In an attempt to deliver a message to world leaders at an assembly in the United Nation headquarters, the UN decided to create a buzz when they served food that was entirely made of, well, trash. This is in the hopes to highlight the food waste in the modern diet and its role in the ever worsening climate change.
On the menu of the lunch was burger and fries, wherein the burger was a vegetable burger made of pulp left over from juicing. The fries were made out of starchy corn that would typically go to animal feed. "The challenge is to create something truly delicious out of what we would otherwise throw away," Dan Barber, a prominent New York chef who co-owns the Blue Hill restaurant, said.
Along with Mr. Barber, Sam Kass, the former White House chef who drove the anti-obesity "Let's Move" campaign of first lady Michelle Obama was also one of the people who curated the menu. Kass' inspiration was from learning the concept of the UN climate negotiations in Paris, which aims to reach a global agreement to tackle the planet's climate change problem. It was the most important negotiation in our lifetime, Kass said, but food waste was not being tackled, he added.
Major world leaders congregated and took part in Sunday's lunch led by French president Francois Hollande and Peruvian president Ollanta Humala. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon of the UN was also present and said to the reporters after the lunch that the food served demonstrated how food waste is an often overlooked aspect of climate change.
Barber ran a pop-up restaurant earlier this year, which used food scraps and authored the book The Third Plate that is farm-to-table food guide book. The elimination of food waste was an old concept rather than a modern one, as cooks in the past would use anything edible when it came to serving food, Barber said. They are hopeful that in next meeting between the world leaders, food waste will come up in the agenda for the proposed climate change laws.
