Why do we have people going hungry?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

People are not going hungry or are starving because we cannot produce enough food, though that is what governments and the media are trying to make us believe.

Instead, the real reason why people are starving is because capitalism says that it is better to throw away suboptimal vegetables, which means those that not conforming to the approved norm, instead of selling them (cheaper).

Cucumbers that are too small or too big, or have a bigger than permitted bend, apples that do not fit into the size and whatever criteria, and the same goes for potatoes, carrots and other fruit and vegetables that are not grown straight, and so on; they all are not allowed to be sold.

It is because of this kind of manic capitalist system there is hunger at home and abroad. It has nothing to do with an inability to produce enough food or the lack of suitable land and the amount of suitable land for growing produce. When we are told that we are being lied to. Already at present the amount of perfectly good edible food, though misformed, according to the standards, that is being thrown before it ever makes it to the shelves of the stores, or even the wholesalers, could feed the entire global population several times over.

Years back in Britain we had the so-called Agricultural Intervention Board which stepped in each and every time there was a glut, whether it was apples, potatoes, or whatever else, and ordered a proportion of the produce to be destroyed by being dumped in holes in the ground and having bleach poured over everything.

Today it is the wholesalers and supermarkets who make the decisions after having hammered into the heads of the consumers that vegetables should look a certain way and since then claim that they cannot sell the what we would lovingly call “ugly” fruit and vegetables, as no one would buy it as they are not esthetically right.

In addition to that, in Europe, there seem to be European Union regulations which specify ho much bend a cucumber, for instance, is allowed to have and any that fall outside that rule are to be destroyed. The same seems to go for the size and shape of apples, bell pepper, and so much more; potatoes even.

Anyone, however, who has ever grown fruit and vegetables in a garden, allotment, smallholding or farm will know that such engineering criteria almost cannot be applied to stuff that grown in the ground or on a tree and in the stages between. While we may be quite happy to eat the non-conform fruit and vegetables from our own garden – and those of us who would do that, I am sure, would also buy and eat such produce if it would come onto the market, especially when a little cheaper – such produce may not, legally, apparently, be sold on market stalls or in stores.

In times of glut have you ever notices that – generally – the prices do not fall in the store, at least not significantly. The reason for that is that only a certain amount of the produce is allowed to make it to the market so as to keep the prices artificially high. That is what was, in the older day, the task of the Agricultural Intervention Board in Britain and it would appear that the practice if still alive and well, only operated by different agencies; nowadays by the capitalist entities themselves.

It is not a lack of produce, of food, that is the cause of hunger in the world, especially not in the countries of the so-called West, but the capitalist system. And there is enough food being produced capable of also eliminating hunger in the Third World, especially if we would not force countries such as Kenya, and others, to grow food for the market in the West; food that the people there often would not, themselves, eat, as it is not part of their diet, such as green beans. Obviously the roses grown in Kenya for the market in Europe and elsewhere are not edible in the first place and take up valuable agricultural land and water.

© 2017

Viewpoint: The rejected vegetables that aren’t even wonky

Tonnes of perfectly good food are thrown away in the UK every year. Why, asks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

I've witnessed some pretty grim scenes in the food business down the years - appalling conditions in the poultry industry, crazy EU fishing laws, all kinds of greed and folly.

Root vegetables may be a touch harder to feel for than chickens or fish. But watching 20 tonnes of freshly dug parsnips consigned to the rubbish heap in a Norfolk farmyard - purely because they didn't look pretty enough - is still one of the most shocking things I've ever seen.

That's not just a few sackfuls of parsnips, it's not a skip-load. It's a colossal mountain of them - enough to fill nearly 300 shopping trolleys. And, more importantly perhaps, to feed 100,000 people with a generous portion of roast parsnips.

That was just one week's wastage. So multiply by the 40 or so weeks of parsnip season (September-May) to get the full annual figure - four million parsnip portions that could, but won't, get eaten.

Read more here.

World leaders given 'trash' to eat at United Nations to highlight food wastage

World leaders accustomed to fine dining had a surprise on their plates on Sunday at the United Nations — trash.

Chefs cooked up a lunch made entirely of food that would have ended up in garbage bins, hoping to highlight the extraordinary waste in modern diets and its role in worsening climate change.

On the menu for the lunch at the UN headquarters was a vegetable burger made of pulp left over from juicing, which typically wastes most of the produce.

The burger came with fries created from starchy corn that would typically go to animal feed — which along with biofuels is the end product of the overwhelming majority of the 36 million hectares of corn grown in the United States.

"It's the prototypical American meal but turned on its head. Instead of the beef, we're going to eat the corn that feeds the beef," said Dan Barber, a prominent New York chef who co-owns the Blue Hill restaurant.

"The challenge is to create something truly delicious out of what we would otherwise throw away."

Mr Barber crafted the menu with Sam Kass, the former White House chef who drove the anti-obesity "Let's Move" campaign of first lady Michelle Obama.

Read more here.

Waste Less, Save More – UK town search

At Sainsbury’s we want to know our customers better than anyone else and our values remain at the heart of our business.

Over the last year we have carried out research with over 5,000 of our customers to find out about the values that matter most to them when they do their shopping. Perhaps unsurprisingly we found that it’s the issues that are closest to home that take priority, and top of the list for our customers is to waste less food. This is primarily driven by the impact that throwing away food has on household budgets, with the average family in the UK spending around £700 a year on food that could be eaten but is thrown away.

We’re proud of the work we’ve already done to reduce waste, both ourselves and for our customers, but we know we need to be more ambitious, that’s why we’re launching our Waste Less, Save More initiative today.

Read more here.

How buying in bulk actually wastes food

If you’re like me, you writhe in guilt-ridden anguish each time you forget to bring your canvas tote to the grocery store. But in the rare times we do remember our reusable bags, Americans tend not to think much about what we actually put inside them, according to a new survey. The takeaway: We waste a lot of extra food (and money) simply because we don’t shop often enough.

As big of a problem as it is, food waste rarely makes the news. There was some buzz a while back about France’s ban on grocery stores throwing out edible food, but the numbers show that this is only a small part of the problem. Americans vastly underestimate their own food waste, which turns out to be driven mostly by a desire to avoid getting sick — even though saving money is also a top priority. That means we end up stocking our shelves with more than we need to ensure we’ll always have something fresh when we want it.

That sort of behavior is encouraged at bulk stores like Costco and Walmart, which operate on the myth that buying in bulk helps you save money. But new evidence shows that the push for huge quantities of cheap, high-quality food has caused us to be more wasteful than ever. Simply put: We’re throwing away more in food waste than we are saving by buying in bulk.

“People almost entirely neglect the cost of the food they’re throwing away from their kitchen,” says Victoria Ligon of the University of Arizona, who led the new study. “If you throw away a meal because you’ve eaten out when you weren’t planning to, the cost of that restaurant meal is higher than you think. People don’t account for that at all.”

Read more here.

Who you callin' ugly? Join the campaign to end food waste now!

A petition calls on Whole Foods and Wal-Mart to start selling ugly produce instead of throwing it away -- an act that can benefit everyone.

It’s time to stand up for the uglies! Supermarkets have long discriminated against any fruits and vegetables that do not meet the absurdly high cosmetic standards for sale, with an estimated 26 percent of all produce in the United States tossed before it’s even given a chance on the shelves.

This makes no sense because ‘ugly’ produce is just as nutritious as attractive produce, and can even have more taste. In a world where there is so much concern about food shortages, greenhouse gas emissions from teeming landfills, water conservation, and dietary health, it’s only logical to embrace the uglies and welcome them into our food system.

Jordan Figueredo of the End Food Waste campaign has launched a petition to get Wal-Mart and Whole Foods to change their outdated policies on ugly produce and save billions of pounds of perfectly good fruits and vegetables from unnecessary rejection. He wants them to launch fun publicity campaigns, similar to France’s very successful Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables, the United States’ Imperfect Produce, and Canada's Naturally Imperfect line.

Read more here.

Sanitation Worker Challenges Whole Foods and Walmart to Stop Trashing Produce

Bay Area resident Jordan Figueiredo is asking the companies to put imperfect fruits and veggies on store shelves

A bunch of gnarled carrots or an apple that’s not perfectly round and rosy are just as nutritious as produce that isn’t misshapen, but that doesn’t stop the nation’s grocery stores from consigning so-called ugly fruits and veggies to the trash. And perhaps no one sees the magnitude of wasted food more than someone who deals with garbage for a living.

That’s why Jordan Figueiredo, a 36-year-old solid waste specialist for the Castro Valley Sanitary District in California, is challenging Walmart and Whole Foods to start carrying imperfect produce in their stores. He’s teamed up with Stefanie Sacks, a New York–based culinary nutritionist and author of the book What the Fork Are You Eating?, on a Change.org petition that calls for both retailers to start selling ugly fruits and vegetables.

“I work with the community to reduce waste, and upon learning more about the massive impacts of food waste I was compelled to do much more than just encourage people to compost—what most local programs focus on,” says Figueiredo.

Because the American public has been trained to turn up its collective nose at produce with lumps, bumps, and other imperfections, the petition is asking Walmart and Whole Foods to launch a campaign promoting “uglies,” similar to what French supermarket chain Intermarché did in 2014.

Read more here.

Landfill Of Lettuce: Why Were These Greens Tossed Before Their Time?

Here's a scenario lots of us can relate to: tossing a bag of lettuce because it sat too long in the back of the fridge.

It doesn't take a long time for greens to turn to slime.

Bag by bag, this waste adds up. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the typical American family throws out about $1,600 worth of food each year. And what we consumers toss out is just the last step in a long chain of waste.

Food is lost on farms, during processing and trucking. Supermarkets toss out unsold food.

We were curious about this downstream waste — the part of the food supply chain that's largely hidden from consumers.

And we wondered how the fast-growing, packaged produce and salads category — which is expected to approach $7 billion in sales by 2018 — might contribute to waste.

In the Salinas Valley of California — known as America's salad bowl — we visited the municipal dump. The fertile strip of land surrounding the town of Salinas produces an estimated 70 percent of U.S. salad greens.

Read more here.

Tesco teams up with FareShare charity to reduce food waste

Scheme to hand over unsold food several times a week will be tested in 10 UK stores

Tesco is starting a scheme which could hand tens of thousands of tonnes of surplus food from its stores to local charities as supermarkets come under rising pressure to reduce waste.

The UK’s biggest supermarket admits that it wasted 55,400 tonnes of food from its stores last year, about 30,000 tonnes of which was edible. Some food left over at its warehouses is already distributed to charities, but Tesco currently sends the vast majority of food waste from shops for use as animal feed or to be loaded into anaerobic digestion energy plants.

A new partnership with food redistribution charity FareShare will link Tesco store managers with local charities to hand over unwanted food several times a week. The scheme has already been tested at over 100 stores in Ireland and will go into an initial 10 stores in the UK including outlets in Glasgow, Belfast, Merseyside and London.

“This is potentially the biggest single step we’ve taken to cut food waste, and we hope it marks the start of eliminating the need to throw away edible food in our stores,” said Dave Lewis, chief executive of Tesco. He said he hoped similar schemes could eventually be implemented in some of the other 12 countries where the supermarket operates, as well as across the UK.

Read more here.

FRP and Best Before Project open food waste pop up shop in Leytonstone

Forest Recycling Project is delighted to announce the opening of a food waste pop-up shop at the old Leytonstone Police Station.

In partnership with the Best Before Project, the initiative involves distributing food that is past its best before date for free. Customers are allowed to take as much food as they want and are invited to donate as much or as little as they want towards the project.

Almost 50% of the total amount of food thrown away in the UK comes from our homes. We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten.

Manager Voytek Stando, 48, said: “People just don’t think, they just throw food away because of a date on the label without even checking if its okay, when there are some places even in this country where people are starving.

“We want to start a new fashion about not wasting food that’s edible; we want to influence people’s opinions.”

Read more here.

'Reduce waste, buy packaged' crusade looks to bust food waste myths

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

A campaign to educate consumers about the role that packaging can play in reducing food waste launched apparently in later summer 2013 to counter negative public perception on the issue.

INCPEN, the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment, has launched 'The Good, The Bad and The Spudly' initiative in response to growing awareness of wasteful food habits, both in the home and throughout the supply chain.

Jane Bickerstaffe, the director of INCPEN argued that used wisely, packaging kept food fresher for longer and that over the past 20 years, material innovations had come of age.

"Packaging has got cleverer and cleverer at doing more with less," she asserted. "There's always room for improvement, there is some not very good packaging out there but we think it's in the minority. I believe that all parts of the [packaging] supply chain are trying [to be better]."

She also pointed to the fact that in terms of overall resource inputs, packaging accounted for a fraction of the overall food supply chain.

"More than 10 times more resources are invested in making the food than in the few grams of packaging that's used to protect it," she said.

"The packaging is a sensible investment in resources and if manufacturers can use it well, it will keep their costs down as well as their environmental impacts - it's a win-win situation."

Bickerstaffe said one key challenge was to communicate these benefits to the consumer in a way that was meaningful enough to influence their purchasing habits.

"It's very difficult, people aren't interested in packaging," she acknowledged. "What they want is their food in good condition so that's the message we need to promote - if you want fresh peas, then buy the packaged option, especially frozen."

She added: "People have been fed a diet of 'packaging is bad' - they will avoid packaging and buy unpackaged and wonder why it's gone off."

Questioned about the rising complexity of material use in packaging and the challenges this creates for reprocessing, Bickerstaffe admitted that far more collaboration was needed across the entire supply chain.

"To understand the environmental impact of packaging you have to have to engage with not only the raw material suppliers, the packaging manufacturers, the brands and the retailers - but reprocessors, councils and the waste management sector too."

However she maintained that compared to more recyclable materials, complex packaging such as foil laminate packs was just as environmentally beneficial as they used far less material at the design stage.

I must say that I have never heard as much rubbish but then they do represent the packaging industry, so it is not really a wonder. Though I do agree with the buying of frozen peas and other frozen vegetables as there is no waste aside from the packaging, in the form of a plastic “bag”. Anyone who wants to be frugal could, and I personally do so, reuse such bags as sandwich bags and as those bags are relatively strong they can be washed out and dried and then reused a number of times.

Foils laminate packaging, more often than not, cannot be or is not being recycled simply because it is too difficult or too labor intensive to separate the components and thus the packaging ends up in the landfill.

It is true that, as far as frozen vegetables, for instance are concerned, and they are packaged, for sure, it is less wasteful to use those, and that for more than one reason. First of you use only what you really need and the rest goes back into the freezer and second you do not have any peelings and trimmings, and you also, thus, save financially, as you only pay for the weight that you are actually going to use.

However, as for other packaged foods, I cannot help but disagree with the “findings” of the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment and see them as biased towards the industry that it represents. Period. Potatoes packaged in plastic do not, repeat, not keep fresh longer because in most cases they are washed and that treatment causes them to sprout and go off faster, and especially is encased airtight in plastic. But then, as said, they would make such claims as it is a body of the industry that gains from more packaging being used.

© 2015

Food waste

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Much is being talked about this pressing issue by governments – God help us! – and industry – oh God! – but very little is actually being done to prevent food waste.

People are being urged to waste less food – common sense really but then common sense is not all that common and somewhat of a misnomer – but much of the waste happens before it ever reaches the consumer.

Instead of prosecuting dumpster divers and food rescuers they should be given medals rather on account of what they are doing. And yes, I am rather serious here and it should not only apply to dumpster divers “diving” for tossed out food.

But back to waste food and what to do about it, at home and elsewhere.

When it comes to food waste at home and how to avoid it there are a number of steps to take.

The first thing we can do after buying less and not falling for the BOGOF (buy one get one free) and such offers is to understand the dates printed on the packaging especially, such as “sell by”, “use by”, “best before”, and “display until”.

“Sell by” and “display until” are dates that are for in-store use only and thus, as consumers, they are not really of concern to us whatsoever. Many people, however, seem to see those dates as the appropriate ones when the product should be thrown away.

Now we come to the dates that do concern us as consumers and to their meaning.

Best before: This date does indeed mean what it says, namely that a product is considered best before the given date. It does not, however, mean that it cannot be consumed still a couple of days, weeks or even months – depending on the product – after that date given.

Use by: This is a date that, especially with foods that could cause health risks when too old and “gone off”, such as fish and meat and a number of dairy products, the consumer – you and I – should take note of.

Then comes the proper storage of goods and most produce and especially eggs do not belong in the refrigerator. As far as eggs are concerned they are to be stored in an egg carton (cardboard please and not plastic) with the bottoms up. That way they keep longer.

And how long does a fresh egg keep? As a keeper of hens I can say that they do at least 3-4 weeks, in fact a great deal longer. But please consider that if you buy your eggs from a store they are not “farm fresh”, whatever the label may say, and have been in those boxes for already several weeks when you get to buy them, and that even in high turnover supermarkets.

Tomatoes are also best not kept in the fridge as they lose their flavor in that environment and they also do not keep any the better there either.

Most vegetables should not be stored in the refrigerator but in a slightly cool but dark place away from heat sources and that is the very reason we used to have pantries in our homes before.

Bread belongs into the bread bin where it will keep well for some time. But this applies to proper oven-baked bread only. The garbage that is sold as bread in most supermarkets, the stuff that is sliced and in bags, never has seen an oven but was steam baked and does not keep. It is not intended to do.

Leftovers: One of the largest source of food waste in the home is leftovers and the fact that many people today seem to be incapable of cooking from scratch and especially seem to have no idea as to what to do with leftovers from the previous day's meal.

It is amazing, to some degree, and sad, to watch people go out and buy pre-prepared “Bubble & Squeak” because they like it while, at the same time, throwing out vegetables from the previous day's dinner into the trashcan.

Many people today have absolutely no idea what to do with leftovers and that is where the greatest food waste, aside from not understanding the dates on packaged foods, in the home. All too many people also buy ready meals leftovers from which, alas, cannot, often, be safely reused as reheating those leftovers could cause gastric problems and even food poisoning.

One of those foods, even if it is cooked at home from scratch, is rice. If rice is not reheated properly it can cause serious stomach upsets which can, in some cases, be fatal. However, reheated properly, leftover rice is perfectly safe to use. One thing to remember is that once reheating leftovers is fine, repeated reheating may not be and thus this is something to remember if you have leftover take-out food. Then again, why would you want to bother with that kind of food anyway if you can, and you can, make it all much cheaper from scratch at home.

© 2014

Food expiration dates are garbage. Here’s a new label that’ll make you think before you toss.

Food expiration dates are for wussies. No seriously, they’re really not that important. Dates on labels like “best by,” “best-before,” or “enjoy by” are actually just guidelines from food manufacturers advising retailers when they think their food will be the tastiest. More often than not, most food is edible for days or weeks after the suggested date on a label.

That means most of us are probably throwing away hard-earned groceries. We toss about 40 percent of all the food we buy, or more than 20 pounds per person each month. Cue Bump Mark, a new food label meant to safeguard against unnecessary tossing.

The label is made of four different layers from top to bottom: plastic film, a layer of gelatin, a plastic bump sheet, and another piece of plastic film. As the food inside the package starts to decay, so does the gelatin in the label. By the time both the food inside and the gelatin have expired, all that’s left on the label is the layer of bumps. As long as the label is still smooth to the touch, the food is still OK to eat. The Washington Post reports:

Read more: http://grist.org/list/food-expiration-dates-are-garbage-heres-a-new-label-thatll-make-you-think-before-you-toss/

Cafe serving food recycled from bins opens in Bristol

A new cafe serving meals made from food rescued from the bin has opened in Bristol. Customers at Skipchen are not charged a set price for items on the menu but asked to "pay-as-you-feel" instead.

A cafe that opened in Bristol on Monday, serving food rescued from the bin, has already served meals that included lobster and gorgonzola.

The man behind it, Sam Joseph, originally from Somerset, has himself lived on food taken from skips for the past three years.

Read more: http://www.itv.com/news/west/update/2014-10-09/the-bristol-cafe-that-serves-only-recycled-food/

'Ugly' fruit and vegetables prove a hit in France

French supermarkets to expand initiative that sells "ugly" fruit and vegetables at a 30 per cent discount

"Ugly" fruit and vegetables – such as bumpy oranges, two-legged carrots or misshapen aubergines – have proved such a hit in Francethat supermarket chains – which would previously dump them – are putting the produce on sale in thousands of outlets across the country.

The initiative lets consumers buy the products at a 30 per cent discount compared to their "beautiful" equivalents and allows farmers to sell vegetables that were previously rejected, says Intermarché, one of the supermarkets involved.

It tested selling the oddly-shaped food in one outlet in the town of Provins earlier this year and the trial was such a success that it plans to launch the initiative across its 1,800 stores from next month to encourage customers to try “fruit and vegetables that are ‘ugly’ (twisted, deformed, the wrong size) but just as tasty”.

A government-sponsored day of action against food waste in general is scheduled to run at the same time as the Intermarché initiative. French officials say that seven million tonnes of food are thrown out every year and the government is aiming to reduce this by half within the next decade.

Other French supermarket chains like Auchan and Monoprix are following Intermarché’s lead in the push to sell the 30 per cent of fruit and vegetables that had previously been deemed an eyesore.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11131994/Ugly-fruit-and-vegetables-prove-a-hit-in-France.html

Would You Eat Trash for a Good Cause?

The food waste–awareness event Feeding the 5,000 is coming to the U.S.

What’s it going to take to wake Americans up to the staggering problem of food waste? An enormous communal meal made from what otherwise might be pitched as garbage could be a start.

For the first time since its launch in London five years ago, the social media–savvy event Feeding the 5,000 is coming to U.S. shores, specifically Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Oct. 18. Conceived by the British NGO Feedback, the gathering serves up a public feast made entirely out of food destined for the Dumpster—the sort of perfectly edible, nourishing stuff that routinely gets tossed, thanks to a notoriously wasteful food-supply chain.

Read more: http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/09/23/food-waste-dinner-5000

Seattle to fine residents, businesses for wasting too much food

Seattle wants its residents to compost food scraps so much the city will begin fining homes, apartment buildings and businesses that throw away too much food mixed with their garbage, according to new rules passed by the city council.

Starting in January, trash collectors “can take a cursory look each time they dump trash into a garbage truck,” the Seattle Times reported. From the start of the year until the end of June, residents whose trash consists of at least 10 percent food waste or certain paper products will receive a warning from Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), the Associated Press said.

On July 1, the fines will begin.

Single-family homes will face a $1 fine on their next garbage bill if they don’t comply with the new rules. Trash collectors will enter the violation into a computer system their trucks already carry, and will leave a ticket explaining the details of the fine on the garbage bin.

Apartment buildings and businesses must also comply with the 10-percent-or-less threshold, but commercial properties will receive two warnings before they are hit with a $50 fine on their next bill. Inspectors will check dumpsters on a random basis, the Times reported.

Read more: http://rt.com/usa/190428-seattle-composting-food-trash-fines/

11 Nutritious Reasons to Eat Food Scraps

It’s not trash—it’s dinner!

Food waste is a hot topic nowadays. It was the focus of the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Environment Day 2013, and the USDA and EPA recently announced a joint partnership aiming to reduce waste at every level of our food supply chain.

As well it should be! Americans are guilty of tossing 40 percent of the food produced every day in this country. That staggering amount of food could feed every hungry person in this country. And while some of the waste can be pegged to farmers, grocery stores, and restaurants that produce, sell, and serve more food than we can consume, most of the waste happens in homes. People buy more than they can eat—and they toss out perfectly edible parts of food that they simply don’t know what to do with.

The former can be handled by better meal planning, for sure, but the latter requires a little know-how. You might not know that you can eat broccoli stems or beet greens, but that “trash” is just as nutritious, and sometimes more so, than the main part of the vegetable. So save money and nutrients by keeping these 11 food scraps out of the trash.

Read more: http://www.organicgardening.com/cook/11-nutritious-reasons-to-eat-food-scraps

If You Want to Stop Wasting Water and Energy, Stop Wasting Food

We throw away 40 percent of our food, but new technology is helping cities and companies reduce that refuse before it hits the landfill.

We Americans worry constantly about how our appetites affect our waistlines, but we spend almost no time wondering how our food consumption affects our waste streams. In the United States, 40 percent of the food grown each year is discarded uneaten. That’s a significantly higher amount of waste than the global average, which runs around one bite of food thrown away for every two bites eaten.

As a result, food waste is the single largest source of refuse heading for American landfills. Once buried in a landfill, discarded food decomposes anaerobically and creates methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

And of course, growing all that food just to throw it out wastes water. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.S. wastes 50 cubic kilometers of irrigation water each year growing food that’s never eaten. That’s about one-fifth the total output of the Ohio River where it flows into the Mississippi. And growing that uneaten food also means wasted fossil fuel and pesticides: About 300 million barrels of oil globally go into growing, transporting, and preparing discarded food each year.

Read more: http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/09/09/how-stop-food-waste

The Disturbingly Inexact Science Of Food Expiration Dates

It's an all too common ritual: A product in the kitchen passes its "best before" date, so you toss it. Trouble is, it was probably perfectly safe to eat — and you just wasted good food. This is a problem that's only getting worse. Here's what you need to know about "expired" foods — and how to make sure you're eating safely.

Because most of us no longer live on farms, we're utterly dependent on others to provide our food for us. We're now divorced from the manufacturing process, so manufacturers have to tell us when their products are fresh and when they're no longer good to eat.

This has led to a spate of labeling systems, and not all of them mean the same thing. Nor are they necessarily directed at the consumer. What's more, they're not centrally regulated or coordinated in any coherent way. For example, products can have "Best Before" dates, "Sell By" dates, and "Use By" dates — and it's not always clear who these dates are being directed to, or what information is being conveyed.

'Not an Indication of Safety'

Making matters even more confusing is the surprising revelation that expiration dates are not an indication of how safe the food is to eat. They're not related to the risk of food poisoning or the presence of foodborne illnesses. That, dear consumer, is something you need to watch out for.

Rather, expiration labels are an indication of a product's freshness. It's a labeling standard used by food manufacturers to convey to stores and consumers when their products are no longer at peak freshness. Foods that are on the wrong side of their expiry dates are not necessarily inedible — it simply means that beyond this date, the manufacturer cannot guarantee the standard of their brand's quality, including attributes like taste, color, texture, and so on. Simply put, those "sell by" dates are there to protect the reputation of the manufacturer.

Read more: http://io9.com/the-surprisingly-inexact-science-of-food-expiration-dat-1629542744