Sampling menus: School lunches and dumpster dives

Last February, I began a story that would end up being one of the greatest challenges and investigations of my journalism career thus far. I decided to investigate food waste by diving into dumpsters behind grocery stores and bakeries in my then town of residence, St. Augustine, Florida. I committed myself to eating only what I found in the dumpster, I suppose to prove how much food was going to waste. I documented what I ate everyday and my experiences while digging through the garbage. I talked to people who only ate out of dumpsters, some by choice and some by necessity, and I learned about the true volume of food waste in the United States. Here’s a link to one of the stories I produced from this investigation: Dumpster Diving

But I’m not the only one who has sacrificed themselves for food related issues. In fact a Great Lakes teacher in Illinois, has decided to eat school lunches every day during 2010. Her project is called Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch project, where she blogs about her day to day experience and feelings with eating school lunch. Each day has a photo attached of the lunch, and she archives the days by what she eats, so you can see how many times she has eaten a peanut butter and jelly or something called a “rib-b-que,” a beef patty smothered in sauce. She is intricate with her details and feelings about the experience and also manages to include some important nutrition facts for readers. Together, it’s an enlightening, creative and brave way to delve into the issue of food in schools. Check it out: Fed Up