Brits Throw A Third Of Their Food Away

Originally posted by Souljah
So - question is WHY there is so much food being wasted?

Good thread Souljah.
If it's like personal experience. LAZINESS

I go absolutley crazy with people wasting food.
Everytime I go through my parents fridge I find a heap of expired products.
If this is typical behaviour it goes like this..

Person goes shopping..
sees nice fesh food..
looks tasty..
buys it..
gets home too tired/lazy to cook..
orders takeaway..
gets up next day..
doesn't fancy it/too lazy to cook it..
orders takeaway..
..ad infinitum until nice,fresh,tasty looking food turns into a green and mottled living entity with a B.O problem ..

Said person then resorts to cardboard flavoured micro meals until next shopping day.

reply to post by AGENT_T

Good Point!

Also I think another problem is, when people go shopping HUNGRY and buy all sorts of stuff, which shall probably never get eaten - since hungry eyes usually buy more food then needed. And if you can afford it - why not?

reply to post by IAmTetsuo


I agree completely.
The corruption in these countries is endemic and the wealth that some families have accumulated over the years is obscene.

What percentage of charitable aid actually reaches the needy?

And so, would not buying the food that is thrown away make any difference at all to world famine?
IMO, none whatsoever.

It is just another ploy to try to make us feel guilty about famine and stop people asking why famine exists at all.

I absolutely LOVE fresh food.

Freshly baked bread,freshly plucked fruit etc.
Fact is though..
There's not a lot of free time at certain times of the week to cook/prepare it.
At these times it's best to resort to frozen stuff that lasts until there IS time to cook.

People have got to learn to shop tactically.
Why buy a whole load of fresh stuff that goes off at the beginning of a working week when,chances are, you really aren't going to use it until after its expiry date.

The waste really does make me sick.

In the immortal words of Alien Pulltung
"Take all you can eat but eat all you take"

Mm..

How lucky am I to have the great RogerT show me the errors of my ways.

I'll set you straight with the facts and stats a little later, busy right now, but basically, you got it all arse about face. Don't worry though, you're in good company.

I can assure you, my facts are correct, as I have studied population dynamics of most of Africa and the Middle East, the poorest nations have more birth rates, poverty, disease, and war. If you are saying I have it "backwards" because I say because they produce they run out of food, you are, somewhat, correct, though I made the same point.

In order to essentially run out of food though you must first excede the produce income. People who are already starving, already ravaged by war and so forth have more children. Its a natural phenomenon, possibly basic animal instinct. However, a nation with 40% of its population under the age of 18 CANNOT sustain its entire population, so a large majority of young people die off early on, if you make it past 10 years old in most nations you have a significantly higher chance to survive.

However, when significant aid arrives to a desolate place ALREADY effected by malnutrition, disease, war, and an exploding young population, more young people survive, and they in turn have kids, they become dependant on aid from out side sources that they do not have the resources at hand to sustain any where near the population they are at..

If your survival was threatened, you'd do whatever you thought would save you. If you were poor and starving, and believed a big family would be your best chance of survival, you'd have as many kids as possible.

Pop out kids to go work in the mines at the age of 6, or in the fields, or in the army, yes.. its a sad thing that happens quite often in Africa. I honestly cannot feel sorry for such actions. As another poster here said, they create their own problems.

Hunger preceeds high birth rate, low birth rate follows a full belly, not the other way around like the eugenics PR would have you believe.

Not in ALL cases, looking at the entire Western World we have a declining or stagnant population -- yet we are also the fattest and apparently most wasteful people. The basic law behind exploding birth rates is money -- the more money you have the less children you have, on average. Goes back to you saying have a kid to force him into child labor to feed your self.

If you don't believe me, go hang with some of the poor and hungry in the third world, but I'd recommend cultivating a little compassion first, or they may eat you to survive

Compassion for the world trying to do the right thing yet * up a continent.

Back to Souljah's OP, me eating less, or even buying less, will not help starving countries.

Originally posted by Freeborn
reply to post by IAmTetsuo

 

I agree completely.
The corruption in these countries is endemic and the wealth that some families have accumulated over the years is obscene.

But western liberals, leftists, and "progressives" believe that picking on some poor graduate student here will do more to solve poverty in the Phillipines than taking on Imelda Marcos!

What percentage of charitable aid actually reaches the needy?

Very little. Most of the "help the third world" charities are run by Christians or Communists that would further their own ideologies rather than help anyone in need.

And so, would not buying the food that is thrown away make any difference at all to world famine?
IMO, none whatsoever.

Especially since this is a distribution isssue not a production one. How easy would it be to transfer uneaten food overseas to the major hunger spots before such food spoiled? Not easy at all. Next to impossible, rather. And of course how to we make sure some corrupt pooh-bah poverty pimp doesn't keep such food for himself and his family? And who shall pay for all these expenses?

It is just another ploy to try to make us feel guilty about famine and stop people asking why famine exists at all.

And of course the sick idea that sacrifice by itself somehow has a tangible benefit and can solve real problems!

reply to post by Rockpuck



OK, we are both saying the same thing, just in a different way.

I took umbrage at your apparent callous attitude, yet I can see that you're not that way at all - a bit high brow maybe, but a big warm and fuzzy heart hidden there somewhere between the lines

I haven't studied the statistics the way you have, but I've been there in person, and eaten at the same table - or more often the same floor.

I can tell you first hand, that the poor and hungry of the world are on the whole good, honest, warm hearted, loving and generous humans, who deserve our compassion, and they are quite capable of helping themselves if given the opportunity and the support.

And you are absolutely right, you eating less will not make any difference

Damn, they throw 33% of the pudding away!? C'mon Brits, y'all gotta eat the ish you cook.So you make suffer foreign peeps who dare to eat it and you feel not concerned yourselves.That's unfair.

-1 for the Brits