I am a big foodie. My husband and I will spend weekends planning meals, research restaurants we want to try, organize vacations around types of food we want to have, know chefs by face like celebrities (yes, we're dorks). I'm trying to raise our kids not only with an open mind to try new foods but to be very conscious of the foods they're eating. Ironically, it was the satire site "Food Network Humor" that called my attention to a show that to my knowledge, got very little advertising, even on its own network. But this show has raised my consciousness to another area of food and hunger that we all must be more cognizant: waste.

The theme of the show The Big Waste was to ask two sets of Food Network chefs to prepare a meal with ingredients that were considered waste. I'm not talking about green bologna sandwiches. Even these chefs, with decades of experience in the restaurant industry, were genuinely shocked by the sheer volume of perfectly good foods that are thrown away daily. In an age where one in four children go to bed hungry, it's hard not to be shocked at the routine waste that could answer so many needs.

Enormous food waste is the result of the old way of thinking about the agricultural economic model.

• When food prices fall below expectations or are driven lower by “Big Ag”, small farmers see themselves as having no choice but to waste tons of perfectly good food because the cost of bringing that food to market would generate an economic loss.
• As seen on "The Big Waste", grocery stores routinely throw away tons of perfectly good produce and meats due to small imperfections in appearance. Some store chains such as Whole Foods takes some of this excess product and gives it to local food pantries, but most of it ends up in landfills and compost heaps.
• Many distributors of food products routinely waste hundreds of tons of food product as a means of price control and profit protection. When these distributors find themselves with excess product with a low shelf life, they would prefer to throw it in the garbage than to sell it at a discount in order to protect the original price of the product.

One of the segments of The Big Waste involved chef Bobby Flay going to a pick-your-own farm and discovering that waste accounts for 40-50% of the crops, because too often, customers will cut produce and then see some small imperfection, or a better/larger example of the produce and toss the rejected produce back on the ground. A small grocery in NYC acknowledged that they routinely throw out around eighty pounds of produce daily because they know customers won't select the produce with cosmetic imperfections, broken stems, etc. Eggs are thrown away because of discoloring on the shells, or that they're too large or small for egg containers. Whole chickens are discarded because the skin breaks or bones are broken during the butchering process. All told, some 27 million tons of perfectly edible food is thrown away every year.

I've searched through the Food Network site in vain to find when the show will re-air. Unfortunately and quite inexplicably, Food Network is not promoting this show at all. I can't find clips on Hulu or YouTube either. But please, if you want an eye-opening experience, find this show. And the next time you're in the grocery store, don't be afraid of a little blemish. If more people paid less attention to cosmetic appearances and more to nutritional content, it would be better for all. CookingMatters offers ten additional tips to help individuals waste less food.

Here's what I suggest for anyone who's losing their unemployment payments this week: Grab a blanket and a pillow, and head on over to your local congressperson's office -- or, if you live in a big city, go to your senator's office. Tell them you can't afford to turn on the heat, and you're going to camp out in their waiting room until the congressman or senator has time to talk to you. And since you don't have money for food, either, I suggest you loudly solicit the staff and incoming visitors for cash.

Because I am so goddamned sick of these bastards and the protected little bubbles in which they live. It's time we did what we could to remind them of the consequences of everything they've done -- or failed to do:

WASHINGTON -- Food banks across the country are watching for the end of federally-funded extended unemployment insurance.

"We are bracing for it," said Vicki Escarra, CEO of Feeding America, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief charity, in an interview with HuffPost. Escarra said that Feeding America's 200 member food banks across the country feed nearly six million people every week.

"I can assure you, if these unemployment insurance benefits are not reinstated we'll see these numbers go way up," Escarra said.

Two federal programs -- Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits, which together provide up to 73 weeks of jobless aid on top of 26 weeks of state aid -- are set to begin to expire this week because Congress has not reauthorized them. According to the Labor Department, two million long-term unemployed will be dropped from the programs by the end of December if Congress does not act.

Congress allowed benefits to lapse twice for a brief time earlier this year, and once for a long time, when 2.5 million had their benefits interrupted for nearly two months over the summer. The path forward for reauthorizing the benefits is unclear, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Sunday that he wants the benefits preserved as part of a deal to reauthorize the also-expiring Bush-era tax cuts.

The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that extended unemployment benefits prevented record poverty in 2009 and were used mostly by middle-class Americans. Households with total income more than twice the poverty threshold received 70 percent of the $120 billion the federal government spent on unemployment benefits last year. Part of the reason is that the benefits themselves push families into higher-income groups.

A study released by Feeding America this year found that of the 37 million people served by its member food banks, 70 percent came from households with incomes below the poverty line. The study found that 5.7 million people received emergency food assistance in 2009, a 27 percent increase from 2006.

So the amoral Republican "patriots" are doing everything they can to block more unemployment extensions, and they'll probably be successful. (All I can say is, I sometimes dream of guillotines.)

But if you have anything left to spare, please consider a donation of food or money to your local food bank. They're struggling everywhere. These folks are knocking themselves out to help against some stunning odds, and anything you can do in the name of our common humanity is a help:

The economy may be showing signs of life, but food pantries and other nonprofit food-distribution agencies around the region say they are struggling to meet record-breaking demand as the holidays approach.

In Loudoun County - the nation's wealthiest county measured by median income - the food pantry is distributing its first-ever Thanksgiving meal, giving food to 2,000 families. In Montgomery County, the Manna Food Center added some Saturday hours for the convenience of working families. And in Fairfax County, the nonprofit Our Daily Bread is facing the grim reality that, although it will feed 2,400 people, it may not be able to help as many 650 needy families at Thanksgiving.

Lynn Brantley, president and chief executive of the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington, said this year was the most difficult in the organization's 30-year history. The food bank - the main supplier of food to more than 700 agencies and nonprofit groups around the Capital Beltway - will distribute a record-breaking 30 million pounds of food, up from 27 million last year.

"With this economy, things are pretty bleak," Brantley said. "People on Main Street are not rebounding."

Bread lines have become commonplace, including the 3,000 people who waited for groceries and personal-care items in Northeast last week at a giveaway co-sponsored by PepsiCo and the dozens who gathered in front of the Loudoun Interfaith Relief center Friday.

Many are unemployed or underemployed, and their desperation is palpable.

Joyce Crawford used to make a big Thanksgiving spread for her children and grandchildren every year, with turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, and steaming bowls of collard greens.

That was before - before she lost her job as a secretary, before she went on unemployment and then to a minimum-wage job raking leaves, before she had to give up her place to move in with her 37-year-old daughter. Now, she said, she doesn't have anywhere of her own.

But this Thanksgiving she is determined to cook as usual, even though she's broke and has to squeeze into her daughter's tiny apartment kitchen to do it. For Crawford, it all came down to a donated 12-pound Safeway brand turkey in a cardboard box. She might not have all the traditional trimmings, but she had that.

It really is amazing when you think about it: Hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans are virtually ignored -- because their unemployment benefits ran out in March instead of May. Congress needs to add another tier of benefits to help the 99ers:

The 99ers took a stand on Wall Street Thursday.

A throng of desperate job-hunters -- who've been out of work so long their unemployment benefits ran out -- staged a protest rally on the steps of Federal Hall.

"Are you going to tell us, President Obama and Congress, that our lives are not worth saving?" asked 99er Connie Kaplan.

She had to move in with her daughter in Astoria, Queens to survive and gets food from food banks.

The grassroots political group, which sprang up after jobless Americans started commiserating online, is demanding that unemployment benefits be extended to include them. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) co-sponsored a recently introduced bill that would create extensions in states with unemployment rates of 7.5% or higher.

"My family is broken up," 99er and former public relations director Anne Strauss, 58, of Smithtown, L.I., told the Daily News.

Her house is for sale and her husband, also unemployed, has moved in with his son in Albany to take a commission-only job.

Strauss applied for a job at a bakery. One question on the application form asked of the job, "Will it interfere with your after-school activities?"

My landlady told me a few days ago how surprised she was to hear an interview on the local NPR station with two families from our neighborhood, who were some of the 100 local families using a local church's food bank. When I saw her the next day, she said she'd mentioned the story to a friend who belongs to that church, and the friend told her the story was wrong: There are actually 200 families using the food bank.

I'm going to go through my cabinets and see what I can spare. In the meantime, I thought I'd remind readers how many of our neighbors are struggling through these desperate times. If you can still afford to give anything, please go through your cupboards and donate this week to your local food bank.

If you don't know of one, you can look for them here. You can also contact them if you need help for yourself or your family (in many states, you can also call 211 to see what services are available):

Feeding America

Pantry Net

Angel Food Ministries

Foodpantries.org

The Harry Chapin Food Bank (Northwest Florida)

The Chester County Food Bank (PA)

New York State Regional Food Banks

Food Bank NYC

Northern Illinois Food Bank

North Texas Food Bank

There are, of course, thousands more food banks around the country. If you know of one you'd like to recommend, please leave a link in the comments.

I had lunch the other day with a friend who'd gone from a three-paycheck household to one in four months - and her company's cutting back. Even though she has a well-paying job, dozens of jobs in her division have already been cut back to part-time, and she's worried she's next. I talked to her about going to a food bank, and she was surprised to hear she could qualify without being on welfare:

MORRISTOWN, N.J. — Once a crutch for the most needy, food pantries have responded to the deepening recession by opening their doors to what Rosemary Gilmartin, who runs the Interfaith Food Pantry here, described as “the next layer of people” — a rapidly expanding roster of child-care workers, nurse’s aides, real estate agents and secretaries facing a financial crisis for the first time.

Demand at food banks across the country increased by 30 percent in 2008 from the previous year, according to a survey by Feeding America, which distributes more than two billion pounds of food every year. And instead of their usual drop in customers after the holidays, many pantries in upscale suburbs this year are seeing the opposite.

Here in Morris County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, the Interfaith pantry opened for an extra night last week to accommodate the growing crowds. Among the first-time visitors were Cindy Dreeszen and her husband, who both have steady jobs — his at a movie theater and hers at a government office — with a combined annual income of about $55,000.

But with a 17-month-old son, another baby on the way, and, as Ms. Dreeszen put it, “the cost of everything going up and up,” the couple showed up in search of free groceries.

“I didn’t think we’d even be allowed to come here,” said Ms. Dreeszen, 41, glancing around at the shelves of fruit, whole-wheat pasta and baby food. “This is totally something that I never expected to happen, to have to resort to this.”

Now, I know some of you are going to say they make enough money to live and they're just trying to scrounge off the system. But that's unlikely: How many working people want to stand in line at a food bank? People are usually ashamed of needing help.

Things are so bad right now for so many of us. Try to have some compassion - it could be you.