A study by the University of Arizona estimates that the average household wastes about
14% of the food that’s bought (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Thanksgiving is just around the
corner. A consumer expert says you can
avoid wasting a lot of food with just a
little planning. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Thanksgiving is just around the
corner. A consumer expert says you can
avoid wasting a lot of food with just a
little planning. Lester Graham reports:
A study by the University of Arizona estimates that the average household wastes about
14% of the food that’s bought. Some of it spoils. Some of it becomes leftovers that
never get eaten.
Bob Lilienfeld is the author of the Use Less Stuff Report. He says you can keep a
couple of things in mind. If food is left on the serving platter, it can be re-used. If it
makes it to your plate and it’s not eaten, it’s wasted.
He also says, on Thanksgiving, plan for leftovers.
“Think, when you buy turkey, ‘What else does my family like turkey. Oh, they like soup.
They like chili.’ Buy the ingredients for the next round when you buy the turkey so that
everything is sitting in your home the day after Thanksgiving, and you’re wondering,
‘Alright, what am I going to do with this bird?’”
And, Lilienfeld says, label and date your leftovers. You’re more likely to use them
before they go bad.
Chef Ben Bebenroth and his crew plate mushroom dishes
for their dinner guests.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
(Photo by Julie Grant)
Farm owner Tom Wiandt shows honey mushrooms
growing on a log.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
Mushroom cultivation at Killbuck Valley Farm.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
Most people don’t spend a lot of
time thinking about where their food was
grown. Even fewer actually go out and forage
in the woods for it. But that’s what one
chef is trying to get people to do. Julie
Grant reports this chef wants people to
connect the dots between the environment
and their food:
Transcript
Most people don’t spend a lot of
time thinking about where their food was
grown. Even fewer actually go out and forage
in the woods for it. But that’s what one
chef is trying to get people to do. Julie
Grant reports this chef wants people to
connect the dots between the environment
and their food:
(sound of gathering)
The threat of rain has passed. Cars are pulling in the grassy
drive at Killbuck Valley Mushroom Farm. And Chef Ben
Bebenroth cuts big leafy greens from the garden as a visiting
dog chases a chicken through the yard. He’s starting
preparations for a six course meal.
(sound of chopping and sizzling)
“The menu is going to be a loose guideline tonight, at best.”
Most of the guests have driven an hour from the city and the
suburbs of Cleveland. They’re dressed for a dinner party,
not for hiking. But, a hike in the woods is exactly where
some of them are going.
Tom Wiandt: “Anyone who wants to see wild mushrooms,
come hither.”
Guest: “Question – how far and how rough?”
Tom: “Not too rough. We’re just going along the bottom of
the hollow here.”
(sound of hiking)
Farm owners Tom and Wendy Wiandt show their 20 guests
honey mushrooms growing on a log. They stop to explain
the difference between puff balls – some are poisonous,
others delicious. Each person carries a paper lunch bag to
fill with fungus.
Guest: “It’s a gold mine up there.”
Tom: “Oh, did this big stump produce this year?”
Wendy: “Yeah.”
Tom: “Holy moley did it ever. That’s the great thing about
dead trees.”
Guest: “Look at that. Wow.”
Tom: “That’s dinner tonight.”
The guests carry their bounty back to the chef. They’re
rewarded with a glass of wine. And they learn a little more
about the Wiandt’s farm – how they cultivate bright yellow
oyster mushrooms, fuzzy lion’s manes, shitakes, and more.
(sound of kitchen)
Chef Bebenroth and his crew are at work in his outdoor
makeshift kitchen. He’s using the mushrooms in various
dishes.
Some of the guests are excited about getting involved in
finding food for the meal. Others are a little skeptical.
Guest: “This is really farm to table, literally. We’re a part of
that movement, right Tony?”
Guest: “I’m a Wendy’s kind of guy.”
But that Wendy’s guy was impressed once dinner was being
served.
“Your first course is going to be a shittake and truffle tea,
with antelope tartar.”
After courses of cooked greens and mushrooms, squash
with local goat cheese, steaks, desserts and lots of wine –
the party was down right festive.
(sound of laughing and music)
Guest: “It is surreal to be here, under the stars, the dog on
stage, the exquisite cuisine.”
Chef Bebenroth creates these dinners at farms around the
region through the summer and fall. And despite what
seems like a high price – this event was $150 a plate – it’s
still tough for him to break even on them. But it’s important
to him. It’s taking that idea of farm to table that guests say
they want to be involved in – and showing them what it really
means.
“We’re so divorced from how our food becomes our food
anymore. You’re empowering people to say, ‘pick this,’ or
they’re watching me pick it. That, to me is really completing
that circle. And they’re starting to understand it does matter
what I put in the air, what I put in the ground, in the water.
This is going into my body, it’s going into my kids.”
Bebenroth hatched this whole plated landscape idea
because he wanted to be outdoors. Now, as his guests
drive back to the city and the suburbs, he hopes he’s made a
few converts – made people see small local farms and the
woods as essential to their dinner.
blueocean.org has created a guide that ranks sushi on how sustainable it is
(Source: Hatago at Wikimedia Commons)
Some ocean conservation groups have
teamed up to make a color-coded guide that
ranks popular sushi. Lester Graham reports
the rankings are based on whether the fish
are caught or raised in sustainable ways:
Transcript
Some ocean conservation groups have
teamed up to make a color-coded guide that
ranks popular sushi. Lester Graham reports
the rankings are based on whether the fish
are caught or raised in sustainable ways:
You can download this sushi guide, print it out and carry it around with you if you
want, but Kate McLaughlin with the Blue Ocean Institute’s Seafood Program says
you could just look at it on your mobile device next time you go to a sushi bar.
“You can download a PDA formatted copy of the guide to your mobile device. Or
text the word ‘fish’ and then the name of the fish in question. Pretty much
immediately you get a response with the ranking.”
And it will tell you things like popular sushi such as bluefin tuna and farmed salmon
are on the “red” list, which means they’re either over-fished or farmed with
aquaculture methods that pollute the ocean.
You can get the guide at blueocean.org.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
When foraging bees find food, they fly back to the hive and dance. (Photo by Jenny W.)
Bee researchers have long believed that honeybees use a special dance to show their hive-mates where food is. A study published in the journal Nature provides direct evidence that the dance works. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explains:
Transcript
Bee researchers have long believed that honeybees use a special dance to
show their hive-mates where food is. A study published in the journal
Nature provides direct evidence that the dance works. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explains:
Honeybees have a complex way of talking about dinner. Forager bees fly out
of the hive in search of pollen and nectar. When they find something tasty,
they fly home to the hive and dance.
Researchers in England caught bees that had watched the dance and tagged
them with tiny radio trackers. Then they followed the bees’ exact flight
paths.
Joe Riley is lead author of the study. He says the research relieves some
doubts about how well honeybees interpret the dance.
“The only thing that was missing was a really convincing demonstration that
this happened. And what we saw what happened was they left the hive,
circled for a minute or two to get their bearings and then flew straight off
in this predicted direction and for the distance that was coded in the
dance.”
Riley says the bees do need a little help once they get close to the food
source: they have to look and sniff around to find the right flower.
Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, OH just before detonation in 2002. The 32 year-old stadium was demolished to make way for a new stadium paid for by a sales tax. (Photo by Eric Andrews)
Detonation almost complete. (Photo by Eric Andrews)
The home of the "Big Red Machine" is no more. (Photo by Eric Andrews)
In cities across the nation, taxpayers are finding themselves facing the same dilemma: cough up big bucks for a new sports stadium… or else. Right now it’s happening in Washington, D.C. as the capital city tries to lure a baseball team. It’s happening in New York where the city’s deciding whether to spend 600 million dollars on a new home for the Jets in Manhattan. The debate is over what the taxpayers get. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richard Paul takes a look at whether sports stadiums really can hit a homerun for taxpayers:
Transcript
In cities across the nation, taxpayers are finding themselves facing the same dilemma:
cough up big bucks for a new sports stadium… or else. Right now it’s happening in
Washington, D.C. as the capital city tries to lure a baseball team. It’s happening in New
York where the city’s deciding whether to spend 600 million dollars on a new home for
the Jets in Manhattan. The debate is over what the taxpayers get. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Richard Paul takes a look at whether sports stadiums really can hit a
homerun for taxpayers:
It’s sort of funny when you think about it. The most hackneyed rationale you can think of
for building a ballpark is… it turns out… actually the primary motivation when cities sit
down to figure out whether to shell out for a stadium. You know what I’m talking
about…
(MOVIE CLIP – “FIELD OF DREAMS”: “If you build it they will come…”)
Just like in “Field of Dreams.” Put in a stadium. People will show up, see the game, eat
in the neighborhood, shop there, stay overnight in hotels, pay taxes on everything and
we’ll clean up!
(MOVIE CLIP – “FIELD OF DREAMS”: “They’ll pass over the money without even
thinking about it…”)
Here’s the thing though… it doesn’t work.
“In the vast majority of cases there was very little or no effect whatsoever on the local
economy.”
That’s economist Ron Utt. He’s talking about a study that looked at 48 different cities
that built stadiums from 1958 to 1989. Not only didn’t they improve things, he says in
some cases it even got worse.
“If you’re spending 250 million or 750 million or a billion dollars on something, that
means a whole bunch of other things that you’re not doing. Look at Veterans Stadium
and the Spectrum in South Philadelphia or the new state-of-the art Gateway Center in
Cleveland. The sponsors admitted that that created only half of the jobs that were
promised.”
But what about those numbers showing that stadiums bring the state money – all that
sales tax on tickets and hot dogs? Economists will tell you to look at it this way: If I
spend $100 taking my wife to a nice dinner in Napa Valley…
(sound of wine glasses clinking)
Or we spend $100 watching the Giants at Pac Bell Park…
(sound of ballpark and organ music)
…I’ve still only spent $100. The hundred dollars spent at the ballpark is not new money.
I just spent it one place instead of another.
In Washington right now, fans have been told they can keep the Washington Nationals, if
Major League Baseball gets a new stadium that the fans pay for. Washington is a place
was more professional activists, more advanced degrees and more lawyers than it has
restaurants, traffic lights or gas stations. And as a result, it’s practically impossible to get
anything big built. But the mayor’s trying. He wants the city to build a new stadium in
really awful part of town and use baseball as the lever to bring in economic activity. The
reaction so far? Turn on the local TV news…
NEWS REPORT – NEWS – CHANNEL 8
ANCHOR: “Baseball’s return to the District still isn’t sitting well with some folks. One
major issue is the proposal for a new stadium.”
ANGRY MAN GIVING A SPEECH: “Tell this mayor that his priorities are out of
order.”
Turns out that guy’s in the majority. A survey by The Washington Post shows
69% of the people in Washington don’t want city funds spent on a new baseball stadium.
We Americans weren’t always like this.
MOVIE CLIP – SAN FRANCISCO WORLD’S FAIR
ANNOUNCER: “You will want to see the Golden Gate international exposition again
and again in the time you have left to you…”
Today politicians need to couch this kind of spending in terms of economic development
because no one will support tax dollars for entertainment. But there was a time in
America when people were willing to squander multiple millions in public money for the
sake of a good time.
MOVIE CLIP – SAN FRANCISCO WORLD’S FAIR
ANNOUNCER: “Remember: Treasure Island – the world fair of the West closes forever
on September 29th.”
In 1939, in New York and San Francisco, and then again in New York in 1964. they
spent MILLIONS. And the purpose was never really clear. Here’s Robert Moses… the
man who made New York City what it is today… on the 1964 Fair.
REPORTER: “What is the overall purpose of the new Fair?”
MOSES: “Well, the overall stated purpose is education for brotherhood and brotherhood
through education.”
MOVIE CLIP – NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR
ANNOUNCER: “Everyone is coming to the New York World’s Fair. Coming from the
four corners of the earth. And Five Corners, Idaho.”
Maybe those were simpler times. When people were a lot more willing to let rich men in
charge tell them what was right and wrong. Today, a politician looking to build himself a
monument is going to have to convince people it’s for their own good – and economic
development is the most popular selling point. Looking around these days – more often
than not – it seems voters are willing to rely on a quick fix. Taken together, that’s a
recipe for this kind of thing continuing. After all, when you’re a politician building a
legacy for yourself, a sports stadium is a lot sexier than filling pot holes or fixing school
roofs.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Richard Paul.
Our increasingly busy lifestyles have made fast food a regular item inmost families. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator SuzanneElston points out, the food may be fast, but the legacy it leaves, iswith us for centuries:
A study by the University of Arizona estimates that the average household wastes about 14% of the food that’s bought (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
