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

[Dravinian]

The only food I waste is the food I didn't know I didn't like.

This however is not down to my green credentials so much as it is down to not having any money.

 

[toggle]

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

that's next year's plan. build chicken house.

 

[MikeMcc]

I often use food that's a litle out of date (1-3 days). I have chucked out loaves that have gone mouldy, it's always less than a couple of days from them being replaced anyway. Yohgurts are another thing but only if they've gone wildly out of date or if I've had them in my bag and not got round to eating them.

 

[jigotai]

Because of the mahooosive amount of food waste from the industry, I think that what Fairshare do is an idea verging on pure brilliance.

1) Take surplus (NOT out of date) food from tescos etc.
2) Charge them for taking away what would otherwise cost them in landfill charges.
3)Use it to feed hungry people.
4)Tescos gets brownie (or greenie) points, and fairshare gives people a chance to learn warehousing and food handling skills.

Fairshare SW are about to redistribute their 100th ton, and they've been going for about a year.

J

 

[nino_savatte]

I only throw food away if it has gone off. I try not to buy more than I actually need and I avoid BOGOF offers because I believe that they encourage waste.

I bought a bag of spinach and it said "use within 24 hours of opening" but it was still edible a couple of days later.

 

[tarannau]

Rarely throw much away, with the exception of the odd bit of superannuated veg, especially a last in the bag sprouting potato or two. If I'm working fewer hours I do tend to be more organised, using every last leftover veg scrap in thai curries, stir fries or soups. It's when we resort to unplanned takeaways and last minute meals that things in the fridge get overlooked till it's too late.

 

[becky p]

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.

That post seems a good use of resources.
2 for 1 offers etc just make the problem worse as people are encouraged to buy more than they want or need. But Individuals throwing good food away is only a small part of the problem.
So much perfectly good food is thrown away every day by shops and restaurants.