It's the methane folks

Often we think about food waste in terms of the people who could be fed with what we don't eat. "There are starving children in (insert country depending on your generation)!
The statistic given in the linked article is that we waste about 1200 calories per person per day. If you add in the amount we overeat (the majority of us sustaining overweight or obese bodies) you have to include that we could support a whole country of another 300 million people.
Of course, some of these wasted calories cannot be recovered or distributed. What they do is contribute to methane released from our landfills, which impacts climate and consequently agriculture around the world.
Here's a story about a new government initiative to encourage food recovery by religious congregations: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/18/463109192/thou-shalt-not-toss-food-enlisting-religious-groups-to-fight-waste

Bean-0-Rama

It's the International Year of Pulses. http://www.fao.org/pulses-2016/en/ I get excited about beans anyway, so imagine what this is doing to me!
Thanks to the Slow Foods e-news I just learned that the American Pulse Association has a great website. http://pulsepledge.com/
But I must say that taking the pulse of local grocery stores yesterday was disappointing. I wanted some decent red beans, preferably Rancho Gordo's. (I recommend liking RG's page on Facebook for the latest news and recipes.) All I could find at Oliver's and Sonoma Market and Whole Foods was kidney beans. So unimaginative. So I'm going to make red beans and rice with Santa Maria Pinquitos from RG, and plan a trip to Napa soon to get a better selection at the source. Sangre de Toros, here I come.
http://www.ranchogordo.com/collections/heirloom-beans/products/sangre-de-toro-bean