Brits Throw A Third Of Their Food Away

Brits Throw A Third Of Their Food Away

news.sky.com

Britons throw away a third of the food they buy - and a campaign is being launched to make people more aware of how much they are wasting.

33% of all the food bought in the UK is thrown away untouched - the same as ditching every third bag of groceries.

This equates to £8bn of squandered produce, and as a result 6.7 million tonnes of food waste is dumped into landfill sites every year. This rots away - producing 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.wrap.org.uk
www.bbc.co.uk

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Extent of Food Waste in the UK

And while over 9 million people die worldwide each year because of hunger and malnutrition - 5 million are children and approximately 1.2 billion people suffer from hunger (deficiency of calories and protein) - one third of food bought in the UK is thrown away untouched! 6.7 million tonnes of food is being thrown away.

And according to Food First United States are no better - 40-50% of the US harvest never gets eaten yet there are 36 million people, including 14 million children, experiencing hunger.



news.sky.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I guess you've never tasted British food..?

edit: sorry, I didn't see the second post with stats on people dying from hunger. It's not funny.

[edit on 11/1/2007 by mythatsabigprobe]

The stats are not nice to read, but i fear that this latest news is something that we all do.

Hopefully this thread will not fall into the usual blame game of who is the worst.

Think about your last weeks meals, who finished every scrap and did'nt throw any away?

Food is something most of us take for granted, and as long as that is the case, we will throw away items without a thought.

A shame i agree, but a reality.

Oh yeah, and i was waiting to see how long it would be before they brought carbon dioxide into the equation. Next we'll be taxed on how much food we chuck away, they are already talking of doing this per amount of recycling you do here in the UK.

CX.

The article mentioned wasted produce. Can't they just make a compost pile and turn it into something good? Granted, I understand the waste is bad, but I've been known to buy some produce that went bad before I got a chance to eat it. At least they could separate the produce and recycle it into compost to grow more produce....

Another thing that gets me is all the restaurants that just throw away perfectly good unused food. Why can't they hand it out to the homeless?

Yeah... even in Denmark where we in large proportions believe in ecology, so the food should be good, we still ditch a lot of it.

I think most people are so obsorped with their daily doings that buying the appropiate amount of food is not something they want on their mind... ie. rather buy too much than too little

reply to post by Souljah


poor little kids.

I will put my scraps in a baggy and mail it to Africa, or Asia, or where ever else people are procreating in a land that cannot sustain massive population growth.

Originally posted by CX
Think about your last weeks meals, who finished every scrap and did'nt throw any away?

I did. It's not too hard to organize the purchase of groceries and cooking cycle in such a way that there is very little waste. I did throw away two slices of bread which became moldy, but that's it.

As for starving children in third-world countries, Rockpuck came down a bit harsh on that, but in essence he's right. We can ship tons and tons of food to the countries with constant population growth and it will never solve the hunger problem simply because it's not sustainable. There are analyses of how much fresh water and other vital resources are needed to adequately provide the growing population with food and all that, and sooner rather than later there won't be enough.

So - question is WHY there is so much food being wasted?

What are the main reasons for that?

According to WRAP lack of planning when food shopping - buying more than is needed is probably the main reason. And in a society, which has been brainwashed for decades to be good obedient consumers and buy, BUY, BUY, that comes as no surprise. Then comes poor food storage knowledge, lack of confidence around cooking and confusion over food date labels.

So if you fall in that category, maybe you should check out LOVE FOOD - HATE WASTE site, which has a lot of useful tips how to lower food waste and of course, save money.

reply to post by Souljah


in my house hold, we never throw away food, unless its past its sell by date or gone off,
and the fact that my mother will would give me a lecture when i was younger if i left anything on my plate to chuck away about people who cant afford food


these topics are depressing, (reading about people suffering and me doing jack all, makes me feel like sh***)

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
I guess you've never tasted British food..?

LOL, anyway this comment is a myth, here in London we have people from ALL over the world, including food from all over the world. Therefore our food is the best food in the world, because of the choice . Plus there isnt anything wrong with fish and chips

On topic I saw an old lady on the news talk about this, she made a lot of sense, the main reason we throw away so much is because we buy too much food at once, and it goes uneaten and eventually out of date. Therefore she suggested buying only what you need, and put the uneaten foods in the FREEZER, then it will last for a very long time, freezers can help save the foods.

[edit on 1-11-2007 by _Phoenix_]

Originally posted by Rockpuck
I will put my scraps in a baggy and mail it to Africa, or Asia, or where ever else people are procreating in a land that cannot sustain massive population growth.

wow, do people still believe that 'too many babies causes hunger' myth?

I thought hunger education had gotten a thorough dissemination in the 90's - guess I was wrong?!

[edit on 1-11-2007 by RogerT]

Originally posted by _Phoenix_
Plus there isnt anything wrong with fish and chips

Yo bro'

Didn't you know that Chicken Tikka Masala is the British National Dish now? More popular than Fish 'n Chips and Big Mac's too. Yummy

Originally posted by RogerT
wow, do people still believe that 'too many babies causes hunger' myth?

I thought hunger education had gotten a thorough dissemination in the 90's - guess I was wrong?!

There is any number of sources on the net that discuss reasons for hunger, and some of them appear to be reasonable and educated. Here's one:

www.probe.org...

This exponential growth puts an enormous strain on our ability to provide resources and services to a starving world. Imagine if your own city or town had its population double every 20 to 25 years. That would mean you would have to double the number of houses, double the number of grocery stores, double the number of roads, and double the number of sewage-treatment plants.

Souljah, its Goverment lies, I no of no one who disposes of such amounts of food. Its just yet another scam to squeeze us for taxes, were getting it from every quarter, fat people should be taxed taxes on the air we breath soon no doubt.

Originally posted by RogerT

Originally posted by Rockpuck
I will put my scraps in a baggy and mail it to Africa, or Asia, or where ever else people are procreating in a land that cannot sustain massive population growth.

wow, do people still believe that 'too many babies causes hunger' myth?

I thought hunger education had gotten a thorough dissemination in the 90's - guess I was wrong?!

[edit on 1-11-2007 by RogerT]

Ah yes. What DOES cause hunger? ..

Lets look at .. Egypt, which has a MAJOR malnutrition issue that is growing every year. And why, why does it grow every year? More babies, more mouths to feed.

Egypt, as this example, produces X amount of food to support X amount of people, when X amount of people out grow the farm land required to grow X amount of food, less food per person. Eventually they import larger sums of food, and because of a growing population damed the rivers to give electricity to the millions of people and the growing population, taking AWAY farm land. So they import MORE food, and the population GROWS when it SHOULD DIE off or move away.

Many issues go along with "why is there starvation" but it is almost always going to be answered with
1. Not enough arable land
2. Not a large enough agriculture incentive to GROW food
3. Relying on international aid for a growing population that, when aid is cut off, is left in famine
4. Rarest of all, but it happens, governments confiscate food and sell it. Usually to other starving countries for profit.

To many people. Main cause.

Countries like the US can support 300 million + because 1. We actually have very large farmable territory, but we also have the money to buy food from other countries.

It makes sense that a rich nation can feed its self and a poor nation cannot.

So then you would no doubt say "The rich should help the poor" .. No. The poorest nations on Earth average 2.5 births per death, some as high as 6 births per deaths. Countries in Europe have negative growth in native populations, and some between .1-.5 births per death, very slow growth.

Why are the number one victims of starvation children? Starving people give birth to children they cannot feed, thus they die. If I was starving, had no job, couldn't feed my self, drank nasty water and lived in sewage I WOULD NOT HAVE KIDS. Perhaps if they turned their ability of procreating like rabits into labor for their economies perhaps they would fare better.

I live in a society that has an abundance of food, its sad there are those without food, but me eating more, or less, has no effect, because if we bought less food..... ready for it??




We simply produce less, not give it away. Besides, usually we just give away rice and wheat.

But go on feeling bad for the societies that cannot feed them selves yet have the highest growth rates in the world. I'm going to have a nice steak dinner.

Alright everybody. Britain is hardly a giant Israeli kibbutz where people are actually punished for wasting and/or hording food - nor should it be. I know it's a terrible thing to see valuable food wasted, especially when so much of the world is malnourished. But there is really no solution to the problem, at least none that isn't worse than the problem itself.

Arrrgh! Another Third World Guilt Trip. I understand why there are so many "reactionary" young white males around who are a little sick and tired of hearing all this crapola of how they are individually responsible for all the suffering in the Third World, not to mention the Holocaust and the African Slave Trade. All while scrounging around themselves to pay off their bills and rents and mortgages and student loans so they can have a standard of living equal to their parents' generation (who if I may add are not under the same burden of guilt.)

The so-called Third World is currently responsible for many of its own problems. Sure there was Western colonialism and imperialism - but what of those bloody genocidal bible-thumping Normans who ravaged faire England nearly a thousand years ago, and thirty years before the Crusades began? Isn't that also colonialism? Shouldn't it also be punished?

FROGS GO HOME! DEATH TO GREAT SATAN OF NORMANDY!
DEATH TO THE NORMAN SHAH, WILLIE THE BASTARD!

For some strange reason, I can't see a million people marching in the streets of London carrying these signs and chanting these slogans.

Too much of this Third World liberation theology (and believe me, it was worse in the 70s and 80s) is based on tribal legitimacy, to the point where masses of deluded "students" are willing to die, or be tortured or starved by Our King just because he is Our King and not Your King. Never mind that by objective standards Our King may be far worse, far more corrupt, and far more bloodthirsty than Your King.

Here's a clue. Japan, South Korea, and to an extent East Asia of a whole managed to lift itself out of the Third World Trap and become modern nations with clean* air and water, genuine concern over the environment, some semblence of democracy, rights for women and minorities, and all the other things that liberals should be proud of.

* - How many of us would actually prefer smallpox, diphtheria, and malaria to industrial pollution and "vaccine-induced" autism?

Marketing and advertising makes most foodstuffs appear so attractive that when doing the weekly / monthly shop we are enticed into buying far too much.
As a result so much go's uneaten.
It's unacceptable yes, but does anyone really think that if we bought less more would be given to the starving and poor in the world?

World famine could be eliminated quite easily but the "powers that be" wish the current status quo to continue, it serves their purpose.

It is to our shame that we allow this continue.

Originally posted by Freeborn
World famine could be eliminated quite easily but the "powers that be" wish the current status quo to continue, it serves their purpose.

It is to our shame that we allow this continue.

And many of those "Powers that be" are themselves the People's Rajahs of various Third World countries - arch-hypocrites who rail against Western Materialism while they pig out on Coca-Cola, chocolate, potato chips, and a Bud or two or three - while expecting the peasants to keep starving until the Evil West can be overthrown!

reply to post by Rockpuck


Wow dude, nice rant. You need to warm up a little and join the human race - just kidding Well not really Nah, really kidding

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.

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.

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.

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