Anthony Bourdain’s latest project, Wasted!: The Story of Food Waste, will see its theatrical and video-on-demand release on Friday, October 13. The documentary addresses the global food waste problem and boasts a veritable who’s who of modern culinary stars.
Among the famous faces spotted in Wasted’s just-released trailer are Bourdain himself, Dan Barber, Mario Batali, Massimo Bottura, Sean Brock, and Danny Bowien. Over the course of the 90-minute film, the chefs take ingredients — or parts of ingredients — that are typically considered to be trash and consider how to serve them as delicacies.
Conquering food waste would be an obvious and significant way to address hunger worldwide. Up to 40 percent of food in the United States ends up in a landfill, according to a recent study from the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a press release for the doc claims 1.3 billion tons of food, worth $218 billion, is thrown out annually.
Zero Point Zero, the company responsible for Bourdain’s CNN series, Parts Unknown, produced Wasted. Bourdain veterans and Emmy winners Anna Chai (The Mind of a Chef and The Layover) and Nari Kye (The Mind of a Chef and No Reservations) directed.
“I’m not an activist, but the intent of this film aligns with something that’s very much personal,” Bourdain says in a prepared statement. “I came up in kitchen regimes where you live by an absolute rule of using everything and wasting nothing, and of course, as a traveler, I see again and again how circumstances force people to cook incredibly well with the often very little food available to them.
“One film isn’t going to cure all of society’s ills,” Bourdain says. “But if a few people start thinking about what they’re eating for dinner in a different way or think twice about throwing out what is often the best stuff, it’s a good day.”
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