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

[Reg]

They don't? Mine grows pretty thick and stiff after a few weeks. Maybe I got some mutant seeds =/

Mine grows thick and stiff after only a couple minutes.

[Kurioxan]

Mine grows thick and stiff after only a couple minutes.

Bet would be quite the effort to chew it enough to be digested, wanna try? :3

They don't? Mine grows pretty thick and stiff after a few weeks. Maybe I got some mutant seeds =/

Fair enough, i guess we just have different concepts of thick
I was raised on Mediterranean diet, consisting a lot of raw vegetables so chewing never was something i had put much thought into, just a normal thing

[semaphore]

Mine grows thick and stiff after only a couple minutes.

Are you volunterring to have it snipped with this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_SS500_.jpg

...and to have it fried in this:
http://www.colourbox.com/preview/223...frying-pan.jpg

?

I'll feed it to my adorable little dog!

---------- Post added 2013-01-13 at 10:41 PM ----------

I was raised on Mediterranean diet, consisting a lot of raw vegetables so chewing never was something i had put much thought into, just a normal thing

Oh, salad veggies are usually thinner aren't they? Pretty easy to break apart. With these veggies I usually dice them up into smaller pieces for less effort in eating/

[Reg]

Bet would be quite the effort to chew it enough to be digested, wanna try? :3

No digestion please, but a little teeth never hurt...

Are you volunterring to have it snipped with this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_SS500_.jpg

...and to have it fried in this:
http://www.colourbox.com/preview/223...frying-pan.jpg

?

So tempting, but I'll have to go with no thanks.

[Kurioxan]

Are you volunterring to have it snipped with this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_SS500_.jpg

...and to have it fried in this:
http://www.colourbox.com/preview/223...frying-pan.jpg

?

I'll feed it to my adorable little dog!

---------- Post added 2013-01-13 at 10:41 PM ----------


Oh, salad veggies are usually thinner aren't they? Pretty easy to break apart. With these veggies I usually dice them up into smaller pieces for less effort in eating/

Now im hungry :S

Yeah they are thinner and usually cut/shredded. add some olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, lemon juice, rosemary and whatelse you might want *sighs wanting a salad while eating dry cereals"

No digestion please, but a little teeth never hurt...

Now now, im a guy of commitment, i either go all the way or i dont, either chewing and digestion or no deal.

[Deleted]

This summer I worked in a supermarket where I did the fruit/vegetables and sometimes the bakery. At the end of the day I had to remove all the unsold bread and expired food and I can say... ALOT is thrown away. One evening I had 2 full carts of bread that I had to throw in the trash (the bread was baked that morning). I could not even take anything home/hand it out to (homeless) people or you would get a heavy sanction, So sad.

[holyevil44]

i bet that number would be cut in 1/2 if people did not expect "perfect" food all the time i only buy my food as i need it so i never ever waste food

[Kurioxan]

This summer I worked in a supermarket where I did the fruit/vegetables and sometimes the bakery. At the end of the day I had to remove all the unsold bread and expired food and I can say... ALOT is thrown away. One evening I had 2 full carts of bread that I had to throw in the trash (the bread was baked that morning). I could not even take anything home/hand it out to (homeless) people or you would get a heavy sanction, So sad.

Yeah it is, even sadder is that you WERE allowed to take that food with you and they would donate it to homeless and charity, they stopped around the 90s

[Lilkirov]

They don't? Mine grows pretty thick and stiff after a few weeks. Maybe I got some mutant seeds =/



This shall be my new signature!

Nah, Not icky mutated seeds! That's how they grow. you have it right! I grow em pretty much every year *Puts away green thumb*

[Kurioxan]

Nah, Not icky mutated seeds! That's how they grow. you have it right! I grow em pretty much every year *Puts away green thumb*

Yep, i just have a different notion of thickness, they do get more fibrous with age, usually never wait that long though.
Nothing a good cookin wont solve though

[Lysah]

The answer to this riddle is quite simple - we produce far more food than we consume. I don't see why everyone is blatantly ignoring that fact. If people (Americans only according to the posters in this thread) started eating less healthy and imperfect food we would still throw away just as much - we can only eat so much food, after all! America alone produces enough food annually to feed the entire world, let alone the other near two hundred countries added in.

People do not starve because we throw away food we don't want or can't finish. People starve because of their government's abuse. If you want to complain that all that thrown away food could go to ending world hunger - you would be absolutely correct. Come up with an idea to get this food past military regimes in Africa that intentionally take foreign aid from their citizens.

[Deleted]

This is ridiculous. So you're (people in this thread) saying we should be sending our scraps and old/moldy food to homeless and hungry people?

Yes? There is nothing wrong with the food, it is just not perfect (doesn't need to be).

People do not starve because we throw away food we don't want or can't finish. People starve because of their government's abuse. If you want to complain that all that thrown away food could go to ending world hunger - you would be absolutely correct. Come up with an idea to get this food past military regimes in Africa that intentionally take foreign aid from their citizens.

There are plenty of poor/starving people right on our doorstep - no need to even start thinking about the rest of the world. I don't understand why supermarkets don't discount products earlier so that they all sell. When they do occasionally discount stuff it disappears instantly.

[Lysah]

There are plenty of poor/starving people right on our doorstep - no need to even start thinking about the rest of the world. I don't understand why supermarkets don't discount products earlier so that they all sell. When they do occasionally discount stuff it disappears instantly.

I have no way of being sure about this, but I don't believe these stores actually make that much profit to begin with. Look around and see how many family owned grocers you find in your town, I doubt it's very many. There are a whopping zero where I live, why do you think that is? Just to make a profit they have to charge twice what chains already charge and people just won't pay for it. People starve here because they don't have money and we still live in a society where people will lose their job for giving things away instead of throwing them away. I don't fault the vendors at all, they're doing what any business has to do to succeed. The welfare issue is inherent with any currency based economic system.

Again, the point of the OP is still not relevant to poverty in America. Unless 50% of the country is starving, we still make far more food than we could ever use, so the figure is not staggering, sickening, or depressing in any way.

[Deleted]

the only time i throw out food is if it tastes bad and even then i usually give it to my dog or something O-O

This, everything that gets left over, my dog gets (except potatos and some things that can upset the poor fellow).

[jetriot]

There is no excuse to be going hungry in America, the programs and resources available for the hungry are incredible. Sadly the ones that suffer the most from hunger are children with irresponsible parents that refuse to take advantage of those programs or use their welfare checks on food stamps on themselves and not their children. I waste a ton of food now that I can afford to and I don't feel an ounce of guilt about it. I fed my family on $200 a month by spending wisely and looking for sales.

Meanwhile I see families with kids that don't eat except for when we feed them at school but when I drop off homework for them they have huge big screen tvs and insane speakers in their cars. Food stamps are easily available and attainable in this country and those that waste them on stupid shit like soda instead of feeding their kids should have their kids taken away.

As far as people in Africa- feeding them is not the problem. We need to educate them to stop having kids that they can't feed and teach them sound agricultural practices. Of course most of their problems are stem from political tyrants and tribal rivalries that we can do nothing about without placing ourselves into wars we don't need. We could give them some of our GM seeds that grow in harsh environments but that would ruin their limited ag exports to Europe who doesn't trust the science behind GM food.

[Deleted]

Waste is inherent in any efficient production process.

It's simply easier for society to produce too much food and throw out the excess, than to try and exactly pinpoint the amount of food that will be consumed. Especially as no one can know before hand what the demand will be. Having too little food is considered worse than throwing away some.

Some of this is also due to subsidies that encourage producers to produce more of a certain kind of food than there is demand. This depresses food prices which makes it much easier for food retailers to just buy a lot of it to be on the safe side and then throw it away later.

[Orlong]

Staggering don't you think?

"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 (IMechE) 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..."

Read more here

How are you with wasting food? Are you the kind of person that just throws something away the moment it "goes out of date", despite looking perfectly edible? I always make sure to try the food first & see how it tastes before throwing it away. Some things can be kept much longer than advertised while others (milk especially) tends to go off fairly fast after the use by date. Do you think use by dates are too rigid?

I throw food out at least a few days BEFORE the expiration date for perishable foods like milk and meat. Canned items get tossed 4 months before the date. They could have guessed wrong when they came up with the date and Im not willing to get food poisoning or taste stale food if they were wrong. Had I not bought it, it wouldve expired anyway and got thrown out. Also who wants to eat fruit with black marks or scratches on it? Sure as hell not me

[shise]

Most of it, if not almost all, comes from companies throwing it with the lame excuse of "they wouldn't buy it because it looks bad". Lame excuse, because they could still bring those "bad looking" oranges, for one, and put them in special sale price in order to allow those less fortunate to buy them. And if they do not want or are not allowed to do it, then give it to the poor people.

But that's how capitalism works. System = Money>money>money>money>money>money>freedom>money>money...

(not telling that we should take it off and go other way... but it could change for good. Fuck, yes, fuck the big multinationals and actually make them gain less money in order to allow more people to have money in order to allow more people to buy more stuff in order to live in a better system. The rich would still be rich)

[Orlong]

I work for a grocery as a produce department manager, and I am disgusted how much good food I throw away daily. All because it doesn't cosmetically look good. Natural imperfections are normal in all fruit and veggies, but some people think that it is automatically bad because it doesn't look like it belongs in a catalog.

If I am paying full price for it, then I want the best one you got. I refuse to buy lettuce or onions with brown spots on it because it means its old or not fresh. You want to sell blemished food, then discount it heavily and someone might buy it, but I sure as hell wont.

[Jayburner]

My sister would be happy to throw me away.. I can't bare to throw away stale crust on toast.