Friday, January 11, 2013

Leftovers



 

I don’t know about you, but the amount of food that is wasted is beyond belief, and it has come to light that between 30% and 50% of purchased food is never consumed! Considering the shortage of food in many parts of the world, such wastage is criminal. Wasting food on this scale causes damage to the environment and the loss of diminishing resources. The more food we purchase the more expensive it becomes for those who live in developing countries.
I feel ashamed that I am British, because on average every year each one of us wastes 112 kilograms of food. If only we could be less choosy about the quality of the food we eat and purchase less of it, research shows that we could save ourselves as much as £50 a month. Now £600 pounds a year credited to our bank account is worth more than just thinking about it.
Action is required to limit the amount of food we eat, but supermarkets are partly to be blamed for us purchasing more food than we need. They offer for sale only fruit and vegetables that meet a test of near perfection. Beans must be straight, apples must be uniformly large and slight imperfections of shape or quality are not acceptable. Offers of two for one tempt us to buy more food than we can consume. Sealed packing often prevents us from selecting smaller quantities. Production of ready-to- cook meals entails enormous losses through selective trimming for achieving aesthetically pleasing presentation and standard unity. Much food is lost between the time of harvesting and the time of arrival at markets and processing plants.
Christmas is a particularly bad time for food waste on account of people buying more than they require. Using leftovers for the main meal on Boxing Day does not make up for all the mince pies, Christmas puddings, nuts, chocolates, dates, cream and fudge that remain uneaten. Then we wonder why there is an obesity epidemic in our Country.
Links
How to cut food waste
Scots households throw away 600,000 tonnes in food waste every year
Love Food, Hate Waste
Food Waste in the United Kingdom
Supermarket Landfills

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