Almost half of the world's food thrown away, report finds Figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers show as much as 2bn tonnes of food never makes it on to a plate 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. In the face of United Nations predictions that there could be about an extra 3 billion people to feed by the end of the century and growing pressure on the resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the IMechE is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste. Their report, Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not, found that between 30% and 50% or 1.2-2bn tonnes of food produced around the world never makes it on to a plate. In the UK as much as 30% of vegetable crops are not harvested due to their failure to meet retailers' exacting standards on physical appearance, it says, while up to half of the food that is bought in Europe and the US is thrown away by consumers. And about 550bn cubic metres of water is wasted globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer. Carnivorous diets add extra pressure as it takes 20-50 times the amount of water to produce 1 kilogramme of meat than 1kg of vegetables; the demand for water in food production could reach 10–13 trillion cubic metres a year by 2050. This is 2.5 to 3.5 times greater than the total human use of fresh water today and could lead to more dangerous water shortages around the world, the IMechE says, claiming that there is the potential to provide 60-100% more food by eliminating losses and waste while at the same time freeing up land, energy and water resources. Tim Fox, head of energy and environment at the IMechE, said: "The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This is food that could be used to feed the world's growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food." In order to prevent further waste, governments, development agencies and organisation like the UN "must work together to help change people's mindsets on waste and discourage wasteful practices by farmers, food producers, supermarkets and consumers," the IMechE said.
yup. Sucks to say, but I wouldn't call it crazy demand when dairy products/bread/fruit is thrown away cause of sell by dates. This article is not shocking at all and it is easy to see it both ways.
The difference is though, that food would go bad or wouldn't exist either way. You can't look at it as waste. Once food is grown, harvested or packaged it is what it is. The food is here, you can't get it elsewhere... and our homeless people don't eat our scraps, they're too good for it. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0eipl17WpOo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Your two cows producing a gallon of milk a day each when you only need a quart will still produce milk whether you need it or not. Now processed foods are different, but people in developing countries need to stay away from that crap anyway. I'm all over the place... I'm tired, meh.
What are they talkking about: banana peels, apple cores, chicken bones, food that looks 'bad' (rotten, etc?)?
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People shouldn't be eating dairy anyways, it's the worst thing you can put in your body: www.notmilk.com Long story short, it's not meant for human consumption, you don't see a lion killing a zebra and drinking it's milk and you don't see a dog drinking human breast milk or whatever other combo you can come up with other than humans with cow's or goat's milk. And this would save some cows from unnecessary torture and slaughter. As for the amount of food thrown away, I can testify after working in a grocery store that this is very much true, they just throw everything away by the sell by date and it's so unfortunate. Here's the way I see us curbing this trend. -Stop being so damn wasteful when you go out. They call it a doggie bag for a reason, at least bring food back to them (or the neighbor's dog) and maybe it won't go to waste. That steak you didn't like at Logan's Roadhouse still can go to good use that way. -Stores have to do a better job of marking off their food that goes to food banks. It has been an issue in the past where people would get something from a store in a food bank then return the food for a "refund." I don't know what has to be done, maybe a nondetachable censor can be put on, but there has to be a way to avoid throwing all that food away. We could feed all of the homeless and abjectly poor every single night with all the food thrown away in grocery stores. -More people should go vegan or vegetarian. Recognizing what was said in the article (and I personally did a few years ago), more people should go vegan, vegetarian or at least make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of meat they eat because of how much water and energy it takes. -Military escort for food in Third World. Sometimes food and donations are stolen by rogue charities so that when people try to feed the needy as they see on these commercials for charities like Child Fund, it actually gets to the people it's intended to go to and not the criminals who try to take the food, profits or oppress people. -Restaurants have to come up with a better solution for wasted food. There's no place where food is wasted more than at restaurants, especially in the West. I know they can't exactly just give the stuff out but there has to be a better solution. Maybe as part of the food stamp program, food that's close to the sell by date can be given to or bought by people. These are just a few for now. I know on the flip side, if you make lots of food available to the poor, then some will stop working for it and will just wait for the handouts but the alternative to that is the starvation of half the world. That's why there has to be a change in the way we handle food.
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Think about it this way: what are you gonna grab in a store, a brown/blackish banana or a yellow or green one? I usually grab the the former because I eat bananas quick and recognize that they'll be thrown away anyways (plus they actually taste better to me as long as they're not too brown) but most people are gonna grab the latter. And, like I said in the super long post above, most stores throw everything away anyways by the usually strict sell by date.
They can't give it away due to fear of lawsuit and/or repercussions from authorities. Houston basically made it freaking illegal to give homeless people food. http://blog.chron.com/houstonpolitics/2012/04/homeless-feeding-ordinance-passes-council/
And this is a thread about throwing away food and you are saying that is a good thing. Obviously there is likely enough food to feed everyone but there are still starving people.
I hate population growth. It just means we have to share what limited resources we have, diminishing our quality of life in the process. I personally live to make it hard for others to reproduce.
