Reheat, reduce, reprocess: the many ways SHS students and staff are managing food waste

National school lunches compounded an annual $1.2 billion in food waste during 2013, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, but for a small school like Saratoga High, the problem seems to be easier to manage.

Even though the majority of students are well-off and likely have plenty of surplus food at home, strong ethnic and cultural cues mandate food conservation for many students.

For junior Siyona Suresh, whose parents grew up in a small village in Kerala, India, family values have always frowned upon food waste.

“My parents have always taught me not to waste food,” Suresh said. “I think it’s because they know the value of food, having lived in countries where poverty is more visible than here in the U.S. Those values translate to how they raise their kids.”

On campus, the cafeteria plays a large role in regulating food waste, namely by using data from previous years to purchase and make appropriate amounts of food.

For example, according to Pam Carlino, the school’s food service director, the cafeteria has calculated how many trays of cookies to make in order to have no leftovers. About nine trays of 39 cookies are made each morning with two more before lunch. The pizza and specialty line foods are made in a similar manner.

“Kids have been really good eaters, especially this year’s freshman class,” Carlino said, crediting larger class sizes and closed-campus tutorials for the increase in food bought at break.

By the end of the day, there is so little non-reheatable food left that the cafeteria does not have any major issues with food waste, she said. Small portions of leftover food that would otherwise be wasted are sometimes taken home by cafeteria workers, and in the past, leftovers have been donated to food banks and homeless shelters.

Organic waste such as leftover salad, tomato tops or celery scraps are put into maintenance crew member Lubomir Drapal’s special “chicken barrel.” Drapal, who cares for around 20 chickens at his home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, collects this barrel at the end of each day and mixes its contents with chicken scratch. The resulting blend is both nutritional and eco-friendly.

“The chickens will eat anything you give them,” Drapal joked. ”It’s a great thing [the cafeteria] is doing; otherwise, the food would end up in the garbage can.”

Drapal also puts his household food waste into compost bins, and with the resulting nutrient-rich soil, he grows raspberries, onions, lettuce and cucumbers.

Composting makes up the fifth tier of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Food Recovery Hierarchy, below other food-management options such as feeding the hungry and donating. By composting organic waste, methane emissions from rotting landfill food can be limited.

But before food can be composted, the EPA advocates for “source reduction,” or minimizing the volume of surplus food generated. Families can follow these guidelines by buying and cooking meals appropriately, something culinary club president senior Sally Lee’s family practices.

“After my brother moved out, we started having a lot of food waste because we were used to cooking for four,” Lee said. “Now we try and make enough food for just that day, so we don’t have as many leftovers.”

Lee suggested others try the same: regulate the cooking process and limit personal portions to produce less surplus food.

“Food waste is a sad issue most people gloss over. Right now, we’re privileged to have all this food and all this wealth, but there are people who are in need of food,” Lee said. “If we try to be more thoughtful with how much we’re eating, and be more grateful, that could change the mindset most people have.”