STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The hors d’oeuvres were the stuff that gourmands rave about:

 Baked mini-apples stuffed with bleu cheese and macadamia nuts.

Canapes made of whipped chevre cheese with thyme and roasted Italian plums.

Canapes made with duck sausage and roasted pears.

And homemade potato chips made with a variety of foods and served with a crab dip made of chevre and dill.

But these hors d’oeuvres were different from those served up at Sun Valley cocktail parties and dinner benefits. Chef Hal Jardine of Sun Valley’s Ram Restaurant had prepared all of them using food that would have otherwise been consigned to the dumpster because they were nudging their expiration date or because they had a slight imperfection that rendered them unsuitable for grocery shelves.

Everyone attending the screening of the movie “Just Eat It!” took the movie’s title to heart as they  eagerly sampled each hors d’oeuvre, along with gourmet cheeses that would have been pitched and banana bread Community School eighth-graders had made from orphan bananas—single bananas that they had rescued from Atkinsons’.

Then they discussed each among themselves with the air of a food critic, while sipping beer donated by Sawtooth Brewery.

The evening at the Liberty Theatre in Hailey was organized by the Local Food Alliance and The Hunger Coalition and sponsored by DL Evans Bank as part of a push to get valley residents thinking about how they might cut down on—even eliminate—food waste.

Forty percent of our food waste is happening in our households, said Ali Long, who heads up the Local Food Alliance.

“So let’s take responsibility,” she added.

Additional food waste takes place in the fields where the food grows. Sage School students mitigated some of that local waste by picking fruit from 40 trees that residents would have otherwise let go to waste. The fruit, currently being stored in a root cellar, will be distributed to Hunger Coalition clients throughout winter.

And you wouldn’t believe how many much food, including “beautiful lobster and salmon,” is left over from events like Allen and Company, said Winn Weaver, owner of Winn’s Compost. Chefs try to order the food as precisely as they can but they can’t risk running out of it, he added.

The movie, “Just Eat It!” was cute, informative and prescriptive. It followed a couple—Jen Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin—as they swore off buying food for six months to eat only discarded food.

They thought they’d go hungry. But, instead, their refrigerator was so full from harvesting dumpsters filled with hummus, yogurt and other foods that there was no way they could eat it before it went bad.

They gave out giant-size gourmet chocolate bars to trick-or-treaters for Halloween. They sent bags full of rescued food home with friends and family.

The film, which has won 13 awards at various film festivals, took viewers into the fields where a Fresno grower dumped thousands of apples, which had one tiny bruise or pockmark. A celery grower showed how half the celery stalks are left in the field—trimmed to fit the bags they’re sold in.

We’re leaving perfectly good stuff out there that could be put in soups, he said.

It’s strange that we can be fined for littering but wasting food is perfectly fine, noted Jonathan Bloom, author of “American Wasteland.”

Every year we throw away 96 billion pounds of food that could help feed families in need. That’s 263 million pounds a day, 11 million pounds an hour, 3,000 pounds a second.

Right now 97 percent of our food waste ends in landfills.

But there are things we can do, said Long.

We can create an “Eat me first” bin in our refrigerators to make sure we eat the food in danger of spoiling first.

We could lobby for supermarkets to offer a bin of imperfect produce.

The Hunger Coalition began rescuing food in 2008 when its numbers started skyrocketing at the start of the recession, said Naomi Spence. It has rescued a half million pounds of food since, with the help of volunteers who pick up food destined for the dumpster at Albertson’s, Atkinsons’ and Idaho Bounty.

Rescue efforts remain vital, Spence added. The Hunger Coalition fed 140 families last week—a record number. The Coalition also expects to provide Thanksgiving baskets for 400 families.

WANT TO DIVE INTO THE SUBJECT MORE? You can do that when the Local Food Alliance screens the documentary “DIVE! Living off America’s Waste” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum.

The award-winning film follows a filmmaker and his friends as they dumpster dive, salvaging thousands of dollars’ worth of perfectly edible food. Lynea Petty, the community food assessment manager at The Hunger Coalition, Alex Barfield of Idahound dog food and Peter Atkinsons will speak following the film.

A portion of online tickets sales will benefit The Hunger Coalition.