Food waste on 'staggering' scale - but how much do you throw away?

[twistedAM]

I throw loads out. Irregular hours. Having to leave the house when you don't expect and not being back for 12-14 hours does the trick.
Main culrpits are
- juice you have a glass off and then forget about
- milk (as above)
- cheese and soft cheese
- vegetables (good intentions but...)
- fruit - (it goes off in a day or two)
- stuff that's gone past sell-by that you don;t have time to cook

 

[girasol]

More than I'd like to. Lately I've been throwing stuff in the garden instead of putting it in the bin, leftover meat for foxes and cats, and the birds like apple cores...

 

[baldrick]

i do waste food, i'm sorry to say.

the greengrocers in my town closed about a month ago due to high rents and the only other place to buy veg is a supermarket, which packages everything.

i can't buy 4 baking potatoes, i have to buy a big bag of them, and when there's only 2 of you in the house it's impossible to eat that many before they sprout.

peppers come in a bag of 3 - i can't stand the green ones except in something strongly flavoured like a chilli, so half the time they will go straight in the compost.

etc etc ad nauseam. it makes me sad to throw out perfectly good food, but with the nearest greengrocers 5 miles away, it's not easy to avoid.

 

[Bakunin]

The biggest scandal when it comes to food waste is the volume that gets thrown out by supermarkets. Always kept behind high fences and spiky gates, endless tonnes of perfectly edible food sit in dumpsters waiting for the trip to landfill. Considering the fact that much of this food may have travelled halfway around the world and taken up huge amounts water and energy resources to be produced in the first place. And still the retail moguls print money while more and more families struggle to make ends meet, it's a fucking disgrace

This is the conundrum of capitalism in a nutshell.

We were all told that one of the many reasons the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union failed was inefficiency, that failure to provide the basic essentials in a timely manner was at least an important factor in the collapse of Stalinism.

But the capitalist system of food distribution positively thrives on waste. In fact, I don't think it can survive without it. Vast tonnages of perfectly good food are thrown out by customers, shops, producers and suppliers. We've all heard the stories about the wine lakes and grain and butter mountains produced in the EU as well, when, rather than redistributing much of the excess, it's simply discarded or destroyed in order to keep prices high and so on. ANd that's before we consider the waste involved in producing food and then shipping it around the world when much of it could be produced here at home.

The more we waste, the more is needed. The greater the demand, the higher the prices charged to meet it.

Far from being an efficient means of production and distribution, global capitalism is not only vastly inefficient and incredibly wasteful, but also dependant on massive waste for its very survival.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

More than I'd like to. Lately I've been throwing stuff in the garden instead of putting it in the bin, leftover meat for foxes and cats, and the birds like apple cores...

Ignoring for a moment the problems of encouraging the urban fox and stray cat population (I'm assuming you live in a town), throwing meat in the garden will also attract rats, as will trying to include waste cooked food in compost, so probably not a good idea.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[spanglechick]

we only seem to throw away veg.

the problem is that we do a big shop every fortnight, but veggies themselves last only days. I do 'top up' shopping on the way home every other day, but the shop i go to has very little veg...

 

[girasol]

Ignoring for a moment the problems of encouraging the urban fox and stray cat population (I'm assuming you live in a town), throwing meat in the garden will also attract rats, as will trying to include waste cooked food in compost, so probably not a good idea.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I only add veg/fruit to compost.

And I'm quite happy to feed cat/foxes and rats alike so I shall carry on throwing left over meat out in the garden. I suspect some carnivorous birds will probably benefit from it too.

e2a: and let's not forget the hedgehogs!

 

[sojourner]

i can't buy 4 baking potatoes, i have to buy a big bag of them, and when there's only 2 of you in the house it's impossible to eat that many before they sprout.

peppers come in a bag of 3 - i can't stand the green ones except in something strongly flavoured like a chilli, so half the time they will go straight in the compost.

I hate this type of packaging - it's one of the reasons I never go to Morrisons any more, cos I like to choose my peppers individually, and I don't always want 3 fucking peppers. Luckily, I work regularly in a village with a cracking greengrocer and butcher, so use them a lot of the time

 

[Stig]

I've been wasting more and more,from the time when my waste was in negative, as I'd eat mainly skip food, to buying food but always eating all of it so as not to waste, and ending up feeling uncomfortably full and gradually putting on too much weight, to now, where I'll happily bin the last third of my plateful rather than make myself ill. Although this will only be done with 'last day' food; today's freshly cooked food will be tupperwared for tomorrow. So will restaurant leftovers, work lunches etc. So all in all I'm not too bad.

 

[treelover]

I very rarely throw away any food i have cooked to eat largely because i eat so much pre-prepared stuff and portions are quite small!, but as i have problems wirh cognition, memory, etc, I have thrown out far too many items from my fridge freezer, because of not being aware of 'use by' dates, and i hate it!

 

[Sugarmouse]

I hate waste and try so hard to not waste anything. I have several small animals that are kind of waste disposal units for veggies that aren't used up. I dont buy if I think that there is any chance food might not get used and I always make sure I rotate and eat things that spoil easy, first.
This actually surprised me. I was expecting the figures to be higher.
I wonder what U.S figures are like.

 

[selamlar]

Far too much. And mostly for this reason:

2) Intentionally make too much/a batch of something so it will last several meals and then either A) forget to put it in the fridge so it goes fusty or B) put it in the fridge/freezer and then decide we don't fancy it so it gets left to go wonky and then gets thrown away.

Only two of us, and I ALWAYS cook too much. Even the best dish loses its appeal after you have been eating the same damn thing for 3 days straight.
Although it tends to go in the dogs, rather than in the bin.
Never end up throwing takeaway out. Everyone knows that cold pizza or yesterdays curry is the breakfast of kings.

 

[subversplat]

Too much, and it pisses me right off. One day we'll run out of bread and three people will notice in the morning then come back from work/school/getting pissed with a loaf each. Cue mouldy bread in a week

I'm going to make a concerted effor to feed all the ducks and swans in the Bucks/Oxon area from now on

 

[_angel_]

Far too much. And mostly for this reason:



Only two of us, and I ALWAYS cook too much. Even the best dish loses its appeal after you have been eating the same damn thing for 3 days straight.
Although it tends to go in the dogs, rather than in the bin.
Never end up throwing takeaway out. Everyone knows that cold pizza or yesterdays curry is the breakfast of kings.

I too, overcook and only have a limited freezer space. I end up chucking out stuff the kids may have left too (doesn't happen too much)

I'm probably worse than them for leaving food I've cooked because I don't have room (and leaving it in restaurants too) Usually my OH finishes.

However, he is really bad for throwing away perfectly good food just because the use by date may be slightly over, and the food is perfectly okay Sometimes he does it with stuff before the use by date too. x

For me, usually only the odd bit of rotting veg.. that does happen quite a bit.

 

[audiotech]

I lifted a perfectly good box of biscuits out of a bin yesterday. A sealed box I might add and had some with cheese on last night for supper. Yummy.

 

[trabuquera]

Yes, shamefully I am a food waster - and it's not down to just not caring, 'cos I'm aware of it and wracked with guilt about it. I know all about the days of rationing from my mum, and about hunger from firsthand, living in countries with serious food supply problems and for a time on not enough money in the UK. I don't believe in sell-by or best-before dates and will usually only reject old food if it's on the brink of crawling off the plate by itself!

Many of the factors above - being single (or more recently with live-in partner with HIGHLY whimsical tastes, who tends to get obsessed with some sort of food, bulk-buy it, then go off it and not eat it), working unpredictable hours, having unpredictable numbers of guests, and cooking too much, all play a part.

It's true that some products (esp bread and potatoes) aren't that easy to buy in small quantities. Less excusably it's also down to foodie-ism - I love to graze and often DO get bored of eating the same thing more than 2 or 3 meals straight, so shop for 'too wide' a range of food just not to get bored.

If more and more households are made up of single people I can only foresee even more food wasteage by individal shoppers like me - but I do wonder how big a problem it is (in terms of tonnage, not morals) as against the waste perpetrated by shops themselves. IMHO any chain 'sabotaging' food it throws away in bulk is a MORTAL SIN, it should ALL be donated as a matter of business ethics.

Catering trade also throws away loads but I'm not sure how that waste could be best reduced ... d'you think there'd be any chance of some sort of trend for restaurants saying "our pizzas / main courses could feed 2 people"? of course not...

 

[Y_I_Otter]

Perhaps if municipal fines were levied on retail outlets that dispose of food which might otherwise have been donated to food banks, soup kitchens and the like, they'd be less inclined to waste on the scale that they do. Something really punitive like 50% of the food's retail value would be appropriate, I think; or maybe it could be based on the monthly tonnage they ditch.

I'm told that supermarkets are afraid of litigation resulting from possible ill-effects from foodstuffs given away that are beyond the the expiration date, but I suspect that's just a cop-out.

 

[dylanredefined]

trying not to but the fridge is a grave yard of veggies

 

[Geri]

I very rarely throw food away. I think it helps that I don't have a car, so when I go shopping I'm only usually buying stuff for a couple of days ahead because I can't carry a lot. I do internet shopping as well but it tends to be tinned or frozen stuff mostly, that isn't likely to go off. I did have to throw away some herbs and spices the other day that were about 5 or 6 years out of date. I would have kept them if I thought I was likely to use them in the next year or so.

 

[Bakunin]

I very rarely throw food away. I think it helps that I don't have a car, so when I go shopping I'm only usually buying stuff for a couple of days ahead because I can't carry a lot. I do internet shopping as well but it tends to be tinned or frozen stuff mostly, that isn't likely to go off. I did have to throw away some herbs and spices the other day that were about 5 or 6 years out of date. I would have kept them if I thought I was likely to use them in the next year or so.

And, of course, there's very little waste left over after your feline owners have rooted through the kitchen and had anything that isn't nailed down.

 

[Geri]

And, of course, there's very little waste left over after your feline owners have rooted through the kitchen and had anything that isn't nailed down.

Fuck, yes! She did it again the other night when I left a pasta bake unattended for 10 seconds.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fuck, yes! She did it again the other night when I left a pasta bake unattended for 10 seconds.

Sorry, but that kind of reminded me of when I was young, and my mum was unpacking the shopping, she turned to open the fridge door, and in the few seconds her back was turned, the dog scoffed a whole half pound block of butter in one gulp, wrapper included.

Boy did he have the shits that night!

 

[stavros]

When I'm catering for myself, I never waste food. I live in a rural area but don't drive, so when I have to buy food I do it on a 1-2 day cycle, so my fridge is never jammed full. With a car, people don't tend to think about carrying quantities, and so will pile up on by-one-get-one-free offers. Of course, as the old adage goes, it's only a bargain if you were going to buy it anyway.

I can't see it happening any time soon, but I would like to see some sort of reverse economies of scale introduced, so as to discourage overconsumption.

 

[derf]

How about you? Do you throw away much?

Bugger all unless it's spoiled.

We are in a country where food is expensive for most so anything we won't/can't use gets given away to others.
We also help feed the old bloke next door when his family are away.

No one wastes food around here.
Shame on the people in the rich countries that do. Don't waste the cash but save it up and send it to me and I'll feed the whole village for 100+ quid a week.

 

[urbanrevolt]

It is shocking; individual action is not unimportant of replicated milllions of times so it is much better to try to eat more of what you buy, buy less, etc, compost what's left (of uncooked food, peelings etc tea bags)

but as spooky frank said the much bigger issue is supermarkets- the whoe, distribution and production of food- tonnes of food are thrown out due to capitalist waste, food is needlessly distributed and wasted, corporations are laying waste to the earth's resources let's lay waste to the coroporations.

we need to get organised to begin to plan food distribution, production and consumption in a way driven by need and desire, including th enedd and desire for a sustainable world, not the greed and waste of capitlaism. By all means start in our own backyard and households and then go on to our own workplaces but don't forget the role of corporations.

 

[d.a.s.h]

I once went out with a woman from Sardinia. She had been brought up in a village in the mountains, where life was not luxurious and nothing went to waste.

One evening I was cooking dinner for us and had some mince left over from the recipe. It wasn't much, maybe about three ounces, and I couldn't think of what to do with it so I went to put it in the bin.

She got really angry: "Why do you throw that away?" To her it wasn't just a foolish thing that I was about to do, but morally wrong as well. Sometimes in life you get pulled up over things, and you know you're in the wrong, no questions or excuses. That was one of those moments.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I've now got four chickens in my garden. Any leftovers not suitable for composting (to be turned back into vegetables later on) gets fed to the chickens to be turned into tasty free range eggs instead

 

[kabbes]

"It's just penicillin, it's good for you" as my Dad would always tell me.

Sadly he was eternally deaf to my attempts to remind him that I'm allergic to penicillin

I cut it off as well. I figure if people eat blue cheese, nowt wrong with a bit of mould

Aargh, no! There are very different types of mould, you know! The mould that grows on bread, IIRC, is HIGHLY carcinogenic. Avoid it like the plague.

Saying that, I don't disagree with the ol' "chop the offending piece off" approach. I do it myself, too. Bread is awkward, mind, because often the mould grows on the side of the loaf, making it difficult to find a non-mouldy piece.

We do our best to avoid foot wastage, but it tends to come in waves. Mostly it's because of not being able to buy the quantity we actually need and being forced to buy it in big packets instead.

 

[Meltingpot]

Sorry, but that kind of reminded me of when I was young, and my mum was unpacking the shopping, she turned to open the fridge door, and in the few seconds her back was turned, the dog scoffed a whole half pound block of butter in one gulp, wrapper included.

Boy did he have the shits that night!

Aaaargh, poor doggy (and you or your mum for having to clean it up).

I throw away potatoes when I've cooked too many and can't eat them all, also the hearts of lettuces (too bitter, I only like the leaves). Otherwise nothing if I can help it.

 

[Meltingpot]

Aargh, no! There are very different types of mould, you know! The mould that grows on bread, IIRC, is HIGHLY carcinogenic. Avoid it like the plague.

Bit late for me I'm afraid, I used to eat mouldy bread at uni (toasted) rather than throw it away. I seem to have got away with it but I'll think twice about doing it again, so thanks for the info.