Amanda Pokki, Parsa Eshragh Roughly, one third of the food produced is being wasted annually. Producers, sellers, and consumers waste tons and tons of food and not a lot is being done about it. Food holds a very high place in many cultures and a lot of celebrations, such as Christmas, have their own respective food in many countries.
Out of the food wasting countries worldwide, The United states and the United Kingdome are two of the biggest contributors to this cause. In America, 40% of the food produced gets thrown away. This waste not only contributes to plenty of economic and financial problems and difficulties; but also contributes to global problems such as world hunger. Alongside the mentioned problems, food waste has a huge impact on the environment. Food articles that get decomposed without air create methane and carbon dioxide; two of the major greenhouse gasses that contribute to the climate change. In the 2014 documentary, “Just eat it: A food waste story”, Dana Gunders describes the food waste situation with the following scenario: “Imagine going to the shop and buying 4 bags of groceries and dropping one bag on the floor, and not bothering to pick it up and let it go to waste.” Habits and misconceptions play a significant role in food waste. Many people purchase products that they don’t need, and just momentarily feel like they want. Others have habits of buying extra amount of food because they believe it’s better to have too much food than not enough. Another major problem also comes from the expenses of donating unwanted food. In many countries and places, producers and donators need to pay a certain fee for the packaging, evaluation and distribution of their unwanted food, so instead, they decide to simply throw it away. Just Eat it: a food waste story also names psychological impacts as one of the reasons why food go to waste. The documentary states that psychology plays a role in this problem. seeing an abundance of products in a store leads to getting the feel of buying a reliable product, as where items that are left alone tend to not sell much. Regarding this topic; John Oliver, the host of last week show, says that we naturally assume last option is a bad option, which can be true, but when it comes to food production, this should not affect our decision. According to a study conducted by Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), 91 percent of people have reported to throw out a food product, solely based on its pass of expiry date, and not by how it looks, smells or tastes. This, in many cases, might be the right option; but it should be kept in mind that those dates only represent the time which the manufacturer of the food believes the product to be in a state of selling, which does not necessarily mean it is not consumable and usable. One way of saving the foods which are close to their expiry time is to donate them to the ones in need or to sell them for a cheaper price, for the sake of not throwing it out. An idea which has been successfully acted upon in many countries, including Denmark and Finland. Finland is a fitting example of a country with dedication to prevent food waste. In a 2012 research done by Finnish researchers Silvennoinen K., Katajajuuri J.M., Hartikainen H., Heikkilä L. and Reinikainen A. on food waste in Finland, it was found that “When comparing purchased food amount with food waste, the average waste was about 4-5%. The main discarded foodstuffs were vegetables, home-cooked food and milk products.” This value seats much below the world average and even Europe average; making Finland a successful country in management of food waste. Sources: John Oliver video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8xwLWb0lLY Just Eat It: http://www.foodwastemovie.com/ Food waste volume and composition in Finnish households, Silvennoinen K., Katajajuuri J.M., Hartikainen H., Heikkilä L. and Reinikainen A. Picture : https://www.calacademy.org/educators/lesson-plans/food-waste-audit |
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May 2019
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