Mental Floss

World-Class Chefs Are Using Olympic Village Leftovers to Feed the Hungry

Michele Debczak|
Massimo Bottura at the 2012 Olympics. Image credit: Dino Panato/Getty
Massimo Bottura at the 2012 Olympics. Image credit: Dino Panato/Getty | Massimo Bottura at the 2012 Olympics. Image credit: Dino Panato/Getty

It takes a lot of food to fuel this year’s roster of Olympic competitors. Approximately 460,000 pounds of raw ingredients are shipped into the Olympic Village on a daily basis—but not all of it ends up on the athletes’ plates. As Independent reports, a group of chefs are now working to transform Olympic Village leftovers that would otherwise be destined for the trash into meals for Rio’s hungry citizens.

The initiative, dubbed RefettoRio Gastromotiva, strives to provide 5000 meals a day to the city’s poorest residents using unwanted ingredients. The three-course meals served at the “avant-garde soup kitchen” include an antipasto, a main course, and a dessert made from components like bruised fruits and vegetables and dairy products a few days from expiring. After the Olympics and Paralympics have concluded, the project will live on as a social business, providing vocational training to people looking to enter the restaurant industry.

RefettoRio Gastromotiva is a collaboration between Brazilian chef David Hertz and Italian chef Massimo Bottura. Bottura is the culinary mastermind behind Osteria Francescana, the number-one restaurant in the world. He led a similar initiative last year in Milan, and according to Eater the next stop on his fight against hunger appears to be the Bronx in New York City sometime next year.

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