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How some Utahns are reducing food waste

Posted at 3:05 PM, Jan 02, 2019
and last updated 2019-01-02 17:05:06-05

Dana Williamson's business Wasteless Solutions is a non-profit dedicated to the education, reduction and diversion of food waste.

As part of that, Food Rescue US engages volunteers to transfer fresh, usable, excess food from grocers, restaurants and other sources to hungry people across the United States.  There are more than 50 million food insecure Americans and yet we throw away about 40 billion meals a year.  That is enough to feed almost all of these people three meals a day for a year.

Anybody in the food industry an donate edible food that would otherwise be wasted, a volunteer food rescuer will claim the food all within the app, pick it up and deliver it to a receiving agency that is a 501(c)(3) that will provide it to their food insecure clients.

Food donors, food rescuers or receiving agencies can sign up simply by going to foodrescue.us or by downloading the Food Rescue US app from your phone's App Store.

Dana also demonstrated how you can turn one dinner into three meals, with little waste.  She started with a store-purchased already-cooked rotisserie chicken.  You can eat a portion of the chicken with a salad and potatoes on the side.  The salad had a lemon, garlic and olive oil dressing and boiled potatoes.  When that meal is finished, you can pull the chicken from the bone and some of that can be used in a chicken salad that uses frozen peas and carrots, some of the leftover potatoes and mixed with mayonnaise.  This can be put on top of pre-made tostadas.  The third recipe will use the rest of the leftover chicken to make enchiladas.  Use the chicken along with Mexican cheese and canned enchilada sauce.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  The chicken bones can also be used to make broth that can be frozen for later use.

For more information please visit: wastelesssolutions.org.