About forty percent of the food produced in this country gets thrown away every year. This accounts for food we buy and waste as well as ugly produce that stores can’t sell.
Everyone wants perfect looking food, a demand that I don’t really understand. Who cares if a red pepper is oddly shaped if you’re dicing it for cooking anyway? As long as it tastes good, the cucumber can be blemished, the apples not perfectly round.
To be clear, we aren’t talking about rotten produce – we are talking about food that’s misshapen or just a little wonky looking – and that doesn’t merit being thrown away.
That’s why I was super excited to find these chips the other day. They use potatoes that aren’t pretty. Some of them are too big or too small, misshapen or an odd color. According to their website, they have helped reduce food waste by 1,500,000 pounds of potatoes since 2017.
And you know something? They are delicious! Check out the brand if you get a chance! Of you can’t find them in a store, you can order them online. Click here to order or to read more.
Make the Journey Fun 
Thats a fair point, with more options/Privilege people start losing sight of what was important in the first place. Food was never about looks, mainly nutrition and taste as a secondary factor. But this Cosmetic filter doesn’t make sense at all.
Exactly. When people grow their own food at home they don’t throw back the potatoes or the tomatoes that aren’t pretty enough – they clean them and eat them. It’s when we go to the pretty stores where we have choices that we suddenly require perfection. Personally, I look for ripeness and that’s all.
Neat post. I’ve never heard of that product: ugly potatoes. I always prefer something that is different. My Mazda truck is old and very few are even on the road anymore. My house was so ugly when I bought it that I entered it in the Ugliest House contest. I was really surprised I didn’t win. Lol
I’m not sure if I should congratulate you or express my sympathy that you didn’t win that contest! Try the chips if you see them. They are good!
Winning that ugliest House contest would have meant a complete kitchen makeover. At that time my kitchen had yellow walls made out of pieces of tin. The ceiling was also tin and baby blue. I have since put up drywall and painted it white. I’m not sure if they sell ugliest potatoes here in NY. Never seen any but I’ll be on the lookout for it.
My apologies then. A new kitchen would be nice!
Until they banned the saturated oils, you all in Ohio were blessed with some incredibly delicious potato chips fried in your state. I’m thinking mostly about Golden Krisp and Ballreich’s. I used to order a giant box of Ballreich’s every summer and freeze them, and we’d eat them all summer.
I didn’t realize you could freeze potato chips!
Just before the hippy movement in the 60’s, there were these people called “the diggers” they went around to grocery stores and restaurants, anywhere that dealt with food and asked for their undesirable items, fruit that didn’t make sweetness requirements and unchoiced meat. Etc.. They took what they got and made simple meals and fed people around the area.
It was an honest and even a needed movement. Now think about if people would do this now…
That reminds me- there’s a non profit out of a southern city – I want to say Atlanta. They have a partnership with local restaurants where they collect all the leftover food they have each night and make care packages for homeless people. It’s not the same thing but goes a long way toward eliminating food waste in that city and feeding the hungry.