Judaism and Food Justice: A Taste of Food Waste

What responsibility do we have, as Jews, to address issues of food waste?

This source sheet is a preliminary venture into our tradition's commentary on prohibitions against wanton waste, environmental stewardship, responsibility for community members in need, and responses to hunger and surplus in order to mobilize Jewish communities to act on food injustice by rescuing food waste and transforming it to feed our community members.

Here are some sources from our tradition:

Bal Taschit

Bal Taschit refers to the principle below, to not destroy fruit trees when sieging a city and, more broadly, to not destroy wantonly. This principle was expanded to address issues of food, water, and energy waste in sections of the Mishnah and broader Talmud.

What relationship do the listed items prohibited for destruction have? Vessels, clothing, buildings, and springs all can be relied upon and continuously used. In addition, clothing, buildings, springs, and food all provide necessities for survival and safety, and vessels as an extension for storing water and food, among other things.

Questions for discussion:

In what ways do our current food system and widely-held food ethics disconnect our lives from other-than-human lives?

Why is it more important to preserve the fruit than the source of the fruit?

Does the tree have intrinsic value or simply the virtue of producing fruit?

Is there a connection between the alienation that we experience from our food/food waste and the alienation we experience from our jobs/communities/true potential? Is the inverse true, as the verse above implies?

Stewardship

The systems that create food waste also create vast environmental damage.

Much of the food grown or consumed in this country is produced at a surplus, valuing quantity over the demands of the market, according to Earl Butz’s policies from the 1970s. (about) 40% of the food produced in the US is being thrown out at some point from farm to store to fridge to table to trash. This is an output of our linear thinking and industrial efficiency.

We are at a critical juncture. Climate change is a reality, already evicting hundreds of thousands from homes they have lived in for generations. Linear ways of thinking have led us to very efficient means of production of food, but the costs to the environment and vulnerable communities (“externalities”), such as huge dead zones of the Gulf of Mexico that are devoid of oxygen due to fertilizer that washes down the Mississippi, go unseen by those in charge of our industries.

Along with this linear mode of thinking, inputs are emphasized, and as such large amounts of water, fossil fuel, fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, and land are required in order to produce our food; simultaneously, outputs are also huge, in terms of food produced but also pollution and seasonal (temporary) jobs, often that exploit migrant laborers. This is industrially efficient because the externalities go unaccounted for, resulting in cheap means of production, cheap food, and also degradation of our farmlands, the lives of farm laborers, and our environment at large.

Do we, as Jews, have a responsibility to take care of the planet?

In what ways can combatting food waste plant a better world for our descendants?

Psolet/Pe'ah

We as Jews are instructed that we have been provided with abundance and as such will not be bereft if we leave some behind but instead need to share that with those among us who are needy.

Feeding the Hungry

We are faced with a discrepancy: food overproduction and waste but also food insecurity. This points to a food distribution problem, not a lack of food.

We know that 1 in 8 people in the US are food insecure, meaning they do not have consistent or reliable ways to access food that fulfills all of their nutritional needs or those of their families.

This is an externality that can compound with the effects of the treatment of farm and food industry workers, as well as the asthma and illness that affects underserved communities who live near and around our industrial centers (that are necessary for processing food or delivering the fuel to produce our food). You are more likely to find coal plants in Black communities, for example, and the city planning that responsible for removing community assets like grocery stores while introducing polluting entities is called “environmental racism”.

In what ways, as Jews, are we obligated to help the poor, underserved, and hungry members of our communities and those live amongst us?

While a common response to food insecurity is to point out health problems such as obesity and heart disease that plague underserved communities, this is another symptom of malnutrition in a system that precludes access to healthier foods.

Problems like lack of a livable wage and rising housing costs in addition to food geography are the systematic problems here because they limit the choices people can make about their food. For example, if people have to work longer hours to continue living in their home, they will not have time or monetary resources to procure healthy food for their families.

Gratitude

In order to combat food waste at a personal level, in addition to actions changing the systems highlighted above, we must curate an ethic of gratitude around our food.

How, as Jews, are we commanded to do this, and what are the guidelines?

Surplus versus waste

How do we understand food surplus and change our language around it to reimagine our food waste as edible and good?

How do we interpret this text in a context of systemic overproduction?

Does this contradict all of the teachings above?

What can I do about it?

Share your Shabbat dinner by opening your doors and sharing food

Donate to your local food bank

Rescue food from your organization following these guidelines and bring to a local recipient, or find a local food rescue service to volunteer with such as Food Recovery Network or Boulder Food Rescue (protected under the Bill Emerson Food Donation Act)

Save food through urban harvesting: https://fallingfruit.org/

Learn how to portion for your family and save food for longer: http://www.savethefood.com/

Learn about expiration dates and food waste with this Interactive Quiz from Sustainable America