For as long as I can remember, I haven’t been a big fan of bread. Even before all these low-carb diets, I’ve just thought that bread was a waste of stomach space. So this has gone on in my wacky brain for years. Then because of my White Mother, Julie Cruz, and their Lighthouse Ministry of Orange County organization I came up with a pretty random idea. I can’t count how many restaurants I eat at that automatically bring a huge plate of bread out for you to snack on before you order your meal. For me, it’s a total waste because I won’t eat the bread unless it’s really good. Even if I ask them not to bring me any bread, they still will out of sheer habit. So 80% of the time, the bread just sits on that plate then gets thrown away after I leave. At least I think they throw it away and don’t serve it to some other unsuspecting patrons. That’s where I find the big problem to be. I mean, there are so many people out there who are starving and here we are throwing away perfectly good bread. I guess they could dig it out of the trash like the grungy guy who hangs out inside my dumpster every weekend, but why don’t we just try to avoid that step in the first place? Here’s what I first conjured up as a plan. I’m sure you’ve bought something somewhere and have been asked if you wanted to donate $1 for some charity. If not, you will. So when you go to a restaurant, what if they asked if you wanted to donate your bread to a charity or homeless shelter. This would occur before they brought it out of course, so that people wouldn’t be exactly getting your sloppy seconds.
In all honesty, it’s not that difficult to execute. It just takes some dedication on the part of the restaurant. And it’s not like they lose any money off it because it’s bread that they would have either served you or thrown out anyway. This might even save them a little money by not having to wash the extra plates that they bring the bread out on. Maybe they could find a food container company to donate take out boxes for this cause. For some reason I was obsessed with this for a couple of weeks so I thought of a way to take it even further (before the whole thing even started). We’ve all been to restaurants that serve ridiculously huge portions of food. It’s not like we’re competitive eaters or Adam on Man vs. Food. About 75% of the people I know wouldn’t have the stomach capacity to consume it all in one sitting and an even smaller percentage of them will eat leftovers. Where does that food go? Right into the trash with Ke$ha’s so-called career.
And even if you could eat it all, should you? What if there were a way to donate a portion of your food to charity? So the server will ask you if you want to donate it when he or she takes your order. This gives them two options if you say yes: 1) cook the entire thing, then half it. Bring half to you and box the other half to give to a charity or 2) cook half of it, then calculate how many portions people have donated, then issue out gift cards or vouchers to charities to use (not my idea, so I can’t take credit for it). It wouldn’t really matter to you because it’s food that you wouldn’t have eaten anyway. Perhaps you could even get a tax write-off if you participated enough times. It doesn’t seem that hard to execute any of this, but it would take a lot of cooperation from restaurants and connecting with charities. You’d consume less calories and feel good helping out the less fortunate at the same time. My White Mom and the fam have been doing it for years. If everyone chipped in half of one or two of their meals a week, just imagine the difference it would make in this world.
Ricky “RikDaddy” Chu
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Ricky my son! you amaze me. You’re right - there is so much waste in Orange County. and it’s really good stuff. not just the breads from restaurants - it’s what’s left over from catering jobs (i used to cater… i KNOW how much food is wasted there) and grocery stores. we’re so freaked out about expiration dates that they take perfectly good food off the shelves before the expiry date and give it to our food banks! Thank goodness for us! i like to give to our homeless friends the same food i would eat. so this is all great stuff…. thank you Ricky for bringing this to the forefront so we can continue to bless others!! You rock!
love - WM (white mom)