Sabelmouse
04
May
2013
“

“Consumption” figures, from what I understand, are based on what is produced to what is purchased — so, the field, processing, grocery stores, restaurants, home kitchens — all are places in which waste occurs and affect the true “consumption” number. When you look at what is estimated to be wasted, our “consumption” figures must certainly be much lower; I’ve seen estimates of 25% - 40% for the US. The difference in what you say we produce in protein (52.2 billion lbs) and what we need (34.1 billion lbs) falls into those estimates of waste (~ 35%).

We produce more than enough food for everyone on this planet. Our biggest problems lie in waste and distribution. We waste too much and we only distribute food to people who can afford it. We would rather food rot in storage than give it to someone who is starving.

”
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-tercek/a-new-diet-for-the-planet_b_3189719.html?utm_hp_ref=@food123#comments

We would rather food rot in storage than give it to someone who is starving.

#food waste#sustainable living#over consumption#hunger#feeding the world
27
Apr
2013

Should it brie in the bin? How much food do we throw away and what's it worth? A not-for-profit company has sought to count the cost.

food waste
So-called ‘freegans’ hunting for food that’s still good. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

This week, during a Westminster debate, Richard Benyon MP claimed that the average family throws aways £50 a month in food waste. The statement from the Minister for Natural Environment and Fisheries has attracted a lot of attention - whether it’s Labour claiming this is “Let them eat leftovers” rhetoric, or Conservatives claiming that Government is trying to “preach to people” about their food choices. But little attention has been paid to whether the number is actually correct.

#freegan#food waste#waste#sustainability
11
Feb
2013
23
Jan
2013

U.N. launches new fight against food waste

www-outerspacepi:

No one can agree on just how much food we’re wasting. But it is so, so much.

Image (1) foodwaste_flickr_sporkist_640.jpg for post 40081sporkist

The United Nations and its Food and Agriculture Organization say it’s a third of all food produced, while other studies say it’s closer to 40 or 50 percent. After it leaves the farm, a lot of food is chucked because it’s not pretty, or it’s past its expiration date, or it simply falls through the cracks. According to the EPA, food waste makes up 21 percent of the garbage bound for landfills in the U.S.

This is not news — we’ve known for a while that our modern foodprint is massive. What’s noteworthy is that people are actually maybe kind of starting to do something about it.

Today the United Nations launched a campaign to reduce global food waste, which it estimates at 1.3 billion tons a year.

“In a world of seven billion people, set to grow to nine billion by 2050, wasting food makes no sense — economically, environmentally and ethically,” said U.N. Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The campaign, “Think-Eat-Save,” calls on eaters to take some logical steps — steps so seemingly obvious that it’s sad we need a campaign to promote them. E.g. make a shopping list and avoid impulse buys and “marketing tricks.” Also: Freeze leftovers, donate to food banks, and don’t be afraid to buy “funny” looking fruit and veg (if they even make it to the store shelves, that is).

This is all good stuff, but I reiterate my sadness. This is a problem of the incredibly privileged. According to the U.N., European and North American consumers waste upwards of 10 times what African and south Asian consumers do. Restaurants are particularly bad at this, even though cutting down on waste could save them thousands of dollars.

One campaign probably won’t do much to change our wasteful habits, so long as those habits are generally good for big business, and so long as that campaign is organized by the toothless U.N.

“Think” is a good place to start, but what else can we do? Sit back and celebrate when fancy real estate firms get a pat on the back for turning their food waste into fertilizer for their fancy gardens? Please, please no. Ugh. I’ll be out back fishing bagels from the dumpster, a-gain.

1 note
#environment#food waste#UN
14
Jan
2013
“
Fundamentalist free marketeers believe, with the zealotry of a Shiite jihadist, that all commerce should be totally unregulated and that any action that will produce bigger quarterly profits must be implemented, even if doing so destroys millions of lives in the process.
”
- Yeah, I said that. (via thurmansnotebook)
2 notes
#environment#food#food waste#UN#food crisis#population
12
Jan
2013

Big Ag Profits From Food Waste

Almost half of all the food we produce in the world never makes it to a plate. Today, we allow a staggering two billion tons of food to go to waste each and every year. If we eliminated this unnecessary food waste, we could potentially provide 60-100 percent more food to feed the world’s growing population.

1 note
#food waste#profits#big ag#water#energy#pollution#climate change
10
Jan
2013

Almost half of the world’s food thrown away, report finds

Figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers show as much as 2bn tonnes of food never makes it on to a plate
Food waste
Between 30% and 50% or 1.2-2bn tonnes of food produced around the world never makes it on to a plate. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

As much as half of all the food produced in the world – equivalent to 2bn tonnes – ends up as waste every year, engineers warned in a report published on Thursday.

The UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) blames the “staggering” new figures in its analysis on unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and Western consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with “poor engineering and agricultural practices”, inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities.

In the face of United Nations predictions that there could be about an extra 3 billion people to feed by the end of the century and growing pressure on the resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the IME is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste.

Their report, Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not, found that between 30% and 50% or 1.2-2bn tonnes of food produced around the world never makes it on to a plate.

In the UK as much as 30% of vegetable crops are not harvested due to their failure to meet retailers’ exacting standards on physical appearance, it says, while up to half of the food that is bought in Europe and the US is thrown away by consumers.

And about 550bn cubic metres of water is wasted globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer. Carnivorous diets add extra pressure as it takes 20-50 times the amount of water to produce 1 kilogramme of meat than 1kg of vegetables; the demand for water in food production could reach 10–13 trillion cubic metres a year by 2050.

This is 2.5 to 3.5 times greater than the total human use of fresh water today and could lead to more dangerous water shortages around the world, the IME says, claiming that there is the potential to provide 60-100% more food by eliminating losses and waste while at the same time freeing up land, energy and water resources.

Tim Fox, head of energy and environment at the IME, said: “The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.”

In order to prevent further waste, governments, development agencies and organisation like the UN “must work together to help change people’s mindsets on waste and discourage wasteful practices by farmers, food producers, supermarkets and consumers,” the IME said.

the guardian

#food#food waste#water waste#climate change#pollution#hunger
04
Jan
2013
“
There’s a ton of waste in the produce section as well. Years ago I worked in a produce store. We would get a whole box of produce in, people would buy a few pieces, and a few days later it had all gone limp, wilted, or molded, and we would throw it out by the box full. All the effort and energy that went into each box of produce, just to have to throw most of it out, was mind blowing and really made me think. And to think carrots are still only 50 cents a pound after throwing out 6 pounds of a 10 pound box. The local food bank didn’t want rubbery floppy carrots either.
”
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Cody_Wandel/food-waste-america_n_2404451_218853283.html
#food waste#waste
25
Dec
2012

It’s time to cut the obscene amount of Christmas food waste

Britons throw out the equivalent of 2m turkeys, 5m Christmas puddings and 74m mince pies, figures show

Christmas Dinner
A total Christmas food bill averages £169 per household and over a third (35%) of us admit to throwing away more food at Christmas than at any other time of year. Photograph: Alamy

Whether it is because we are suckers for gluttony or incapable of calculating how much we will need to feed our family and friends for the annual Christmas feast, every year British household shamelessly end up chucking away a mountain of surplus festive food. We shop, we eat some of it and bin the rest. Much of it could be re-used and such enormous waste is drain on the environment as well as our finances.

Figures published on Thursday reveal the shocking extent of our thoughtlessness. We throw out the equivalent of 2 million turkeys, 5m Christmas puddings and a truly shocking 74m mince pies, according to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign run by the government’s waste reduction advisory body, Wrap. To put it into context, that means we are binning nearly twice as many mince pies as retail giant Marks & Spencer sells every year (40m).

With a total Christmas food bill averaging a huge £169 per household and over a third (35%) of us admitting to throwing away more food at Christmas than at any other time of year, Love Food Hate Waste has partnered with Unilever to help 12 families across the UK to cut down on their food waste in the run up to and over Christmas. The families are aiming to slash the amount of food they throw away by a quarter and cut their grocery bills by 15%.

The partnership’s 12 top tips aim to help people make the most of leftovers and store food cleverly in the run up to Christmas. Some are straight from the ministry of the blindingly obvious, such as freezing leftover cheese or using cooked sprouts to make bubble and squeak. Genius. Some recipes feature Flora spread and Hellman’s mayonnaise (Unilever, ahem, make both).

But isn’t it time that we cut the obscene amount of food waste which has become a fixture of this time of year, planning our shopping and cooking more carefully? Let’s face it, many supermarkets will re-open on Boxing Day and we are hardly going to suffer if we don’t have enough mince pies.

Social pressures and glossy TV advertisements from supermarkets mean that often we feel we have no choice but to be over-generous and put on a massive spread that we know we are not going to eat.

Kathy Cope, a 39-year-old mother of two who lives in Woolton Village, Liverpool, is taking part in the challenge. She says, “Christmas is definitely the most wasteful time of year for us. I overbuy because I want everything to be perfect. It’s hard to get portions right and I don’t want to appear stingy so I always cook far more than I need to.”

And if your guilt buttons were not already firmly pressed, it’s not just leftover turkey scraps you need to be worrying about. Britons will apparently pour 15 million cups of roast turkey fat down the kitchen sink on Christmas Day, enough to nearly fill an Olympic swimming pool.

New research from the University of Portsmouth has shed light on what happens to this fat once it enters sewers and transforms into a hard, soapy material. Scientists estimate removing fat, oil and grease from sewer pipes adds up to £50m a year to our household bills. Yuck.

comments

1 note
#christmas#food waste#waste
07
Dec
2012

How to waste less food

Tristram Stuart reports on the latest ideas to tackle our growing mountains of food waste by thinking creatively and producing good food from surplus produce

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#Tristram Stuart#the food program#radio 4#bbc#food waste