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Celebrity Chefs Hope to Press Congress on Food Waste

The chef and restaurateur Tom Colicchio at his restaurant Craft in Manhattan last month.Credit...Emily Andrews for The New York Times

Celebrities often land on Capitol Hill to testify about world atrocities, advocate medical research or defend the rights of musicians. Now, the chefs are coming to press for new food policies.

On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee, typically consumed with things like farm subsidies and food stamps, will hold its first full hearing concerning the roughly 70 billion pounds of food wasted annually in the United States.

Hunger groups are increasingly looking at ways to rescue excess food from its inevitable path to garbage piles, get it into low-income communities and come up with incentives to prevent waste throughout the system. Sometimes, for instance, carrots that are misshapen and not great for markets or restaurants simply go to waste.

According to the Food Policy Action Education Fund, American consumers, businesses and farms spend $218 billion a year on growing, processing, transporting and throwing out food that is never eaten.

Well-known chefs from across the country will be on hand for the hearing, where the experts and advocates will testify, and they will visit with lawmakers to call for legislative fixes to the problem. On Thursday, the chefs will head to the White House for a round-table discussion on food waste.

“What we hope is to raise level of consciousness about how much food is being wasted along the chain,” said Tom Colicchio, the head judge on the television program “Top Chef” and the founder of the Craft and Colicchio & Sons restaurants in New York. The chefs will also urge lawmakers to support a bill sponsored by Representative Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, that would adjust food labels with the goal of waste prevention.

Of course, they will also eat. “Recovered” food will be fashioned into a reception dinner at Ms. Pingree’s home featuring pasture-raised beef tartare tendon, and trap-caught mackerel and Maryland oysters served with green garlic and herbs.

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