It was cool to learn about Chef Eric’s experiences with food waste and how LREI helps with it. I learned so much about how our school helps food waste and what they do to prevent it. Chef Eric told us he uses different scraps, like fruits and vegetables, to make different dishes. For example, he uses scraps from broccoli to make a broccoli cheder soup or different cores from fruits to make a juice. Eric tells us how he tends to get smaller products so kids don’t eat half of something and throw it out. For example, he tends to buy smaller apples or more miniature oranges so kids can eat the whole thing without wasting more food. He also uses vegetable skins like the skin of onions, carrots skins, and the tops and bottoms of red peppers or celery tops to make vegetable broth for soups.

He also gives us some examples of things we, as a community, can help with regarding food waste, especially in our school. He told us that kids should give their entre to another table that does like that entre so kids don’t refill as much and get the food they need to eat. 

Eric also explains that the biggest food they usually waste in the kitchen is the uneaten food on the tables that kids don’t eat. He says that if the kitchen has already prepared something but at the last minute, they get notified that kids are on a field trip or are out for that day, all that food usually gets wasted. A way they do to help with that problem is if the food isn’t touched or hasn’t sat out for too long. The kitchen will do its best to help repurpose it. The kitchen has been a big help for our school, and I am so thankful for everything they do to help make sure not much food is wasted.