Each day I go to breakfast
Put oatmeal in my bowl
Fill up my glass with O.J.
Eat half my jelly roll
I can’t believe I took more than I ate
That’s why I have so much psolet on my plate…
During the wee hours of a recent morning I was doing quite the opposite of what I was taught to do as a child: moseying through the alleys of downtown Montreal picking things, particularly food items, out of the garbage. I wandered deliberately, winding my way in and out of the alleys behind Rue St. Dominique, the narrow, badly-lit road that backs on Rue St. Laurent, the area’s main drag of shops, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. In my defense, at least I wasn’t alone.
I am conscious of the meat, dairy and vegetables that I buy and the meals I prepare, but unfortunately, until recently I never gave a good look at how much waste my family produces. Jonathan Bloom’s new book [“American Wasteland, How America Throws Away Nearly Half of its Food (and what we can do about it)”][1] takes on the topic of food waste from various religious perspectives. Interviewing several rabbis in his book Bloom discusses the concept of bal tashchit, meaning “thou shall not destroy” but is often interpreted as “thou shall not waste.”