FOOD for THOUGHT

[commoner]

...Hi all...

[SilverFox441]

It leads to false logic...most of that waste would not help those lacking food.

Much of the waste would be fresh foods or other foods that have a short shelf life.

Much of the remainder is not transortable because the facilities are lacking...we simply lack any way af getting food to many of those who would need it.

It does make nice print copy for the rags...but that's about all it does.

[Paz]

 Yeah, I don't think anyone wants the leftover mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese.

[Scorpiоn]

 Yeah, I don't think anyone wants the leftover mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese.

Or you could just cook less to begin with.

[eno]

The figure for the US is more like 50%.

What it doesn't tell you in any of these reports is wether this is just in the home, or wether it includes the food that supermarkets throw once its reached it's sell by date.

I know, for a fact, that some supermarkets send the just out of sell by  food to charities for the homeless  as a donation. Most of this food is perfectly useable for weeks after the dates as long as it's kept properly.

I very rarely throw food out unless its months over the sell by.

[Scorpiоn]

You don't need reports to see there's a gross amount of wastage occuring.  Just walk into your local restaurant and look at the finished meals.  More often than not, they not finished.  Ever hear of a doggy bag?

Wasting food just never made sense to me.  My parents taught me good conservation sense, and if we wasted less, there'd be more to ship other places.  I find it hard to believe when I see a burger with two bites in it, and a half emptied fry carton, that something hasn't gone askew. :-/

[Hagar]

You don't need a report to know how wasteful our modern society has become. I haven't read this report but suspect most of what they're talking about is unused food, not what's left over after preparing it. This doesn't only apply to food. We have become the throw-way society where nobody bothers repairing anything if it goes wrong. Even with only a small fault it's often cheaper to throw it away & purchase a new one. Of course, this is what the manufacturers want us to do.

On the subject of food, very few people know how to cook properly these days. They either don't have the time or can't be bothered. Not so long ago when people were less well-off nothing much was wasted. Take the case of a British dish named bubble & squeak. This was orignally made from any vegetables & bits & pieces left over from preparing a previous meal. These were mixed in together to fry up & serve with the following day's meal. It could consist of anything & was usually very tasty. You can now buy pre-packaged bubble & squeak in any supermarket.

PS. I'm not pretending I'm any better than anyone else, simply pointing it out.

[beaky]

I think wasting food is just, well, wasteful, and while it's true that world hunger is not directly attributable to typical food-wasting, small-scale local solutions can make use of this food for the down-and-out. There are programs in NYC whereby restaurants and bakeries hand over stuff that won't be suitable for serving the next day, and this has been a boon to city shelters. It's nice to be concerned for hungry people in some far-off land, but there are probably hungry kids right in your hometown.
 I've developed pretty good habits in the food-wasting department, due to budgetary constraints and having had parents and grandparents who'd lived through world war and severe economic depression... ate a lot of leftovers, growing up.

[TacitBlue]

A lot of food processing plants make donations. The one I work for sends out dozens of cases of products to shelters and organization every week. It dosnt solve world hunger, but it does make a small difference here.

[Woodlouse2002]

Left overs in our house get put in a bucket and fed to the pig. Except scraps of meat that go to the cats. Anything that can't be eaten by either of those get put on the compost heap. Nothing wasted.