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Michael Davis 3/6/2016 Final Draft “Just Eat It,” A Food Waste Story” Prof. Sanjukta Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story

In the documentary film entitled “Just Eat It”, two filmmakers Grant Baldwin and Jennifer Rustemeyer, embark on a 6 month experiment of only eating foods that were destined for the trash can, the only exception, was when friends and family invited them over for meals. The reasoning behind creating such a dramatic food waste film was to point out the alarming amount of food that is being wasted in the United Sates, which is an astonishing 40%. “Americans waste the equivalent of $165 billion in food every single year” according to Noelle Carter from the LA Times. “Just Eat It” explores how food waste hints upon so many more issues that society is having such as water, energy, and even climate change! Baldwin and Rustemeyer leave you second guessing your daily life habits, and have you take a step back and realize the major effects that food waste is having on the world, not just daily, but in the future as well.

In just the first few weeks of the exploration, Grant and Jen found themselves second guessing themselves and finding it quite curious as to how they would be able to achieve living off of just discarded food for the next six months, but to their mixed surprise and horror, it was actually fairly easy for the two. Their strategies included finding their food in dumpsters, culled bins at grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and food styling photo shoots. From there, they would discover foods they didn’t expect to see such as chocolate bars, dozens of eggs, granola, yogurt, bags of frozen chicken and bacon, salad mixes, and cartons of juice. At one point in their experiment, they had an abundance of food, so much that they had to invite friends and family over to help eat all the discarded food they had found. Over the six months a total of over $20,000 of food was brought home, but Grant and Jen only ended up spending an astonishing amount of just $200.00. Food waste starts well before the consumer, in fact at grocery stores, food is just beginning to be thrown out. There has to be an aesthetic appeal to the food items. If the food does not meet these strict standards, then they are quickly tossed into the nearest trash to be thrown away. As to the “best by date”, these “are not an indication of safety, but rather help with rotating stock. The date also indicates a time of peak freshness,” Lois Abraham from the Canadian Press said. Expiration dates are on a majority of foods, such as baby food and nutritional supplements, but these dates indicate that if they are consume after the expiry date, the optimal nutrition would not be sustained.

We don’t second guess ourselves when we toss out extra food since it is going to decompose right? That is not the case at all. “A vast majority of wasted food (which, apart from being eaten, could be used for animal feed or repurposed as fuel) is plowed into landfills, where its anaerobic decomposition produces methane and contributes significantly to global warming,” Evan Andrew McKay from Next Projection said. Here in America we chose to over eat, waste food or both, all while we have starving people all across the nation. 4% of US energy consumption is used to produce food that is thrown away.

There is a stigma around the term “food waste”. It is not necessarily food scraps rather than whole food items being discarded due to an abundance or imperfection. In a Q & A session held by Sustainable America, Grant tells us “After watching this film, I hope that people, when they eat out, will watch that portion or bring the leftovers home and get past the stigma of that.” Viewers of this film can now make a change that can help reduce food waste, such as managing your refrigerators and using US food that might be past its due date. At the grocery stores people can start buying the food items that aren’t necessarily perfect, but will get them through their daily lives at an inexpensive cost to the environment, and to the couple’s pockets. The film “Just Eat It,” was documented with the purpose to help our society grasp a better idea and gather a clearer understanding of how little things like watching your food waste or portions can be beneficial for everyone, not just in Canada or the United States, while be able to save money at the same time. The leftover or processed foods should be going to positive experiments or projects that would then help with energy resources, along with making sure people in our society do not go hungry. Jen and Grant wanted to open the eyes and ears of the world and show a film that would display just exactly what is happening with food in the world on the daily, and how we can do something about it. The attempt was to gather a wide spread audience and educate about food waste products, and what can be done if you just have the time, patience and understanding to provide and help make a change and positive difference around the world.

Bibliography .http://www.foodwastemovie.com/ . http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3597400/ . https://www.facebook.com/events/1726487177574726/ . http://variety.com/2014/film/festivals/film-review-just-eat-it-a-food-waste-story-1201330456/ . http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-grant-baldwin-just-eat-it-a-food-waste-story-20150419-story.html . http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/just-eat-it-must-see-documentary-about-food-waste-north-america.html . http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/18/456489490/in-just-eat-it-filmmakers-feast-for-6-months-on-discarded-food . http://www.greenfilmfest.org/2016justeatit . http://ecowatch.com/2014/04/03/just-eat-it-documentary-food-waste/ . http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2015/06/01/just-eat-it-demonstrates-a-widespread-system-of-food-waste/ . http://www.straight.com/movies/737776/viff-2014-just-eat-it-food-waste-story-staggering . http://nextprojection.com/2014/05/01/hot-docs-just-eat-food-waste-story-review-np-approved/ . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kpi6I8lr-4 . http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/filmmakers-detail-food-waste-in-documentary-just-eat-it-1.1793709 . http://klymkiwfilmcorner.blogspot.com/2014/04/just-eat-it-food-waste-story-review-by.html