Award-winning author Tristram Stuart argues that food waste is a global scandal.
via AJ+

I stumbled upon this video and is never enough when we publish something about food waste. Here are some facts and numbers in a visual easy-to-read infographic way that show what is costing to the environment, here is a video with some story about food waste, a video showing “stellar examples of ugly fruit and veggies” from FB and yet another video as example of how food that has been trashed out can be perfectly edible and even help others who can’t afford to eat nice food from the supermarkets or in a nice restaurant without having to go to the junk cheap food place. Well, there is even a Food Waste Day with some tips you can do to avoid wastage. We have even posted about how to use up some leftovers.

But then I realised, that to begin with, we as bloggers trying to spread the message that food waste it is a big deal everywhere (from supermarkets to restaurants and even in our own home) and that we should value the things are grown to supply one of our very basic needs, but we also fall in the trap of choosing the perfectly esthetic tomato to appear on our recipe blog or the perfect look in our finished recipe to make it look yummier and that way the visitors want to make the recipe as well. What if show the real blemishes on out fruits and vegs that we use for our own recipes? Why do most people discard the brown banana because they think is “spoiled” when is perfectly fine and even sweeter! is the best flavour from a banana not only to make banana cake but to add it to our cereal as well!

Transcript (roughly) from the video follows:

“There’s a vast and global scandal behind the journey to plate.

Internationally over a 800 million people endure hunger, yet the world wastes at least a third of all the food it produces. Even in the wealthiest nations, millions suffer from food poverty. 1 in 4 Americans say they struggle to afford food. It’s deprivation in a sea of plenty.

Over 30% of America’s food, or a 160 billion dollars worth, gets wasted just by grocery stores and customers. That is more than enough to feed all the world’s malnourished people.

Growing food demands land, water, fossil fuels and soil and its production is the single biggest impact we humans have on nature.

The foundation of our food system is our farms. The tragedy is that some farmers can’t sell half of what they’ve grown due to cosmetic standards dictated by supermarkets.

It’s a brutal casting session where cricket Canyon beans and blemished British carrots are all discarded. We fail to see the beauty in these ugly veg. And supermarkets regularly cancel or change orders at the last minute. Meaning that food already produced by their suppliers gets dumped.

Supermarkets purposefully create an image of overflowing abundance. Our hardwired human response is to buy in excess. This is the marketing strategy that results in us buying more than we need and creating mountains of wasted food. Meanwhile, over cautious date labels confuse and frighten customers so they toss out what is still good to eat. Cafes, buffets and restaurants are all complicit in our excess, overproducing to maintain a full menu around the clock and they serve customers ever larger portion sizes that are paid for, but often left uneaten.

From 1982 to 2002, the average pizza slice grows 70% in calories and the average chocolate chip cookie quadrupled. We supersize our problems along with the food as these extra calories use up scarce land, water and fossil fuels.

Food donations from retailers and restaurants are proven ways of redistributing some of this nutritious surplus while it’s still fit for consumption. But many businesses still reason that it’s cheaper and easier to fill their dumpsters instead.

And if you include the food that humans could eat but instead use to fatten livestock for more dairy and meat, you find that a country like America has indirect access to four times as many calories as it needs.

Instead of tossing this food, supermarkets, manufacturers and caterers must be pushed to direct it to charities that feed hungry people. Government should intervene when powerful retailers cancel orders and dump their food waste on farmers refusing to pay the bill. And even if it’s not fit for human consumption it can at least be fed to livestock, especially pigs and chickens. Regulations preventing this need to be changed.

We should purchase what we need and eat what we purchase. And demand that the powerful companies controlling much of the food system measure and take responsibility for the waste they cause.

Governments should use the vast subsidies they offer to incentivize farmers to look after the land in ways that protect the planet, rather than churning out more food to fill up dumpsters and overfill our bellies. And we all need to recognize that food is too precious to waste.“

Click here to find out What does Zero-Waste mean?, or here for tips to Green your Food Supply Chain, here are some tips to Eat by Date (according to labeling food) and click here for some Dumpster Diver tips to go secure on the food you would collect, learning what are the Dos and Don’ts.

Please Share and tell us what you think, in which ways do we, as bloggers, we discard food from our photos (maybe not from our kitchen) to embellish them. What are the micro food waste we still have from growing in big cities eating and buying food from grocery stores and not from farmer’s markets?