232 – Dumpster Diving Diva

2014 Ulithorne Unicus … tasting notes.

https://twitter.com/TheAdelaideShow/status/959939771865776128

 The end is in sight.

Today we announced the end of The Adelaide Show Podcast has been planned for episode 260, marking five years of this humble enterprise.

It was spurred by much reflection after reading Life In Half A Second by local author and entrepreneur, Matthew Michalewicz. Matt will be on our show in April.

Steve has captured some of his key thinking arising from the book, here: 3 bleak ideas that lead to life

For someone who struggles to trust my own leftovers, the concept of dumpster diving for food sends a few shivers down my spine. Just the thought of it leads me to becoming gripped by fears of nausea or worse, and I think I’d face too many mental barriers to embrace the dumpster diet myself. But for those people like our guest tonight, who know how to select and handle food safely, the dumpster is a direct link to delicious delights. We can’t divulge our guests’ names tonight, so, to protect their identities, are using the name, Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night, and Hades, the god of the underworld.

Why is dumpster diving so frowned upon by the organisations who are dumping perfectly good food?

Actually, I say, “perfectly good”, but how can you tell?

George Ujvary (the foodologist who runs Olgas Fine Foods) I certainly think there is plenty to be said for reducing Food Waste. Dumpster diving wouldn’t be necessary if perfectly good food wasn’t thrown out. There is a financial and nutritional cost to dumped but perfectly edible food that is difficult to rationalise. Given that the practice of throwing out edible food exists, dumpster diving seems a rational way to address the issue.

George Ujvary Can’t speak for all food categories but Woolworths for example sets microbiological limits for foods that are listed in their quality standard. Suppliers are required to test the food product in an independent laboratory against those standards and the shelf life effectively ‘expires’ when numbers listed in the standard are breached. I don’t know that I’m in a position to say whether these limits are appropriate, but I do believe them to be generally fairly conservative from a food safety perspective.

George Ujvary Also, I believe different retailers have different limits and to further complicate, it also depends whether you are a ‘home brand’ or an ‘own brand’.

Joy White Yes, I was talking to my local health inspector the other day and he was explaining the process to me. I set the shelf life and the lab will run tests to the set time, so if I want a product to be used by or BBF 2 months they will keep the product for two months and run tests every week for example

Joy White Nigel Dobson-Keeffe I think you do, I’m not sure but I know it’s more expensive the longer the date ???? I was looking at having a yogurt product tested but if I pH test myself and the levels are under 4.5 and my date is no more than a week I don’t need to send it to a lab

Joy White At Homestead Lovers we actively advocate to customers, clients, suppliers and potential that we can do so much with food that will otherwise be thrown out. Unfortunately we have met with a lot of negativeness and/or apathy regarding our suggestions but we do have one client we work extensively with creating shelf stable products from their byproducts and we have a couple of other suppliers that will give us “waste” foods when we order through them, we often give back the packaged product at no charge for them to sell or give away to their customers. I would really like to do more with waste foods especially some awareness on the topic, I look forward to listening to this one The Adelaide Show Podcast

Caitlin Harvey Feast On Foot and McFuzzlebutt’s Manchen (Man Kitchen) have actively supported theOzHarvestSA in the past. Watching them turn left over food into nutritious meals that aren’t bank breaking per serve is fascinating.

Caitlin Harvey I believe Shobosho is doing a dinner to this effect soon. (It is on Feb 23)

Have Use By and Best Before dates cost us the ability of judging food safety with our senses?

What are some of the tricky foods that could be bad but look good? And vice versa?

What prompted you to explore the bins?

What have you found?

What do you do with your surplus?

Does weather play a part?

Nigel Dobson-Keeffe challenges the panel to pick the fake story from three stories from South Australia’s past.

The News May 1954
10 p.c. FOOD WASTE IN OUR HOMES
An estimated 10 per cent of household food was wasted, Mr. W. E, Standish, a member of the Kelvinator Australia Research Committee said today. One, of the main problems, was spoilt food. A weekly dilemma confronted the modern housewife, he said. With Saturday shopping  difficulties, she faced the prospect of keeping food fresh over a two-day weekend. This applied particularly to bread. Few households could afford the wastage which too often resulted. But more Australians owned refrigerators today than- ever before and used them to establish stores of food to maintain themselves during holiday periods and to diminish waste. For Instance, bread wrapped in plastic and placed in- the frozen food chest would retain its freshness for a considerable period Mr. Standish said more people now recognised the importance of keeping their  refrigerators running all through the winter.

The News September 1943
Call for Food Waste drive Wasted
A campaign against waste of food, now recognised as a munition of war, had been considered by the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture (Mr. Scully). However, after a review, he said today that Australia was generally regarded as one of the greatest food saving country in the world and it might not be needed. An anti-waste campaign in the American Army had reduced food consumption in camps by 10 per cent. A British campaign against food waste was enforced by law, with drastic penalties for offences. Some members of the government had suggested Australia should take up this practice. Mr Scully said that lessons from the depression and constant droughts and storms had made most Australians very good at conserving food because of varying supply. “Many housewives are already excellent at getting the most from all sorts of food in this country. Even seasonal foods like fruit are well preserved in jars and tins or even just dried. We have never had the luxury of plentiful food, unlike other countries, and we are already well adjusted to being efficient.” Much greater gains could be made in the use of irrigation and larger farm machinery he suggested.

The Mail August 1948
Nurses breed wild pigs as hobby in NT
Three young women — two of them from South Australia — have started a pig farm in scrub country seven miles from Darwin. They are stocking the farm with wild pigs. The girls, Jean Todd, 24, of Adelaide, Clare Martin, 19, of Myponga, and Moyna McMahon, 19, of Mildura, have taken over 20 acres of scrub at Knuckey’s Lagoon, south of Darwin, for the farm. The girls work at Darwin General Hospital. They tend the pigs at week-ends, and employ an aboriginal labourer during the week. Claire Martin told the story of the pig farm when she came to Adelaide recently on leave from the hospital. She said the pigs were fed on food waste from the hospital and R.A.A.F. establishments at Darwin.