Dana Cowin is an American editor, author and radio show host, best known for her two decades as the Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine. During her tenure at the magazine (1995-2016), she expanded and introduced the magazine's annual Best New Chefs award and Most Innovative Women in Food & Drink. After Food & Wine, Cowin joined the restaurant group Chefs Club as a scout, selecting chefs from around the world to be featured on their curated menus. Cowin moved on to launch DBC Creative, a branding consultancy, and to become host of “Speaking Broadly” on Heritage Radio Network, interviewing women in the food industry about their greatest challenges and triumphs.
Check out the produce bin in your fridge or your cabinet before you buy more. When you see something on the verge of going bad, freeze it, turn it into a sauce, make jam.
There's imperfect food out there that just needs a mouth to bite into it.
People should go to their local grocery store or farmers' market and buy ugly, misshapen foods, then cook with them and document their dishes. And share not only the funny-looking foods, but the fantastic results.
If shoppers looked at crooked carrots, misshapen potatoes, slightly dinged apples or too-small peaches and thought, wow, that looks delicious, imagine the benefits for struggling farmers.
Nearly 40% of all food in this country is wasted, and there are over 49 million food-insecure people in the United States. Clearly we have an enormous opportunity if we can find a way to retrieve the imperfect food and to feed the hungry.
If more people start selling ugly produce we have a chance to crack the hunger and malnutrition problems in the U.S. (Almost 90% of us do not get enough fruits and veggies).
If we accept imperfect food, we can indeed change the world for the better.
If we could stop wasting food, imagine how many more people we could feed!
If home cooks shopped in their own vegetable bin before going to the market, they would save money and help the environment, too, and all because they decided to rescue a vegetable before it turned bad.
If, as consumers, we can change our mindset so that we see gnarled, twisted, lumpy or otherwise imperfect produce as beautiful, we can create demand, change the system and ultimately help feed the world.