Half of all food 'thrown away' claims report

Half of all food 'thrown away' claims report

www.bbc.co.uk

As much as half of the world's food, amounting to two billion tonnes worth, ends up being thrown away, a UK-based report has claimed.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers said the waste was being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness.

The study also found that up to 30% of vegetables in the UK were not harvested because of their physical appearance

(visit the link for the full news article)



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There should be a new Law against Throwing Food in the Trash Bin .. (Very Shocking Pictures)
Wasteful Brits: Throw away 1/3 of all Food
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WOW!

Half of the worlds food just thrown away.

They say that some of it, in poorer countries, is thrown or not harvested due to improper packaging and/or collecting methods.

The suspermarkets seem to be the worst offenders due to their 'sell by' dates.

The report found that between 30% and 50% of the four billion tonnes of food produced around the world each year went to waste.

Huge amounts of water are wasted on crops that are not picked because of their size, shape or colour and also from all the food that gets thrown because it was not bought.

As for the 'fussy' customers, this is, I feel, due to the supermarkets telling us what they believe the consumer wants and desires.

Special offers on foods in the shops makes us buy too much, so we waste that which we do not use. So we think we're getting a good deal, but there is a vasty amount of food behind that deal that is simply wasted. This is, of course, to do with profits for the companies.

Then we have the issue of people starving in various countries. We see constant adverts from charities asking for donations to help feed or give fresh water to millions of people.

The 'wasted' fresh food is not given to them as part of thisdeal as it is not profitable for the farmers/companies. but we're asked to give money to support a charitty that has very little power over what food stuffs are actually bought and given out.

We need a rethink on our problem.

On the very same day that this report was released, we find this news;

Tesco has reported its strongest growth in UK Christmas sales for three years.

The country's biggest retailer reported that sales excluding new store openings, VAT and petrol grew 1.8% in the six weeks to 5 January, compared with the same period last year.

It said food sales had been particularly strong, with customers responding to "a much stronger seasonal offering".

www.bbc.co.uk...

A prime example of profits first..

The West may have almost every food in the world available in their shops, yet there is a major question.. why?

Every country is becoming mixed with people coming and going all the time. Demand for various food types is growing faster than we may be able to keep up with. Air travel is easy these days and you could pop over to another country to sample their foods in a matter of hours.. Yet people are still starving to death.

These major corporations are mostly to blame, IMO, as they are profit based and don't want to sell the odd crops that do not meet the 'consumers' requirements..

You should go and spend some time in a less fortunate country and see just how well they manage their daily foods and what they are prepared to harvest and/or buy in order to feed themselves and their families. I've seen some pretty incredible conditions of certain foods being consumed or bought.. nothing like what we see in our supermarkets.. We see in the UK highly polsihed, waxed, washed, same size and clean fruit and vegetables..

Go compare

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

That is entirely unacceptable if true.

How the hell are there still hungry people on earth?

I cant even wrap my head around it. Either we are really that dumb to let our species wallow in misery, while having the means of "sustaining" them or we are just a broken animal. Malfunctioning and defective.

Profit, like you said, is the driving factor. Not even a market driven craze for profit, but the concentration of that "bottom line" philosophy at the upper chevrons of our worlds coordinators.

Probably enough to feed the hungry of the world.

Sad, isn't it ?

There's no doubt about it, we are a spoiled society and have to come expect top quality for everything.

My mother worked in the Safeway meat department for years... did you know that they die the meat bright red to make it look more appetizing to the customers ? Fresh meat actually has a slight brownish tinge to it, but people assume it should be a bright blood red.

Thanks for the thread, we need to be reminded every now and then that our perception of the world around us is very skewed indeed.

It may get thrown away, but it does not go wasted.

Here in America the homeless eat what is found.
I've seen a show where it was referred to as "good garbage"...



No matter, there is an issue, with extra portions of good food being disposed of, when it could very well go to the soup kitchens, and less fortunate.

Restaurants, and fast food places have a wasteful policy based on health expectations, how ever. there are alternative options.

That is just my example, there are probably more than a million other such.

I agree though, too much food is wasted when it should not be.

The problem is serious, when obesity is a pandemic in one nation and famine the other...

reply to post by ADVISOR


sadly, here in the uk supermarkets pour bleach over their thrown away food to stop anybody salvaging it.. .. a practise i find hideously wrong too.

reply to post by ladyteeny


WTF?!

That, is some serious BS!



Outrageous....

IMO, everything needs a revamp.. from the hours we're expected to work (which leads us to the need of fast food and/or the need to buy only the best and get it prepped and cooked in the minimum of time) to what we see in the shops, advertising techniques, chemical/gas preservative use on foods.

Obesity and starvation are a major issue in the world right now (along with diabetes and the like) caused by too much or too little of the same thing...food, or rather, stuff that is made to look and taste like food..

We all know that major companies make massive profits creating chemicals and preservatives (Aspartame) in order to maximise profits yet provide as little of a food type as possible.

Whatever happened to flour in bread and rolls?

What the hell is going on with our food these days?? At what point did we decide that the main ingredients in food not include… well….. FOOD!?!

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread203314/pg1

Obese Americans to be forced into counseling?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Why McDonald's Happy Meal Hamburgers Won't Decompose

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I remember a live conceert for charity.. it was called Live Aid.
In 1985 it raised millions in order to send a lot of food to an area that was suffering from the worst levels of starvation..

A widespread famine affected the inhabitants of today's Eritrea and Ethiopia from 1983 to 1985. The worst famine to hit the country in a century, in northern Ethiopia it led to more than 400,000 deaths, but more than half this mortality can be attributed to human rights abuses that caused the famine to come earlier, strike harder, and extend further than would otherwise have been the case. Other areas of Ethiopia experienced famine for similar reasons, resulting in tens of thousands of additional deaths. The tragedy as a whole took place within the context of more than two decades of insurgency and civil war.

en.wikipedia.org...

So why am I pointing this out.. ?

because a lot of the food that was actually sent was left to rot on the docks.. only the rats got fat.

56,000 tons of food were left rotting in a port while the forced relocations continued

en.wikipedia.org...

We really need to look at what is important.. profits or the health and well being of every person on the planet.
The corproations aren't going to do diddly squat unless they are put under extreme pressure.. the Governments are not going to lift a finger as they're under pressure from the corporations..

also, with all the health care and pills and stomach clamps being handed out along with the cahrities driving their agendas, there's a lot of money to be made in other areas..and we can't have anything upsetting the economy now can we?

Originally posted by ladyteeny
reply to post by ADVISOR

 

sadly, here in the uk supermarkets pour bleach over their thrown away food to stop anybody salvaging it.. .. a practise i find hideously wrong too.

Not just the UK either it would seem.. looks like it may be a common practice used by all in order to prevent "theft" of food that wont make a profit...

With 48 million Americans on federal food assistance we are bewildered by the latest government outrage from Nevada, where a group of private citizens gathered together at Quail Hollow Farm for a Farm-to-Fork dinner consisting of an organic spread prepared by Chef Gio were forced to dispatch and sanitize hundreds of pounds of food with bleach.

www.shtfplan.com...

A local supermarket says it was forced to get rid of perishable foods, rather than hand them out due to a power loss in the area.

The ShopRite on Island Avenue in SouthWest Philly disposed of at least two dumpsters full of food on Monday.

....that’s when I guess the manager said ‘okay start pouring bleach on it,’ they came out with bleach and started spraying bleach on the food.”

www.nbcphiladelphia.com...

and a farm-to-table event turns sour

The night of the event, the guests arrived at the farm, and so did the food inspector. Here were the issues, according to Laura Bledsoe: Some prepared food packages had no labels; some of the meat was not USDA certified; some food was prepared in advance off-site and not up to proper temperature; vegetables were declared unfit; and there were no receipts for food.

In the end, the health inspector demanded that bleach be poured on the food, including vegetables, to ensure it was not consumed.

www.lasvegassun.com...

Although I have never personally talked to him about this, I have an uncle who someone told me lost a job as a Winn Dixie manager over giving some food away that had just passed it's date.

About 20 years ago I worked at a burger king and our manager would allow us to sometimes take small salads home but most of the left over food had to be put in certain containers after being counted.

This world can certainly provide enough food for it's inhabitants.... it's all about how it's managed.

We could feed everyone, but the lawmakers do not allow it.

Food scarcity seems to be a fear mongering conspiracy.

I also thank those who work so cheaply to keep food prices down, regardless of where they are from.
Those people who make a huge deal out of migrant workers having those jobs and those jobs not being held by Americans who insist on making a certain amount because of their cost of living apparently want to pay three bucks for an apple.

I sympathize on the American cost of living issue, because many irrational things are expected out of the American dream... but I do not think it's a good idea to knock cheap labor when it helps keep the price of food down... even though it too is going up with all the inflation I've been noticing.

Thank you for this! It's really sad this happens, pouring bleach on perfectly good food! That seems so.....wrong doesn't it? Someday we will learn how to help and love each other

more food needs to be dried.

i dry a lot of stuff here....if i do not use it and think it might be at risk of getting old, i dry it.

It just does not seem a widespread practice in the usa.

Great subject! Here I see LOTS of food going bad/rotting every day, but it does not go to waste, it goes to feed pigs.

Here people will let fields of whatever produce rot if the market is not paying enough. It's simply not worth the farmers effort to harvest/do the work to get the produce to market... which means free food if you know the farmer

Also you mentioned an excellent point about food not looking to "specification" as dictated by media (posters, television, etc.) of what a "good" apple or broccoli should look like. A lot of it NEEDS to be the right size/shape to work for machine processing as well. So yeah, there is a ton of waste going on at all levels from farm to market in my opinion.

I personally prefer the produce chewed on a bit by insects, I have a good idea the product is safe enough to eat because the insects do it.

reply to post by Philippines


Mabuhay!!!

I am fully aware of what you're saying having spent some time living in the Philippines

As much as it was sometimes a shock to wake up to a house full of ants or cockroaches, you know you're in good hands really..
I never got ill from bad food grown, kept, or cooked anywhere in the P H.
I did get ill from a Mcdonalds over there once though..that was bad.. ruptured my throat being ill.. three days to recover.

It'sincredible how you can also walk down a street (particularly in a village) and just pick what you need that is growing wild.. fresh as the daisies...

Can't get on with some of the dried fish you got there though.. stinks to high heaven whilst being cooked..
small fish..can't remember their name..

Having helped my dad grow fruit and veg here in the Uk as a child, I have no problem with picking/cutting out any bad bits. Slugs are a pain..

If some of the ways that the people live in the Philippines was introduced to the West, we may actually learn something over here...

Salamat

i am not surprised by this in the least. what i do find surprising tho is the fact one of the bigger "food wastage" issues wasn't even touched upon. that being all the food that is burned, buried, plowed under or literally dumped down the drain, because a farmer has grown or produced TOO MUCH. it is due t something called a quota. that is a farmer is ONLY ALLOWED to produce so much and the rest needs to be destroyed.

sound far fetched? sadly it is not. i had relatives that were dairy farmers. they had a quota of milk their heard was to produce. if they were under quota then their quota was reduced. if they were OVER quota then the excess had to be dumped down the drain. of course this meant that they dumped milk down the drain on a daily basis. at one point they even raised some hogs using the excess milk but i believe they even got into trubble doing that. add to the fact that it is even illegal for the farmer to drink their own raw milk, there is nothing they can do with the excess but to pour it down into the sewer.

the same type of thing happens with all food growers/producers. you are only ALLOWED to sell so much. this is done for STABILITY of food PRICES. that way profits of the food market are not in any danger from a good year resulting in lower prices due to an over abundance of a particular food or crop. so yes it is all about MAKING MONEY, not for the farmers tho who are typically in great debt and danger of loosing farms. but for the FOOD COMPANIES, canneries, supermarkets etc. this is one reason you tend to see food and vegetable stalls in front of farms in some ares, and even "farmers markets". that is the farmer trying to make ends meet by selling some of their surplus (that they know they will normally always have). i often wonder how long till the government cracks down on this "black market" food, as they are cutting out the major food companies so they don't get their "cut". i am sure they would use "safety concerns" about unchecked food and thus possibly dangerous food when they eventually do.

i saw someone mention

Air travel is easy these days and you could pop over to another country to sample their foods in a matter of hours.. Yet people are still starving to death.

sadly if you were meaning we could ship food via aircraft and thus it could be used around the world instead of "going bad" on store shelves, you are mistaken. food is NOT generally flown anywhere. it is MUCH TOO EXPENSIVE. food that travels around the world is shipped on SHIPS. which take a LONG TIME to get anywhere, stuff i have shipped on a fairly regular basis from North America, to Asia normally takes 6 to 8 WEEKS to arrive. one reason food quality generally sucks when it comes from far abroad. for example apples where i am now shipped from North America or even the mainland of Asia tend to be woody and grainy (in my opinion growing up in North America, not worth even bothering with). while at the same time i just love the bananas and pineapple and things grown here as they are MUCH better than we got back there. the reason for this is simple. food that is shipped long distance is not anywhere near ripe, and the farther it needs to go the "unriper" the food is picked due to the long time it takes to transport.

here is an example of the cost of AIRFREIGHT, and why shipping food in aircraft is not normally done. we needed to FLY the body of a dearly beloved relative this year. it COST us OVER $10,000 US to fly the body the same distance that we paid about $1,500 for a LIVE PERSON to travel. i even heard from people who had to send a body from the US to Asia (the other direction) cost them $20,000. so as you can see air freight is far too expensive to use for shipping food. can you see people paying between $10,000, and $20,000 US for say 200lbs of potatoes or corn? it is just not anywhere NEAR COST EFFECTIVE to airfreight food.

as for stores throwing out food and even making said food inedible. they have NO CHOICE. just so you know STEALING FOOD from store dumpsters IS THEFT. actually so is taking ANYTHING out of a stores garbage. part of this is that stores sometimes get a partial rebate on stuff "destroyed and disposed" this can be because it is broken or "gone bad". even food that is perfectly alright that has been returned to the store by a customer it MUST be disposed of as it could have been tampered with. when it comes to food if it is beyond the "best before date" there is no way a store can even THINK of giving it away since if someone were to get sick, the STORE could be HELD ACCOUNTABLE and SUED because that food is deemed not to be safe from the food authority that makes such "overdue dates" mandatory. so no store in their right mind would even consider selling or giving away food that is technically unsafe for consumption. not to mention that the food suppliers would also likely go after such a store since yet again their "cut" would not be forthcoming.

This is beyond words. There are children out there who have to drink contaminated water and who are dying of malnutrition.

The "civilized" world throws away perfectly good food. What a sick world we live in.

I don't ever buy much. I'd rather go to the store 2 or three times. If I have something like old bread, I feed it to animals, so at least it doesn't go to waste.

You will not find any food in my trash bin.

We've got hungry people in our own country so shipping overseas does not excuse food waste... or food inflation.

I'm sure in other countries where there is hunger they have problems like this as well even if not exactly the same.

also, food that spoils can be canned or dried and placed alongside shipments that are already going overseas anyway. It could be some kind of tax write off for corporations to consider this. If you want to get real technical we could talk about fuel waste as well. Ships DO ship empty containers as wasteful as that seems. Planes fly across continents with zero passengers simply to get back home and make another trip.

I mean really, can anyone explain to me why every time I go outside I see recon planes flying in nearly a perfect circle from the air force base.... just around in circles all day.

I mean, really.... what are they looking for? Redneck terrorists?

If all that going on is practice flights... they sure are practicing a lot.

Originally posted by WhereIsTheBatman
This is beyond words. There are children out there who have to drink contaminated water and who are dying of malnutrition.

The "civilized" world throws away perfectly good food. What a sick world we live in.

I don't ever buy much. I'd rather go to the store 2 or three times. If I have something like old bread, I feed it to animals, so at least it doesn't go to waste.

You will not find any food in my trash bin.

Organic waste is also soil nutrients... but in the US if someone wants to grow something, they will often actually go buy a bag of dirt.

Hungry and Cold in the USA.



No child left behind?

Indeed I have heard other stories of wasting food.I was raised to view wasting food is a grievous sin while so many people on this earth are starving.To this day I will not have food on my plate more than I can consume.S/F Extra lien for raising peoples consciousness to this problem.The moral?Don't be a wasteful,ingrate slob and appreciate what little you do have!