From the vault, April 28, 2016 (revised):
Some time ago, I read an article on the internet about families who went grocery-shopping, not at a supermarket but at the dumpster behind the supermarket. They picked out all of the packaged goods which had been discarded after the use by date stamped on them, plus any still-edible produce which had been tossed out due to minor blemishes on it. These families saved a considerable amount of money on these “shopping” forays and inadvertently pointed up a major problem in these United States. The current pandemic has exacerbated the problem by hampering the food-supply chain; farmers and ranchers are destroying their crops and animals because their contracts had been narrowly written.
Set aside your self-righteousness, dear reader, and consider that, in this “land of plenty,” upwards of 50 Million Americans, mostly children, are “food insecure,” isn’t that a nice, sanitary expression? There are food banks/pantries, of course, but these charitable organizations depend wholly on the generosity of citizens for donations. If the supply dries up, as so often it does, the hungry turn to desperate measures, including “dumpster-diving.”
Forty per cent of all food produced in the U.S. is wasted. Americans throw out nearly 25% of the food they buy, 20 pounds per person per month; The average family will dispose of $1,600 worth of food per year. And the taxpayers will have to pony up $175 Million each year to haul it to a landfill.
But, wait! there’s more, as they say in the infomercials. The environmental costs of food waste are 10% of the Nation’s energy output and 80% of its fresh water supply used to produce the food in the first place. Food dumped in a landfill breaks down aerobically to produce methane (3.8 tons for every ton of food), a green-house gas more deadly than CO2.
There are three reasons for food waste, and all of them can be avoided if one acts sensibly.
• Reason No. 1: Most Americans over-shop. They buy on impulse rather than on need. And, yes, The Chas has been guilty of this upon occasion. They see the abundance on the shelves and think in terms of might use instead of will use. Later on, might use turns into won’t use, and the unwanted food is tossed into the garbage when the use by date arrives. If families made a list of what they actually need, and stuck to it, little food would be wasted.
• Reason No. 2: Speaking of use by dates on packaged food, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates such things, has done humankind a huge disfavor by creating these wholly arbitrary dates. The fact of the matter is that packaged food does not magically become inedible on the date stamped upon it; if the seals are still intact. That food will be edible until the world ends. Additionally, the use by date is not intended for the shopper but for the merchant; it tells him/her how long the food has been on the shelf, prompting him/her to replace it with fresh food (“shelf-life” is a fetish in the grocery business, don’t you know?).
• Reason No. 3: the FDA has created another wholly arbitrary policy by prohibiting the distribution of supermarket throwaways and restaurant left-overs to third parties, such as food banks/pantries, schools, nursing homes, and retirement communities. This reason is the major source of food waste. But, with proper handling and speedy delivery, millions of Americans could have prepared, wholesome meals instead of a diet of junk food. FDA policy is absurd on the face of it.
Alternatives to supermarket shopping are farmer’s markets and/or community-sourced agriculture outlets, where the buyer deals directly with the producer, community gardens, and home-delivery services on a subscription basis. You can still choose what you want, but it costs you less.
Just a thought.
P.S.: The Chas thanks his fellow contributor to The Voice, Marisa Amoni, for inspiring him to donate to a community food pantry. He had been taking his donations to the Library during its “Food for Fines” drives, but that went belly up when the pandemic hit. A large mental hug, Marissa!