Chicagoist: Greater Chicago Food Depository Monster May Haul

InsaneNewman

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:16:47 -0600

@ Ingrid: "What is sad is how regulations prohibit restaurants from donating food at the end of the night. I used to work in a restaurant and it blew me away how much food they threw away every night. Perfectly good food, not rotten or eaten from or anything like that." While I agree with this sentiment in theory, the problem with making exceptions to the "no re-serving of food" policies is, who's job is it to make sure that no one coughed on/spilled a chemical on/tainted the leftovers? While 99.9% of what gets thrown away in restaurants is perfectly good food, how do you explain to some poor, homeless person's family that instead of just being starving, they're now sick or dead due to food from your restaurant which otherwise would have hit the trash can? How do you protect business owners from lawsuits in cases like this? This is why I always take my leftovers, and either eat them myself (no waste), or give them to a homeless person on the street. At least this way, I know that I'M not contributing perfectly good food to the landfill.

Ingrid

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:06:32 -0600

GCFD is one of the charities that I write checks to on a regular basis. It meets all my standards for charities in that it is local and the bulk of money donated goes directly to the people in need, not fund raising, and lavish parties, etc. When I read that they got over 100 thousand pounds of food, that sounds like SO much! And then when I read that that is only good for 87,000 meals, that doesn't really sound like so much. That would get used up pretty quick when you consider the astounding number of people in this city (and the country) who are hungry. What is sad is how regulations prohibit restaurants from donating food at the end of the night. I used to work in a restaurant and it blew me away how much food they threw away every night. Perfectly good food, not rotten or eaten from or anything like that. It's just one of those things that can drive a person crazy...you see good food getting thrown out, and maybe just a couple of blocks up are people who are starving and 'laws' prohibit you from giving them the food.

happygrl

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:25:14 -0600

And of course, thanks to the horrible floods over the last couple of weeks, food prices are going to skyrocket even more than they have recently and so the need is going to be far greater than it already is. With schools out of session, already strapped families that depend on the reduced and free lunch programs to stretch their food budgets are getting hit even harder. If everyone who writes for and reads Chicagoist donated enough food for 1 or 2 meals to their local food pantry, it would make a huge impact. Skipping a meal probably won't hurt most of us, but it could really make a difference in someone else's life. But make sure you only take non-expired food. Food pantries won't accept stuff that's expired. Many food pantries also accept personal hygeine items, but before you just donate those, call first.

Spook

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:14:44 -0600

Chuck make sure not to mention the fact that hunger "is up" to all time levels in America with food pantries struggling to feed our citizens