Why do you
think so much food gets thrown in the trash (especially in America)? What can government organizations do to
improve the situation? Are actions by
the European Parliament and the UK a step in the right direction? What can we do about the problem as
individuals? Is your household good at
not wasting food?
There is one huge difference between continents in the case of food production and distribution. On one hand Americans produce way above their needs, and as a result great amounts of food is simply thrown away. On the other hand, Africa has to face shortage of food supplies on daily basis. Europe and Asia are definitely not ideal, but they are still more or less balanced.
ReplyDeleteWe could deduce several things from the statistics shown in the article. Firstly, the producers (U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) might not have reacted correctly, and they haven’t adjusted the quantity of certain goods to the consumers’ needs, which have changed dramatically in the last few years. It is the case of fruits and vegetables. More than half of all the goods produced is lost, which according to the article means, that it is either thrown away in the households or by the farmers themselves. It is not a coincidence that fruits and vegetables lead the pack. Not only did the production go up in the last few decades, but people merely consume as much fruits as they used to in the past. However, just by looking at the chart, I assume it is the case of fresh food in general. Of course it is more prone to go bad, but people in North America still have tendencies to eat more junk food and ready-to-cook meals.
Nowadays, customers tend to pick out the best looking pieces in the supermarket. In my opinion, this attitude is simply wrong. As the growers in the article mention, it forces them to cull perfectly edible crops, only because of some cosmetic defects. The media created this image - the more attractive, the more delicious. Yet I have never in my life eaten better tomatoes than the ones from my uncle’s garden. And those were certainly not the best looking ones. All in all, the main reasons for so much wasted food in America are overproduction, inability of supply adjustments, and inaccurate display of food.
The change of tactics from the “buy one get one free” to the “get half off” is really a good one. Especially in America, customers unreasonably buy tons of useless stuff just to throw it away a week after. They often end up spending more money than they would normally do. It is way more efficient to buy less, and rather visit the shops every other day. Not only could they save some money, but they could also eliminate the waste. Secondly, the governments should actively contribute in the redistribution of food supply. The production in the first world should be slightly reduced, and allocated in other parts of the world.
I hate seeing food being thrown away. I hate to do it myself.
ReplyDeleteIn our family, the fridge isn’t usually full. I learned from my mother to be creative and make a dish from things at hand. We are used to consuming older supplies and we often have to improvise. My mum isn’t a very enthusiastic cook; she likes to cook for more days ahead. The problem arises when what she cooks doesn’t taste half of the family. Nonetheless, no-one is pleased to eat leftovers three days in a row. Thankfully, we have a dog which is a quite eager eater of food from our table (in contrast to the dog food). Nevertheless, we lack a rabbit or a guinea pig that would consume uneaten fruit and vegetables. But to most of the sweet food nobody wants, I come on the scene and finish it. After all, we have a kind of hierarchy of eaters based on the rule “first come, first served”. This teaches people to value more what they get.
On the other hand, I have a boyfriend who comes from a family where they have their fridge packed with food all the time. Now when I see him throwing some unconsumed food away, I have to grind my teeth. He often doesn’t have enough time to prepare food at home and I know this is the problem of majority. But maybe it will help if we moderate our tastes in the stores and buy only what we would eat in a reasonable time. I know this is difficult with all the aggressive advertisements popping at as while our digestive liquids work their hardest. So here we come to the underlying problem. What can we do to avoid getting caught in the seller’s trap to make us buy excess quantities of food? Unless governments restrict those ads, you probably have only one possibility: to drill your own awareness and stay conscious and reasonable about shopping.
I would also like to tackle the problem with the consumer’s taste. This essentially determines what the stores are trying to offer and thus what they demand from the producers. Profligacy like providing consumers with bread after eight o’clock in the evening or selling only straight cucumbers because they fit in the case better are just few striking examples. We already had discussion on this, if I remember well. I think it is nonsense to be so squeamish. People in big cities are really spoiled. And the supermarket enterprise has gone mad. In fact, I do prefer farmer’s market to most supermarket water-pumped tasteless fruits and vegetables. Although it is mainly about our laziness and willingness to pay for comfort instead of quality and it ultimately reflects the mentality of majority, which is essentially the stumbling block, I think that this is an issue that could be effectively resolved by the government.
Well this is unsettling. I always knew food is being wasted and thrown away a lot more nowadays than it used to be in the past, but these numbers shocked me when I saw them. Forty percent? I find that unbelievable. Nevertheless, I will continue, even though I still slightly hope that this article is some sort of hoax.
ReplyDeleteExpanding our view from the narrow vision of the US’ ridiculous forty percent, let’s take a look at the world as a whole. Not all countries after all have such a phenomenally embarrassing statistic. I myself try hard not to waste food and I hardly know anybody that really “wastes” food. Of course sometimes I too have to throw something out, but these situations are usually the result of accidentally leaving something out of the fridge for too long. And even when this happens, I never throw anything out without feelings of regret. I am very aware of the situation we have on this planet. Of the contrast between the developed countries and for example the countries in Africa where children starve.
On the other hand there is a big difference between throwing something out because you accidentally leave it in the sun for a day and not finishing your meal in the school canteen. It happened to me not so long ago that I decided to take an unfinished meal to the canteen window where “unfinished food” is swiftly relabeled to “trash”, when my classmate asked me the popular question: “You are seriously going to throw that out? Children in Africa are starving and you are throwing out food?” For a split second I felt uncomfortable, but then I realized something. My response was as follows: “I’m sure the children in Africa would be absolutely thrilled to know I am stuffing myself with food because I know they’re starving”. Some people might find it hard to believe, but in a situation like that, there is absolutely nothing you can do to help the children in Africa in any way.
It is hard to deal with food being wasted in a world like the one in which we live. What the European Parliament is doing is of course right, but you cannot completely eliminate food waste in a world so highly populated as ours. Production of food for so many people and its distribution to the population by the means of shops will never be successful with no waste at all. You cannot know how much food has to be delivered into each shop in the world to fully supply for the demand and leave nothing sitting in the shop at the end of the day.
Influencing the people at the psychological level is I think a very good way to go. Only by changing the way we think can we resolve a problem like this. If the government doesn’t do anything about it, if the people that lead us don’t do anything about it, nothing about it will change.
When it comes to how the individual could help, it is all beautiful talk, but pointless. It feels like billions of times that I wrote about “how an individual can help change something” and I guess everybody feels the same way. Everywhere you can find perfect descriptions on how an individual can help solve anything. Furthermore, everyone has access to all of it and yet somehow nobody seems to be doing anything. So why even bother writing it in the first place?
I think my household is doing fairly well when it comes to avoiding wasting food. I might not be able to make everybody avoid wasting food, but at least I know for sure that I didn’t happen to throw out a bread roll today that might have been eaten by a starving child somewhere in the world had I not bought it in the first place.
Šimon R., let me tell you why bother writing about things like individual contribution to global change. Because the globe bears over 7 billion of people. All individuals and every single one can make a change in their behaviour. And what are the aims of the many big ecologic, anti-war, global awareness movements? In the first place to educate people. In the second, to attack their conscience and induce the sense responsibility. And I fully agree with the notion that each of us holds their individual responsibility for gobal issues.
DeleteThe gorvenment can try to attack the economic thinking of people, which is certainly the most effective means of persuasion, but I hold Latchezar's point that it cannot work full-sprectrally. The problem is that there are people who just don't care. I hate their face expression when telling that phrase. And as long as such unscrupulous hyens live among us I understand your loss of determination. But I believe there are ways to make a whole-society change and those are mainly ideological movements and organizations that spread awareness and negotiate policies with governments and last but not least there are individuals with a strong belief and perseverance who influence the society from inside. Please, just hold your skepticism back.
I would indentify the main issue as such that food is not given enough of a value. People discarding items that have passed their expiration date are not throwing them away because they do not find them appropriate for consumption, but rather because they simply can afford to. Apparently, in developed countries the price alone cannot act as a deterrent to tossing food away and, in my opinion, the “get half off” policy that some “LFHW” retailers are running fails to address this issue and barely contributes anything to the matter by further devaluating food items. It is a fine line between balancing the price so that people would be more reluctant to dump products, while at the same time keeping them at an affordable level for poorer households. Nevertheless, I am hardly convinced lowering the prices should be the way to go about it.
ReplyDeleteThe other problem I would like to discuss is the expiration date dilemma depicted in the article. Essentially, the expiration date label is necessary on one hand, but promotes the discarding of products that have passed it, despite them being good for consumption, on the other hand. A total abolishment of the expiration date would be unwise as it can lead to numerous abuses with respect to the consumer. It the expiration date was tweaked so that it would reflect the time at around the product is, in fact, no longer good for consumption, the consumer might feel cheated out if the retailer only has “old” goods at his disposal. I believe having both a peak quality date and an expiration date would be the fairest of solutions, although, the effect of that might be only marginally more beneficial, as the majority of people will most likely discard products with past peak quality date regardless.
Finally, to combat the issue of throwing products away because of their looks, a rather intriguing policy has been developed, at least judging from my observations. The supermarket near where I live has begun selling fruit and vegetables predominantly pre-packaged. That way the customer cannot, essentially, opt not to buy products of sub-par aesthetical value, for there always will be a couple in the package he/she has chosen. Though this might seem quite unfair to the customer, in reality it does not address the “throw-away” problem. Often time customers would simply discard worse products anyway, the only difference is that they pay for it. However, as discussed earlier, the price does not qualify as an efficient deterrent.
I disagree with Lachezar saying “People discarding items that have passed their expiration date are not throwing them away because they do not find them appropriate for consumption, but rather because they simply can afford to”. I believe people throw out food products, which passed the expiration date because they think they cannot be consumed anymore and not because they just can afford to. I personally think the problem is that people buy too much food. Nowadays, there are supermarkets with thousands of food products. It is hard for a human to know what he will like to eat tomorrow, so he takes several options. Before there were supermarkets, people didn’t have the choice and they had to eat what was there. However, this problem cannot be fixed since people like to eat what they want, and for the next decades there will be for sure a wide variety of food products in the supermarkets.
DeleteMoreover, I also disagree with Lachezar saying that the fairest of solutions for the expiration date dilemma would be having both a peak quality date and an expiration date on the product. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t change anything. As Lachezar said the majority of people would even though throw out products, which passed the peak quality date. Living in a very ecological part of Germany for a year I learned that the expiration date on the food product doesn’t mean anything. It is just saying that by when according to the producer, the product should be consumed and by when it is at best quality. In Germany I learned which products I still good and which I should better throw out. The problem is that regular people have never learned what I learned in Germany and that is in my opinion, the main problem with the whole expiration date dilemma.
This comment on commment is a response mainly directed at Kika's comment.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to what most of the other people commenting on this article mentioned, I abhor throwing away food. Even seeing other people leaving food on their plate after they have finished eating devours me from the inside. When I feel so full that I cannot finish all of the food I have ordered in a restaurant, I always desperately try to make someone which is there with me eat it (usually my brother or father).
For me this approach does not stem from the fact that in less developed countries there are people who are starving, but from how my parents raised me: to never take more than you need or can take. Like in most cases, I think this is not a problem which the government should be dealing with: parents are the ones which raise and have the most influence upon the attitude and actions of the future generation.
Like at Kika’s boyfriend’s house, our refrigerator also always used to be full. As a large family, we did not want to go to the supermarket everyday so instead we went on larger shopping sprees to large stores such as Costco in the U.S. or Metro here in Slovakia. However, as each of my siblings has left home for university or work, with only my parents and me at home now, we are slowly shifting into the regime that Kika’s own family has. We now only go to Metro to buy items such as beverages, toilet paper or chocolate, which can last a long time. Bread and vegetables are bought weekly. I cannot say I like this lifestyle more because it does get annoying when you have to go to the supermarket almost every day, but I do agree that we rarely waste food this way.