Food Waste: The Reasons
Image Source: Reddit
Besides just being more aware of what you buy as a consumer, there are three main reasons so much food and money are wasted between the farm and the table. One is the strict aesthetic grading of food products. Irrespective of the quality of the food, how produce looks–its shape, for example–can have a huge effect on how much farmers are paid for it, or if a store will even buy it at all. We have created an extremely selective market that encourages farmers to discard visually imperfect food because it costs them more than it’s worth to sell it.
The second issue arises from expiration dates. Understandably, grocery stores will not sell expired products and consumers will not buy or eat them. It has recently been revealed, however, that those “sell by” and expiration dates are arbitrary. There is no official guideline that determines when a product is no longer edible. In fact, the dates are chosen by the manufacturer and reflect their best guess as to when the product will no longer be at its highest quality. Billions of pounds of good food are tossed as a result of these labels.
The third and final issue is that all of this unsold food is thrown out in stores to make room for fresher products, instead of, say, being donated. This, as is the case with expiration dates, is the result of another common misconception. Food producers and sellers often fear that they will be sued if someone gets sick from food they’ve donated. However, there is actually no such liability. As long as the donation was made in good faith, the individual or business who made the donation is protected by law.
Yet none of this seems to have compelled us to think about how food waste will affect our future…
