Mum didn’t know about global warming. To her, not wasting food was just common sense and nothing to do with climate change.
When I was growing up food just wasn’t wasted in our house. If I wouldn’t eat a meal, it would be served up at the next mealtime. She’d had a hard time growing up during the Second World War when food was rationed and variety limited. Bananas and oranges were unimaginably rare. Mum appreciated the value of food and made sure we did. I’ve always hated wasting food.
In the developed world, we take food, and a massive variety of it, for granted. But we shouldn’t. Tristram Stuart in his new book,Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal
The Food Producers
For starters, Britain throws away million tonnes of food every year. Stuart examines the problem from the ‘foodface’ as it were. As a freegan, he’s used to dining well from the food that supermarkets throw out. You might think that the food that Stuart salvages would be dirty and inedible. But take a look at the photos in his book and you’ll see that it’s quite the opposite.
Supermarkets in the UK chuck out 1.6 million tonnes of food a year. Much of it is wasted because of overstocking. Supermarkets don’t see gaps in shelves as good business so often order more than they need.
Marks and Spencer requires its sandwich suppliers to get rid of the crusts and the first slices at each end of each loaf that they use. These four slices from each loaf amounts to one factory throwing out 13 000 slices of perfectly-good bread annually.
A farmer supplying spinach to a supermarket had to waste a whole crop because blades of grass were found between the growing spinach. And then there’s the farmer supplying carrots to Asda, the British supermarket chain owned by WalMart. Between 20% to 30% get wasted because they’re not perfectly straight.
Cosmetic rejection of fruit and vegetables like this isn’t helped by the European Union’s bizarre legislation on the cosmetic quality of fruit and vegetables sold throughout the EU. The legislation has been amended and it now allows the sale of imperfectly-shaped fruit and vegetables in some categories However, there are still 26 categories, including apples, strawberries, pears and kiwi fruit where this ludicrous legislation still applies.
For an example of the law’s sheer madness, in 2008, a British wholesaler had to throw away 5000 kiwi fruit away. Why? Because they were each 4g below the EU minimum of 62g. Crazy!
The Consumers
On to the main course. Consumers are a major part of the problem as well. The average British household bins £8 of food each week. That translates into an annual wastage of 5.4 million tonnes annually, amounting to 25% of all the food British consumers buy to eat at home.
Amongst the edible food British consumers chuck out each year are:
484 million unopened yoghurts;
1.6 billion untouched apples;
bananas worth £370 million;
2.6 billion slices of bread.
And we’re not educating our children about the importance of food waste: 24%-35% of school lunches end up in the bin.
This matters to the global food supply. Demand from the developed countries increases global prices for food. Average global food prices rose by 23% in 2007 and by a staggering 54% in 2008.
It’s estimated that rising food prices pushed 44 million to 100 million additional people into chronic hunger and caused child mortality rates to increase by as much as 5% to 25%.
And all we’ve got to do is eat the food we buy.
The Effect On Global Warming And Climate Change
And lastly, the dessert – the effect of food waste on global warming and climate change. The supermarkets are trying to deal with their food waste in ways other than sending it to landfill. Anaerobic digestion is the latest method. But the method is still expensive and it’s better not to produce the waste in the first place. Energy has been used and greenhouse gases emitted during the production of the food going into the anaerobic digestion plants.
Stuart introduces us the examples of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. “Islands of Hope”, as he calls them. As countries with limited available land, increasing the amount of waste going to landfill was not an option. Their governments have made it compulsory for food businesses to reduce waste by 66%. Stuart would like to see the same policy in the UK. But the British Government prefers to lecture consumers and seek voluntary agreements with food businesses.
There are profound effects for global warming from our food waste. 8.3 million hectares of land are needed to produce just the meat and diary products wasted in the UK and by consumers, retailers and manufacturers in the US. To put that in perspective, that’s seven times the amount of land deforested in Brazil during 2008. The greater the demand for food, the greater the financial incentive to clear the global warming-important rainforests.
This is a well-written, well-researched and thoughtful book. Stuart’s action plan to create what he calls ‘Utrophia’ – a place of good eating – is eminently sensible. It’s a book that deserves serious consideration. It’ll make you think differently on your next trip to the supermarket.
