£12.5 B of Food Binned in the UK

[shyvas]

This makes me cringe. People are on a budget, many people including children and
the elderly are not getting enough nutrients due to poor meals.

Why is this happening in such a rich civilised country ?

http://news.sky.com/story/1165023/food-waste-six-meals-a-week-thrown-away

 

[Amy SF]

It's probably just as bad or worse in the U.S.

 

[RabbitLuvr]

Why is this happening in such a rich civilised country ?

Because $$$

 

[shyvas]

Apparently it is due to single people throwing out ready made meals.

 

[Clueless Git]

Jeeeeez ..

Hardly a scrap gets thrown out in my house.

If the kiddies, particularly m'daughters, had had their way anything that has been open more than 5 mins would be straight in the bin though.

 

[shyvas]

Jeeeeez ..

Hardly a scrap gets thrown out in my house.

If the kiddies, particularly m'daughters, had had their way anything that has been open more than 5 mins would be straight in the bin though.

Amazing !

Many people go through bins over here in search of food. Many supermarkets and bakeries throw out tons of food. Our local baker takes at least 3 - 4 huge bags of unsold sandwiches, baguettes etc to the bin shed.

 

[Blobbenstein]

the main thing I throw away is bread crusts, or mouldy bread; not that much else.

 

[Blobbenstein]

well, the odd thing......like those gone off tomatoes and stuff.......

best before dates I just ignore mostly.

 

[Amy SF]

Well, I don't know about the UK, but here in the US there are people who want to divert binned/trashed food to people who could really use the food, or to organizations/agencies that would distribute the food to the hungry. Perhaps all that is needed in the UK is for someone to step up, take charge, and say, "All that food being binned is wasteful and I'd like to get it to people who could use it." There's an opening. Anyone in the UK want to take it?

ETA: I also want to add that I do think it's shocking that so much food in the UK gets binned, as I know how many people in the UK and elsewhere in Europe starved during and after WWII. How did you guys go from "I"ll eat dirt just to stay alive" to "I bought this yesterday, now it looks a little dodgy, so it's going in the bin"?

 

[Moll Flanders]

I always feel guilty when I throw anything away and try and give it to the birds in the park instead. Since having my dogs I throw much less food away as they tend to hoover up any leftovers.

I saw this book about how you can creatively use up leftovers and if you have leftover Yorkshire puddings have them with honey for breakfast. (Obviously most were not vegan ideas.)

 

[Clueless Git]

..Perhaps all that is needed in the UK is for someone to step up, take charge, and say, "All that food being binned is wasteful and I'd like to get it to people who could use it." There's an opening. Anyone in the UK want to take it?

Does that work with the £165 billion of food thrown out every year in America?

If the article I fished that from is correct the food wastage level in the USA is a mindboggling 40%, btw.

That's close to as much food being wasted as is actualy eaten.

 

[Clueless Git]

Slightly interesting and non-veg*an thing I heard about pigs and piggy-banks ..

All traditional farm animals were originaly selected because they yeilded either product and/or were good for labour over their lifetime.

Exception was the pig.

Mr piggies usefullness was that he would eat stuff that nothing else on the farm could/would.

Basicaly you 'saved' your scrap-food in Mr Piggie but he yeilded nothing untill you slaughtered him.

Hence the piggy bank: You put your scrap-money in but you can't get it back out till you 'slaughter' it with a hammer.

 

[Clueless Git]

On the piggy theme ...

I strongly suspect there is a reason nowadays why so much scrap food goes to landfill rather than to piggy farms.

That reason being this; The savings of feeding pigs on scraps are less than whatever costs are incurred if the pigs are not kept on strictly controlled 'optimal' diets.



Not sure that veg*ns should rejoice if piggy is used to convert waste back into 'edibles', mind.

Damn sure that the wastefullness of not using waste is another example of the moral reheprensiblitiy of a totaly moraly reheprensible industry, though.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Susie Dent said that piggy banks were named after a pot that people stored money in, that had a similar sounding name .....I can't recall the details, but sometimes she sort of makes things up....

 

[Blobbenstein]

I know that food from canteens stopped going to animal feed after the BSE thing.

 

[shyvas]

the main thing I throw away is bread crusts, or mouldy bread; not that much else.

How about the birds.... and the hairy widows ?

Well, I don't know about the UK, but here in the US there are people who want to divert binned/trashed food to people who could really use the food, or to organizations/agencies that would distribute the food to the hungry. Perhaps all that is needed in the UK is for someone to step up, take charge, and say, "All that food being binned is wasteful and I'd like to get it to people who could use it." There's an opening. Anyone in the UK want to take it?

ETA: I also want to add that I do think it's shocking that so much food in the UK gets binned, as I know how many people in the UK and elsewhere in Europe starved during and after WWII. How did you guys go from "I"ll eat dirt just to stay alive" to "I bought this yesterday, now it looks a little dodgy, so it's going in the bin"?

I would imagine that the older generation does not bin as much food as the younger one.

The media are also blaming supermarkets for selling ' buy 1 get 1 free' products.

 

[Pirate]

^ I would agree with that. my nan never threw food out, i swear her fridge couldve sprouted legs and walked from all the ancient stuff in it. learnt from a young age to eat before going over!

My mum (who is 58) is so bad at this though, it pisses me off. I think part of the problem is offers in supermarkets - ie "3 for 2 on bags of peaches" - who the f*ck can eat 3 bags of peaches before they go mouldy? maybe in a large family but not this one. but itll be on offer so my mum will buy it thinking its a bargain, and it wont be all eaten. she always puts mouldy fruit/veg/bread out for the birds and thinks that makes it ok. no, its still wasting food. buy some birdseed!

I tend to only buy produce I know I'm going to use quickly (or make the meals with said produce and freeze them), if not it has to be freezeable or long life (ie pasta).

 

[shyvas]

^ I would agree with that. my nan never threw food out, i swear her fridge couldve sprouted legs and walked from all the ancient stuff in it. learnt from a young age to eat before going over!

My mum (who is 58) is so bad at this though, it pisses me off. I think part of the problem is offers in supermarkets - ie "3 for 2 on bags of peaches" - who the f*ck can eat 3 bags of peaches before they go mouldy? maybe in a large family but not this one. but itll be on offer so my mum will buy it thinking its a bargain, and it wont be all eaten. she always puts mouldy fruit/veg/bread out for the birds and thinks that makes it ok. no, its still wasting food. buy some birdseed!

I tend to only buy produce I know I'm going to use quickly (or make the meals with said produce and freeze them), if not it has to be freezeable or long life (ie pasta).

Me.

 

[Amy SF]

If you're buying a large amount of food for a family (say, two parents and 2 or 3 kids), it makes sense. Those peaches WILL get eaten. But if you're buying them just for yourself or for 2 people, then unless you find a way to preserve the peaches, yes, they will go bad. I blame warehouse stores such as Costco for encouraging other markets to offer large amounts of food at a bargain. I once bought a 5 pound bag of peeled carrots at Costco, just for myself. Of course I barely got through half the bag before the rest of the carrots went bad, and I learned my lesson not to buy so much of one thing unless I knew it could be safely stored or preserved so it wouldn't go bad. I think everyone who buys large quantities of food should be aware of that. If you don't do something with it right away, it WILL go bad and have to be thrown out.

 

[Clueless Git]

I tend to only buy produce I know I'm going to use quickly (or make the meals with said produce and freeze them), if not it has to be freezeable or long life (ie pasta).

Nice

I took to splitting my shopping into bulk buys of long life products and almost daily mini-shops for short shelf life stuff like bread and fruit and vegetables.

Costs more, per lb, doing the mini-shops.

I rely on guess work that the extra cost is offset by much less wastage.