British Food Waste
Posted by Storm on May 09, 2008 · Member since Sep 2006 · 4238 posts
I wonder just how much we waste here in the states?
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/britons-waste-food.php
About £6bn of the wasted annual food budget is food that is bought but never touched - including 13m unopened yoghurt pots, 5,500 chickens and 440,000 ready meals dumped in home rubbish bins each day. The rest is food prepared or cooked for meals but never eaten because people have misjudged how much was needed and don't eat the leftovers.
Hi Storm, yes us brits are apparently too busy/tired to cook from scratch these days, but now it looks like we're too busy/tired to tear off the plastic film on a ready-meal, push a few buttons (or turn a few dials) on a microwave and set it to go! 8-)
We've had various celeb chefs banging on about battery chickens and eggs, and supermarkets stating that they are necessary for people on a budget. Now it seems that those poor creatures lives were so in vain that people disregard them to the extent of buying and then throwing them out.
Eyes bigger than bellies, me thinks (and brains the size of peas obviously ;) )
Kiki, before work got complex I used to listen to Radio 4 a lot. Even the Archers were like, "Oh, no, you CAN'T reheat leftovers, you have to throw them away!" WHAT?? Nonsense. If your food is fresh when you cook it, and you put it in a clean, covered container in the fridge, where is the problem? Granted it won't keep forever but...I guess I've always been too poor to waste food.
Here in Spain dieters are often told to "throw away all leftovers." Yeah right. Maybe if you're living on a doctor's salary...
I don't get the tossing out leftovers thing: don't these people know the flavours develop and meld together, I know my pasta sauces/chinese/indian dishes all taste far better the next day and even the next? (that's not to say they taste rubbish the first day, mind you ...).
Maybe it's an example of aspirational living, you know, doing a big food shop, having your cupboards and fridge bursting with food, eating takeaways, chucking out the food you bought ... I'm not frugal by any means but I often see people with so much food in their trolleys that they could never possible eat in a week unless they've got an army to feed ... don't get me started on christmas shopping (two shopping carts for christmas and boxing day? come on)
... and breathe ...
I suppose if your house is the hub for the family Christmas dinner etc and you're going to have about 10 people for meals and snacks, maybe...but I don't know of all that many people who do that anymore, what with fragmented families.
I too see people with carts laden with gallons of soda, cheeze curls (which, apart from being vegan or not, bear only a passing resemblance to food!) and sweet dessert type junk and I wonder where they get the money. I know fruit and veg is expensive in parts of the UK (particularly Scotland /Aberdeen where my best Spanish friend was SHOCKED at the price of apples!) but surely they realise if they didn't buy the crap they'd have money for whole foods?
As for not reheating, maybe takeaways and "ready meals" are made with crappy ingredients, I don't know. Maybe they're worried about a chemical reaction taking place in the fridge over night...all those E-numbers! :-D
I'll stop now before I go into full, glorious auto-rant!!
wait- some people don't eat leftovers?!?!? That's half the point in cooking!!! I always cook too much purposely so that we can have the leftovers on a night that I don't feel like cooking! geez- what is wrong with some people?
wait- some people don't eat leftovers?!?!?
I don't eat leftovers. That's one of the reasons I don't cook. It's hard to make a small enough meal to avoid left overs. Sometimes I'll make something with the plan to have it for work lunches, let's say, but I don't consider that to be left overs. I consider that to be planned meals.
I just ate last night's leftovers for breakfast. But honestly, I do waste food. Its depressing and I need to change how often or how much I cook but so far have not been successful. Either that or I need another two hungry people living in my house wanting yummy vegan food.
I guess it comes of being the last of 10 kids in a large and poor family, but I find it hard to throw out food even when it's a recipe that has gone drastically wrong! The other night I had some spinach soup that was scarcely edible and DH yelled suddenly, "Throw it out! Throw it out!" It seems I had been plugging away with my spoon, but also, all unawares, saying quietly, "That's not very nice" and putting down my spoon with a sigh...then a moment later I'd try it again. He said I had this very determined look on my face, like I was hoping maybe this spoonful would taste better!
I guess it comes of being the last of 10 kids in a large and poor family, but I find it hard to throw out food even when it's a recipe that has gone drastically wrong! The other night I had some spinach soup that was scarcely edible and DH yelled suddenly, "Throw it out! Throw it out!" It seems I had been plugging away with my spoon, but also, all unawares, saying quietly, "That's not very nice" and putting down my spoon with a sigh...then a moment later I'd try it again. He said I had this very determined look on my face, like I was hoping maybe this spoonful would taste better!
I am an only child..and we weren't poor..but I also hate throwing things out...as does my husband. I don't want to waste things, contribute to waste....and waste money!
I've been "wanting" to force myself to eat the last of my mini cakes..that's been setting there for a while...
There's also some soup in the fridge that wasn't really the best..