Jonathan Bloom talks (edible) trash in the Triangle

Food-waste expert, writer, and Durham resident Jonathan Bloom has three Triangle readings coming up, starting Thursday in Durham, based on his just-published book “American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It).”

Food waste is finally starting to get the attention it deserves, and some of that credit goes to Jonathan, who has been blogging about the issue for years at wastedfood.com. We Americans waste between a quarter and a half of the 590 billion pounds of food grown here (that doesn’t count imports), a number that has grown by 50 percent since the 1970s. Leading culprits are consumers, farms, supermarkets, the food-service industry, and government.

Jonathan also looks at hunger issues in regard to food waste and says that a quarter of our waste could feed all the hungry. Of course getting from here to there is a complex issue.

Jonathan Bloom picks up donated food from the Durham Farmers` Market this past summer

Jonathan doesn’t just write about it, though. He lends a hand, by supervising gleaning projects for the Society of St. Andrew and delivering donated frood from the Durham Farmers’ Market to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle. He’s also turning his readings into food drives by requesting that audience members bring at least one can of food. All donations will be given to a local food distribution organization. At each reading, the person who brings the most cans to will receive a free autographed copy of Jonathan’s engaging book. Readings are on Oct. 28 at The Regulator in Durham, Nov. 3 at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, and Nov. 5 at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.

For more information, here’s the link to an interview with Jonathan on WUNC’s The State of Things last week, and here’s the feature I wrote about Jonathan and “American Wasteland” for the October issue of Ode magazine.

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