food waste

In the English capital, apps and small-scale businesses abound that let restaurants and food vendors share leftovers with the public for free, and otherwise reduce the amount of edibles they toss.

Reducing food waste is complicated, but the clearest success story may be the United Kingdom, where households cut the amount of food they wasted by about 20 percent.

Entrepreneurs hope that, instead of paying bottom dollar for produce that might otherwise have ended up in the landfill, customers will pony up for high-end foods made from rescued ingredients.

The ingredients — think wilted basil, bruised plums, garbanzo bean water — sound less than appetizing. Whipped together, they're a tasty meal that show how home cooks can use often-tossed foods.

Lots of tasty, nutritious produce ends up in landfills because it doesn't meet retail beauty standards. Now Wal-Mart is testing sales of wonky apples and spuds in hundreds of Texas and Florida stores.

A small brigade of volunteers chopped up thousands of pounds of vegetables that might otherwise have landed in the dump. Celebrity chefs helped whip it into a meal tasty enough to get crowds to care.

Why are some fruits and veggies born ugly? Fighting off fungus, heat and pests can leave blemishes. Some researchers think these battle scars may boost the antioxidant content in produce.

At the Heartland Biogas Project, spoiled milk, old pet food and vats of grease combine with helpful bacteria in massive tanks to generate gas. It's all thanks to anaerobic digestion.

The U.S. wastes 133 billion pounds of food annually. Cutting that by 50 percent by 2020 is going to take a serious action plan. A new data-driven report ranks approaches that could get the job done.

Lots of tasty and nutritious produce ends up in landfills because it fails to meet retail beauty standards. Now, Whole Foods and Giant Eagle say they're ready to pilot sales of these wonky edibles.