No-Food Shopping for the Holidays

Did you see the recent, disturbing item on commondreams.org—that Americans are tossing out 40 percent of their food? I did. That equals approximately 1,400 calories of wasted food per person per day (they did the math, not me), or a total of 150 trillion calories a year. In the face of the country's ever-increasing hunger problem, that figure is appalling. If, like me, you’re now wondering what you can do to help put a dent in that statistic, egullet’s Steven Shaw has an answer: the no-food shopping challenge. Specifically, spend a week cooking from the food in your refrigerator, freezer and pantry. There are a few rules, namely a) don’t stockpile and b) don’t endanger your children. Come on—for the week after Thanksgiving, this is a supereasy challenge and you can keep the egullet universe posted on your progress. Plus, as Shaw says: "If you spend $100 a week on groceries, this experiment will put $100 back in your pocket quicker than you can say stimulus!"