Saturday, November 03, 2007

Wasting Food

A discussion board I frequent recently had this article up for discussion.

The lost art of leftovers

"We waste too much food and should return to the way we lived during the
war, says a new campaign. It would save us money and help save the
planet."

......

"A third of all the food we buy is now thrown into the bin and half of it is
still perfectly edible, according to the government's waste reduction agency,
Wrap. You're throwing away one bag of shopping in three, it says."

......

"This wanton wastage is not only costing us money - up to £400 a year - but is
hurting the environment: the methane released by decomposing food in landfills
is the most potent of greenhouse gases. Cutting it out would be the same as
taking one fifth of cars off the road, says Wrap."

......

MOST DUMPED FOODS

Bags of
salad
Fruit
Bread
Pasta
Cheese

I can't say that the Gaia household is blameless here. We do let more consumable food turn to non-consumables largely through laziness. We do compost it, though, so it's not fully wasted.

2 comments:

Tanya Brown said...

I have a bad confession, actually, which is that I'll put certain foods which can't be composted out for the wild critters.

I'm arguably fostering vermin, et cetera, but I'd rather see a dried up crust of cheese in the belly of a rat or whoever else comes by than in the landfill. At least the rat will process the leftovers, poop them out, and the feces will fertilize the soil. (Sorry for being gross.)

However, yes; we could do a bit better at not wasting.

Gaia said...

I'm not much better. I'll admit that stir-fries (which contain some meat) often find their way to my compost pile. I figure the small amount of meat isn't that big of a deal and maybe I can convince the critters to stay away from my grapefruit tree by giving them an offering of meat.

That and the cats from the 2 crazy cat lady houses in the neighborhood are good at keeping the rat and mouse population in check.