but people don't realize what a damn miracle of engineering HDPE bags are. And other disposable paper and plastic items, to a lesser extent.
chrisseaton 7y ago
> Sure, a fancy expensive restaurant can afford to do this Looks like a pretty humble vegetarian bistro to me? Far from fancy. And I would have thought someone best places to have a huge impact here might be someone like McDonalds, with their supplier clout they could force suppliers to meet high standards and with their scale it could have a huge impact.
- dmos62 7y ago
  Why are you looking to businesses to initiate change? Rally for state regulation.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    Does the state have any expertise in how to reduce food supply waste? Not sure why you’d task them over people who know the problem intimately.
    - close04 7y ago
      The state doesn't have to tell you how, just to mandate it. See pollution standards where the point isn't to come up with a technical solution but with a measurable expectation.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - macintux 7y ago
    Setting aside the philosophical question around whether government should be compelling businesses to make these sort of changes, change has to come at all levels, from personal to organizational to government, and businesses can implement change with much more immediacy than government can. E.g., McDonald's shifting to cage-free hens for egg purchases. Regardless of the reasons, that was expected to have a huge impact on egg farming.
    - 7y ago
narag 7y ago
...a portion of waste reduction can simply be a change in habits and doesn’t necessarily cost anything. My father had a restaurant long ago. He hired a professional and prestigious cooker (the the title "chef" was not so common then) and the first thing he noticed is that everything was used. There were a thousand tricks to plan the menus so meat not served were reused for broth and so on.
- hobs 7y ago
  This is the old way of cooking - waste means you have to go pull it out of the fields or kill it yourself. Honestly, its a sign of a great (and often family or locally run) restaurant when I see they are rolling their menu into the next day in a circumspect way - its a sign to me that they understand their menu very well and know the best ways to present it.
soneil 7y ago
Being a luxury isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s some cost to being a trailblazer, but it opens the trail for others to follow. In this case, being able to pick and choose suppliers who can accommodate their needs is a luxury, but once the suppliers are tooled for that, it’s easier for others with less clout to follow. A lot of changes are chicken and egg scenarios, where the market can’t move without the supply chain, and the supply chain can’t move without the demand. If someone has the means to kickstart that, more power to them. For example, 10 years ago smartphones were a luxury - now I know homeless people who use them to access public services. And I don’t see how we could have got to this point, without starting at “luxury”.
gumby 7y ago
> That’s not exactly a solution to the dives and street food joints that couldn’t operate without some form of disposable containers or cutlery. And more importantly, that’s not a solution to the customers of those dives that can’t afford anything more expensive. Street vendors could dispense into your container or charge you for a disposable one.
GuB-42 7y ago
I don't see it as a solution, more like an experiment. Zero waste is impractical. But having a zero waste restaurant showcases possible solutions for more practical waste reduction.
dublinben 7y ago
>A lower climate impact is almost like a luxury item. Only from the perspective of a citizen of a wealthy country trapped in a mindset of consumerism. Inhabitants of wealthy countries on average consume multiples of what inhabitants of poorer countries do.¹ The easiest way to lower your climate impact is to simply consume less. This doesn't cost anything, and in fact saves you money. ¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
derekp7 7y ago
You generally don't have ice in your beer. Because ice makes beer gross (I'd like to find the scientific reason why, but it just does). Soda and water are typically served with ice, and it is difficult to drink it without a straw. Especially crushed ice. Now if you had a lid on the cup similar to car coffee mugs (where the top is indented with a small hole for the liquid to flow through), then that could be a solution for the straws.

noogler67 7y ago

Overweight people are more likely to gain weight without leftover. I wonder the health influence and environment issue, which is bigger. The food are disposable anyway, it’s the plastics electronics that matter

amdavidson 7y ago
How do you contend that overweight people are going to gain weight by not having leftovers? The article did not suggest that the restaurant forces people to eat everything on their plates. They just compost whatever food is left behind and don't throw it away.
- jbarberu 7y ago
  Also, taking home leftovers is a very American thing. Most places in Europe serve portions that you're actually able to finish.
chrisseaton 7y ago
> Overweight people are more likely to gain weight without leftover. The article isn’t really about leftovers from portion sizes - it’s more about suppliers and packaging.

spodek 7y ago

People have sent me this link because I've reduced my food packaging to filling less than one load of trash per year (which I blog about http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2 http://joshuaspodek.com/avoiding-food-packaging-2) and my diet has become more delicious, cheaper, more social, healthier, and more accessible for people in food deserts, who have invited me to help them cook this way. People also keep suggesting I start a restaurant since the food tastes so good and is so easy to make. I'm waiting to meet the right person with experience starting restaurants. I'm posting because while everyone who knows the numbers considers the amount of food waste and packaging we create unconscionable, what I don't think people realize is that what the food industry purports to solve -- that industrial food is more convenient or tastes more appealing -- is all wrong compared to once you learn to cook. Then from scratch is faster, cheaper, more delicious, more convenient. The backbone of industrial food is ignorance and lack of skill. In places with tons of fast food restaurants but no farmers markets or fresh produce, the best solution is more cooking from scratch to teach people to demand fresh. The transition is hard, but doable and a great project for enterprising people who want to help people improve their lives and communities. I find it tremendously rewarding.

close04 7y ago
Read your blog post and there are 2 remarks I'd like to make: > You just go to the store, buy food without packaging, and don’t buy food with packaging. This is kind of a truism and a circular reference. You avoid food packaging by not buying food with packaging. I don't have the option of buying any fluid dairy product (or anything fluid more or less) in anything but a carton or plastic bottle/cup. And that's just an example, many other items simply don't come in a non-packaged form, or it's lower quality when bought in bulk, even if it's cheaper. If it's cheaper and better I think it's a no-brainer that people would go for it. > the farm I get most of my summer and fall vegetables from [...] how much more flavor they have than what stores sell It's great if you have this option of buying from a farm but it's not a sustainable one for most. In the countries that could make the biggest difference with food packaging very few have no access to such a farm. And the supply of "wholesome, farm grown, bio" food is limited. Either the price would skyrocket due to the huge demand, or they would be less "wholesome" and more "supermarket". It's the same as when you hear that "everybody should buy second had stuff because it helps the environment and it's cheaper". There's a bit of hidden paradox in there.

close04 7y ago

The description seems a bis disingenuous. There are are plenty of leftovers they just don't end up in a classic trash bin. I was hoping to read how they developed a method to serve perfectly sized portions or continuously adjust the size so there's no food thrown away. It's probably a holy grail in the restaurant industry. In reality could operate without any trash pickup translates to compostable waste is composted, non-compostable waste is recycled, other waste is donated. Recycle and compost. Which is great but not really "no leftovers". Is recycling paper worse than composting it? Recycling glass worse than reusing it? > a dishwashing setup that converts salt into soap I have to admit I don't understand this one. Converting salt into soap? Are they talking about actual saponification of fats from leftover food or something else?

eloisant 7y ago
Before getting to the "perfect size portion", US restaurants can start by cutting the portion size in half. Really, you guys servings size are really crazy. Maybe offer free refill for customers really hungry (AFTER they're done with their initial serving).
- ghaff 7y ago
  >you guys servings size are really crazy Maybe it depends where one eats. I hear people saying this and I eat out all over the US and Europe and I guess I don't see this large and systematic difference in portion sizes that people claim--especially of the main/protein ingredient.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    Mainly because Europe has caught up, as evidenced by many peoples' waistlines this side of the pond.
  - greeniron 7y ago
    this is key insight - large portions tend to be mostly massive quantities of cheap carbs like rice and potatoes. the expensive proteins tend to be very "sensible" portions lol.

Havoc 7y ago

Been giving this some thought too. Because my plastic output on food is completely unreasonable. Basically every meal equals 2-3 plastic containers because its all single portions salad etc I could hit the local market. But that would mean sacrificing lunch hour to go shopping (market hours =biz hours) Gonna try and make an effort this year anyway

dublinben 7y ago
You should try to shop ahead of time and prepare food at home to bring to work. You can even save time if you follow the "meal prep Sunday" model of making the week's food all at once.
JohnFen 7y ago
I don't know if this would work for you, but here's how I do my food shopping... For things that are relatively nonperishable (shelf life of a month or so), I do a single massive shopping trip every month. Then I have an entire month that I don't have to to that. For the things that have a shorter shelf life (produce, dairy, etc.), I buy on an as-needed basis. This typically means I stop by a store every other day on my way home from work -- but since I'm just buying what I need for a day or two, that shopping trip is very brief.

fallingfrog 7y ago

Must be an extremely full dad somewhere in the back mumbling about not letting perfectly good food go to waste

Mikeb85 7y ago

So they're composting and recycling? The city I live in mandates all restaurants in the downtown core do this... (Of course we also have one of the largest composting facilities in North America)

JohnFen 7y ago

I wish that more restaurants would dial back their portion sizes to something that isn't insane. I am seeing that more and more, and that's a good thing, but the odds are still good that I'll be served more food than most people can eat in a sitting, and I always feel bad when I see so much leftover food heading for the trash.

dawnerd 7y ago
I’ve always kind of wondered how it’s even legal for a restaurant to have menu items that go over 2k calories a serving. Even some marketing healthy restaurants can push 1500 easily.
- GuB-42 7y ago
  Calories are not unhealthy. You just need to match your average intake with what you burn. 2k calories isn't even that much if you are a big, active man. And even if you aren't, as long as you don't eat that every meal, that's fine. There is no reason to ban large servings, but what could be done is to make smaller, cheaper options mandatory, especially for products that can't be taken home easily (ex: ice cream).
greeniron 7y ago
not sure where you're from, but i LOVE huge portions in restaurants because that means i have leftovers to take home for the next day. do most people not do that?
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I'm in the US. I don't know. I don't do that, though. Mostly because if I'm eating out, it's usually a prelude to night doing other things -- and the last thing I want to do is have to cart around a bag of food. Also, I used to routinely take leftovers home. It was a habit my parents had, and I just did it unquestioningly. Then one day I noticed that I rarely actually ate the leftovers (they tend to not be terrific the next day) and would throw them away anyhow.

dmschulman 7y ago

Here I am thinking this article would be about a restaurant reusing the food they haven't sold to help solve the problem of food waste. Instead the problem being solved is packaging waste, and they solve it by putting the onus on their vendors (bakers, butchers, etc) to deliver in reusable containers. Commendable, but isn't the larger problem the amount of food being wasted by kitchen across the country? Sure, they compost any left over food that can be processed, but that food could have fed hungry communities.