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There’s been a lot of talk about food waste in the media lately. Speaking to that issue from inside the food industry, today we have another one from Devra Gartenstein, aka the Quirky Gourmet, owner of Seattle’s Patty Pan Grill and author of The Accidental Vegan and the soon-to-be-released Local Bounty.

Anyone who has worked in the food service industry can tell you that there’s an awful lot of waste. It’s built into the system, from produce displays which are expected to be abundant and perfect, causing merchants to keep on hand more than they can possibly sell, and toss items that aren’t pristine, to over-sized restaurant portions that most of us can’t finish, to leftover buffet items that the health department forbids us to reuse. Even small-scale farmers have plenty of waste: they thin immature plants that are perfectly edible but don’t offer much in retail value, and carry unsold items home from farmers’ markets only to throw them on the compost pile. Many farmers even leave perfectly good crops un-picked because they just can’t sell everything.

In a perfect world, all of this extra food would find its way to food banks and other outlets for feeding the hungry. But it can be tricky to store leftover items until the food bank can come for them, and time consuming to deliver them yourself. As the price of gas has increased, many food banks have found themselves with increasingly limited budgets for fueling their vehicles and picking up donations. For a store or vendor, lowering prices can increase sales of items that might otherwise be wasted but this strategy can be counterproductive: you lose money if a customer chooses a marked-down item instead of an alternative that’s being offered at full price.

In a time of rising food costs and growing concerns over food security, it makes sense for all of us — producers and consumers alike — to take a good look at the ways we waste food. The steps we can all take as individuals seem almost too obvious to mention: look for opportunities to use leftovers, plan meals around ingredients you already have on hand, get creative using the produce from your own garden. I also like to push the envelope as much as possible and make use of parts of fruits and vegetables that are perfectly edible but aren’t always eaten, like the stems from broccoli and Swiss chard, and the greens from beets and turnips.

As a restaurant owner, I’ve seen encouraging signs lately suggesting that there’s increasing awareness about the importance of making use of food that might otherwise be wasted. During a recent visit, my local health inspector brought flyers designed to encourage restaurants to donate their extra food. (I found it interesting that these flyers made a point to mention that state law protects purveyors from liability concerns when they donate food that’s safe and edible.) This summer, Gov. Gregoire designated funds aimed specifically towards fueling food bank vehicles for picking up and delivering donations throughout Washington State.

There have been some interesting developments at farmers’ markets as well. Customers are growing increasingly open to trying new foods, so vendors are bringing all kinds of items that used to be tossed aside, like cabbage raab, kale buds, and cauliflower greens. It’s exciting to see changes that make our food system more sustainable, while simultaneously expanding our culinary horizons.