DoctorOz: The Truth About Food Waste

Earlier today, I had lunch delivered for a group of friends in my audience. Now, you all ate this delicious, fresh salad. You really enjoyed it. In fact, you loved it so much. There you are, it looks pretty delectable. You actually brought it back to your seats. We had to confiscate it from you. That's how challenging it was. Did you guys enjoy the salads? Yes, it was really good. There was a lot of flavor. We were trying to figure out what the ingredients were. And a lot of times, it seems when you order things out, a lot of the ingredients go to the bottom. So we're like, dig, dig. And they were trying to figure out what some of the vegetables were. There was one that we still haven't figured out, so. All right, and what'd you guys feel about the taste? I liked it. It had some unique flavor with it, you know? And it was crunchy, it was fresh, you know? And I loved the oil. All right, so I'm hearing fresh, crunchy, some ingredients that were special you hadn't heard of before. It's unique, yeah. So you actually were eating food waste. No! Yes, yes, that was all waste. Now, I actually think it's delicious, too. I hope you're not too mad at me about this. We're not gonna get food poisoning. You won't get food poisoning. I ate the whole thing. Actually, it is fresh. It's just stuff we would normally throw away. I ate the whole thing. Are you surprised? Yes, I am, because it was quite fresh. I really enjoyed it. It still was crunchy. Still crunchy. So there's a chef, Dan Barber, from Blue Hill Restaurant. He creates these meals. And they're made from unwanted foods, and he sells them at local restaurants. Those are from sweet greens, the ones you guys had. Now, here's the thing. Here's what's in the salad. You ready? What made it crunchy and made it taste fresh and unique, you have to scoop around to see what the ingredients were. Carrot peels, broccoli stalks, kale stems, cabbage cores, and romaine hearts. Those are all the scraps you would normally throw from your cutting board off into the trash to get rid of them, because they're not the good stuff, so we think. It just goes to emphasize how much we can do with that. Here's the point. Scraps can be eaten. We have to think about it very differently. Stems, cores, peels, just about everything that you normally toss away can become part of your diet, and it's actually pretty good for you. We don't wanna waste them anymore. In fact, I wanna change all of our thoughts on this, and I've got a friend, Stephanie Sachs, to help us out. She's a nutritionist, and the author of What the Fork? What the Fork? So, Stephanie's gonna tell us what we should think about when it comes to food perfection, a whole new take. Well, I love that they love the salads. That's great. Yeah, I was surprised as well. Literally, we have to confiscate that from them. So, we've gotta change our idea about food perfection. We put a poll up on DrRoz.com and asked how many of you would buy a bruised piece of fruit from the supermarket? 69%. Most of you said no. Stephanie, I want you to change that. The only way we're gonna make a dent in the problem is if we start changing our buying behaviors. People are serving us what we're telling them to give us. So, the power is in our hands, and let's take advantage of it. These are some foods I'm gonna put in front of us right now that we normally would toss, but I want to find out if it's a good idea or not. Okay, cheese is a little bit crusty. Toss it or keep it? I would keep it. I'd just cut the ends off, and I would use what's in the middle, put it in a salad, make a grilled cheese out of it. It's perfectly fine. We don't need to waste it. It doesn't look too good, but if you grilled it up in a grilled cheese, who cares? Absolutely. You can't tell the difference anyway. Right. Okay, these bananas, I think most people would probably toss. Probably. Well, in my house, we peel them, and we break them into pieces, put them in a bag, and put them in the freezer for smoothies. We also have some avid cooks in my home, so we make banana bread. Well, that's a good idea, because it's sweet as well. Yeah, exactly. Apples that are a little bit bruised. You see this one here? Yeah. It fell a little bit. These are dented apples. Yeah, so you can cut that bruise off, and you can put it in a smoothie. It's perfectly fine. Cut it off, put peanut butter on it. It's a fine apple. It doesn't have to get to us. It looks bruised in your stomach too, by the way, once you chewed it up. Exactly. You can eat the bruise. This is an area where I think there's a lot of controversy. Yes. Strawberries, great for you, but these two have mold on them. A lot of people will throw them all away. Yeah, and a lot of people do throw them all away. What I like to do is, I actually like to remove the ones that are moldy. I like to look around, see if there's mold on any of the others, and it's an indication that maybe some of the others are gonna go bad, so what I'll do is slice them up, put them in a freezer bag after a good wash, and use them for smoothies. Again, easy to mix them up. You can't tell the difference. Yep. I love these small little carrots. They get slimy after a while. They do, so there's slime, and there's slime. There's like a superficial slime, which often can be scrubbed off just with some elbow grease, and sometimes the slime can shift the taste of a carrot, in which case I would toss them, but if it's just a slight slime, and you can get it off, I'll take the carrots and put them in soup. Yeah, and if they're big carrots, just peel the darn thing. Exactly. All right, and finally, wilted veggies like this, which a lot of people will not find appetizing. Yeah, well, you know what you can do in this case here is you can slightly cut off the end if it's browned. If not, just put it in a cold water bath, and it wakes it up. So how do consumers get more involved in this? Because that's how we're gonna change this trend. So yeah, so I'm so appalled that I decided to work with the Ugly Fruit and Veg Campaign and create a petition at change.org called What the Fork, and basically what we're doing is we're prompting large grocers to start to buy uglies and to sell them at a discount so people have more access to fresh produce. So I posted a handy food expiration cheat sheet for you on DrRoz.com. For everyone, you can put it on your fridge. You will save a lot of money doing this, and you'll also save our environment by making sure we use all the food. Up next, how to tell if your eggs are fresh. It's a little experiment that will help you out. It's what we'll be talking about tomorrow. Stay here. Woo! All new Oz. Can this balloon help you lose that last 20 pounds? Then, ditch your double chin without surgery. It actually kills the fat cells. It makes them literally burst. All new Oz. That's coming up on Monday. We're talking about the fresh egg test. On today's show, we talked about how not to waste food, and it continues with this fresh egg test. Who wants to help me with this? Hands up. Oh, very good. How are you? What's your name? Amanda. Come on up, Amanda. There you go. You can take that mic. Go right in there. You're nervous? Yeah. It's just a test. Do all tests get you nervous? Yes, actually. I'm a bad test taker. You're a bad test taker. We're gonna see how you... You know what? The audience will help you in this test. Will you help her? Sure. Yeah. If you're nice to them, they will. So, we're gonna do this fresh egg test. Real question to everybody out there. The purpose of this test is to determine if your eggs are good enough to keep eating, or if you toss them. Does that mean it should sink or swim? Sink. Sink is how... Swim, we've seen a little bit of both. All right. So, we're gonna do the experiment together and figure it out. So, first off, go ahead and pour that water in here. Don't spill it. And if you're holding the mic and you spill the water, you'll electrocute yourself. No, I'm kidding you. All right. It's a danger. Fill it all the way up. Get all the way to the lip there. You need enough room. Now, I've got the eggs here. Now, hold that. This is the moment of truth. Take the egg and see if it sinks or swims. Ready? It sank. Sank. What do you think? Is that a good or bad sign? I think that's a good sign. It's a very... You have to see the smartest audience in television. They're telling you that it's good for you. Because it sank, it's a perfectly fresh egg. Now, there's been a picture on Pinterest burning it up. Here's an image that you'll make it easy to follow. So, if the egg sinks, you're good to go. If it's sort of halfway in, that's still okay. If it flips like it's a beached whale and floats, that's bad. There's some air in there. Something happened. It's a rotten egg. Get rid of the darn thing. Have you guys heard this before? Yes. Some of you, yes. Some of you, no. So, I want you all to know about it now. Let's stop throwing away eggs, which is the best source, most affordable source of protein for most of us. We can find the egg test on my Facebook page. I want you to share it with your friends and family. The next time you want to cook eggs, we don't throw any of these babies away. Here's a little present for you. Don't break it. Thank you. Nicely done, the test, by the way. Remember, health and happiness starts at home. I'll see you next time.