John Oliver recently had a great piece on Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, highlighting food waste in the U.S. It will really hit home. Now that I have pigs, I’ve approached my local supermarkets to ask for their expired food waste such as dairy products. The managers say no, it’s a food safety issue. A portion of their expired produce they state they donate, but where does the other stuff go? Butter, eggs, milk, and other produce?

I wanted to do my own investigating because I was so curious. I called up Hy-Vee headquarters and asked where their expired products go. Their answer was the that they donate some food to food pantries in the areas near the stores and to contact the managers of the stores because they make the decisions on where that food goes. That wasn’t my question. They won’t give me a straight answer.

I talked to a few employees at Hy-Vee stores in Iowa and they say they dump milk down the drain every week. I approached the managers of a few stores and told them what I had heard, and they deny that claim.

All I am out to do is to get food out of our landfills so that we don’t burn up the planet with methane gas. I’m trying to do my little part by utilizing that waste instead of just throwing it away in a place it cannot decompose because there is no oxygen. Yet, I am treated like a solicitor.

This John Oliver episode really hit the nail on the head and they have investigated an issue that is of major interest to me. They show a glimpse into our broken food system in America.