Rescuing leftovers from fancy hotels to serve to the hungry

Ever wondered what happens to the leftovers from fancy hotel buffets? From those famously lavish North Indian weddings? You’ll be relieved to know that at least some of them end up in the mouths of hungry children. This Friday a friend and I visited AWB Food Bank, Delhi's oldest “food rescue” organization. AWB collects leftovers from four of Delhi’s five-star hotels five days a week and distributes them to eight schools as well as a nearby leper colony. The Bank also picks up leftover rolls, butter, jam, and the like from airport flight kitchens twice a week. So if you decline that mid-flight snack, it just might not go to waste!

Washing the food tins outside the office.

When I read an article about AWB Food Bank in the Hindustan Times, I didn’t expect it to be a two-person operation housed in an unmarked, one-room office with donkeys wandering below. The office doesn’t hold much beyond some tins used to collect leftover dals and curries from the hotels. Since the hotels donate the food, the car and salaries for Sucheeta and Dev Chandra--the two employees who drive around to the hotels every morning--are the Bank's only expenses. Sucheeta has been working at the bank for 18 years, since soon after it was founded by a Delhi-ite living in New York. She estimates that the Bank feeds about 800 people a day. It used to feed more a few years ago, but funds have declined over the last few years for reasons that Sucheeta doesn't explain. Back then, it had seven employees and two vans. 

My friend Zach with Dev Chandra
outside the strangely fortress-like
AWB Food Bank office.

Garbage guru and fellow Fulbrighter Rachel Leven points out that AWB Food Bank’s work has benefits beyond feeding the hungry: In India, 70% of all municipal solid waste is organic matter, and food waste is a major problem. Food causes all sorts of problems when it rots: When added to garbage piles, food gets everything else wet and makes it impossible to recycle paper trash. It attracts flies, rats, mosquitoes. It can’t be burned efficiently. Once in the landfill, bad things leach out of it. It generates methane, a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

As if you needed another reason to make sure those leftovers get eaten!

Supporting farmers in Northeast India with kiwi jam

Although few Indian farmers are certified organic, many use organic practices because they can't afford chemicals. Others would farm organically if they knew they would be paid a premium for their crops. Increasingly, there are consumers in Indian cities willing to pay that premium. But these farmers and consumers need someone to connect them. 

One small corner of the overwhelming array of stalls
 at the International Food and Hospitality Fair.

I've encountered a variety of efforts to make those connections, sometimes in the strangest of places: this Sunday, I found one at a massive "food and hospitality" expo showcasing industrial electric ovens, ice cream cone machines, frozen potato parathas, and everything in between.

Among stalls wooing customers with samples of imported chocolate and ice cream, the North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation (NERAMAC) had brought small food processors from Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Assam to sell their pickles, jams, and "squashes." NERAMAC helps small farmers in Northeast India, many of whom use organic practices by default, to process and get good prices for their produce. Farmers in Arunachal Pradesh, for instance, grow kiwis, and small food processing plants turn them into jam. Kiwi jam is delicious! Fellow fruit nerds can find more information on kiwis in India here.

Micro-processors from Sikkim and Manipur stand in front
of their products at the NERAMAC stall.

Kiwis grown by NERAMAC's farmers in Arunachal Pradesh.

Sharing organic ragi halwa in Lodhi Gardens

There couldn’t have been better weather for a picnic in Lodhi Gardens. As a follow-up to last week’s discussion about organic food in India, about 20 of us met in between the two tombs at the Gardens to share organic dishes. I ground up some organic ragi (finger millet) and added juice and coconut oil—inspired by the recent New York Times piece on coconut oil—to make an improvised halwa-type dessert.

Our organic picnic group, including two organic farmers
who brought juice from amla they grew themselves.

In addition to enjoying the spring sunshine, it was great to see folks chatting and connecting. One of the guests enthusiastically offered to organize follow-up events to bring together the community of people interested in organic food in Delhi on a sustainable basis. Since I’ll be leaving India within a few months, it's exciting to see someone else stepping forward to organize future events. I look forward to seeing the ideas and efforts that develop!