Combatting Food Waste

From Environment & Resources 2020

The documentary “Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story” is about the mass waste of food that is thrown away globally due to a number of reasons that has been shaped by our society. To put this into perspective, about 40% of all food that is grown isn’t consumed, about 1/3 of all food produced is wasted, and about 15-25% of all household food is placed into the trash. Further, wealthier countries have 150 – 200% of food they actually need to survive. The film follows food lovers and filmmakers, Jen and Grant, on their journey of eating only wasted food for six months, which includes expired or discarded food, and interviews with farmers, experts, and activists.

One major problem is about the aesthetic appeal of produce and whole foods. When shopping, people are looking for the prettiest, most visually “perfect” produce. If fruits and vegetables aren’t up to par with produce standards, then they are simply tossed before even entering the market due to scars, bruises, discoloration, difference in size, etc. A sizeable percentage of fruits and veggies never make it to the grocery store because of their physical appearance and people’s obsessiveness with perfection.

Another problem apparent in our society with food is that we always have an abundance of it cheaply available. Abundance is a common theme among restaurants, hotels, stores, in the home, and pretty much any place that offers food service because it’s considered shameful and embarrassing if one runs out of food, especially for businesses. Grocery stores tend to use the excuse of being sued or a potential health or safety issue for throwing away perfectly good food. The fact is many employees are just doing their job when they throw away this food because it’s the standards they’re required to follow.

The documentary offers some alternatives to throwing food out into the landfills, like feeding livestock leftovers or composting to create energy for growing crops. Businesses such as RC Farms feeds a massive 8% of Vegas food waste to 1,200 pigs. Other alternatives are organizations such as Quest which are donation-based stores that offer discounted prices for food that was previously thrown away by other grocery stores.

The amount of food wasted globally each day is shocking and consumers should be ashamed. The issue is that not many people worry about it because it’s common practice to throw away perfectly good food due to petty reasons. Food isn’t as valuable as it once was when people struggled to find enough food to feed their families and throwing away food was viewed as wrong and wasteful. Since food is so widely available for the middle class and up, they can afford to be picky or wasteful. Our culture is obsessed with the look of food in attempts to make it more appetizing and desirable.

What I found surprising is that Jen and Grant were able to find and score so many foods that weren’t even close to their expiration date because they were thrown out for reasons such as the labelling wasn’t in the right language. It’s amazing that they only spent roughly $200 on $20,000 worth of food! About the meaning of date labelling, even I wasn’t aware of exactly what it means but now I’m thankful to know that it means when the store should sell it by for the item to have a shelf life for the consumer.

A personal relation to the film for me is my boyfriend delivers bread to stores, and at his depot they have a discounted bakery shop where they sell bread that’s no good for grocery stores because it’s too close to the expiration date, so they sell it there for a lesser price. I think options like this are helpful and allow less food to be wasted.

Another concern the film didn’t focus on that I’d like to mention is all the packaging that’s thrown away along with these foods. Like wasting the resources that’s put into growing and producing these foods, the resources that we extract from the earth to package and ship these foods is another big issue that needs to be tackled. The scene with the small swimming pool-sized dumpster filled with hummus packaged in plastic containers made me feel upset knowing that all that plastic is being thrown out as well and will go to a landfill, polluting the earth further. Not only is food and natural resources wasted, but the lives of the animals involved to make things like dairy or meat are impacted. If we’re wasting these types of products then I feel like we’re wasting the life they were forced to give to feed us, and I find it wrong. It’s facts like these that happen everywhere around the world constantly that devastates food insecure or starving individuals and the planet. With the ever-growing population with millions of already starving individuals including young children, we can’t afford to waste as much food as we currently do, or hardly any at all. Wasting food is a serious global concern and as the human race, we should come together and shift our attitudes and culture. Awareness and time is what it takes to make a positive change. Little impactful actions such as shorter, smaller trips to the grocery store or buying imperfect produce foods are little steps we can take to collectively make a difference.

Citation:

1. Baldwin, Grant, Rustemeyer, Jenny. 2014. Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story. Canada: Canada Media Fund.