"boring" statistics on food waste - Forum

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wrote:

FOOD WASTE MAKES ME MAD
(and I'm generally bad at it too but now I'm looking at the stuff that's just sorted out because it doesn't fit industry standards)

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as mada would say, dearanged

BunnyButts
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BunnyButts wrote:
Knowledge hyps

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Barbarella wrote:

Nesta wrote:

as mada would say, dearanged

This trailer bothers me because produce culled in the packing house based on its appearance is NOT thrown away, it's processed into other things (except things like lettuce)

So, I actually worked in a packing house (a very small one, so not the best example, but a microchasm of the industry nonetheless), and did a lot of my senior research on food waste.

You've got your firsts - which is your beautiful produce that goes to the grocery store shelves
Your seconds - which will be processed into things like sauces, soups, etc
and your thirds - which typically end up as animal feed

where actual food waste comes in is crops left to rot in the fields due to lack of labor to harvest, or lack of market for it so they don't want to pay to harvest it (remember the pics from early in covid about all the potatoes just being buried?)

grocery store dumpsters are a different thing entirely, the companies, both the ones that produce the food as well as the grocery store want to maintain their image, thus tossing things that don't look good/were damaged/etc. and removing things that are about to expire - even though expired food is still typically safe to eat, it just cannot be guaranteed at the quality standards that the business wants to be represented with.

not making ANY excuses here for a fucked up capitalistic food system, and IT IS wasteful as fuck, but I have a problem with gimmicky misinformation because it stops our progress and makes it look like consumer choices are the problem and they aren't.

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Barbarella wrote:
I am super pro-dumpster diving, if you can do it without getting busted, you should definitely do it.
Near where I live there's this place that doesn't really have a name, we just call it "the day old bread store" and it's this warehouse that receives bread and pastry products and redistributes it.
every sunday they have to throw out things that are expired/expiring and they've actually given us permission to dig it out and share it.
some places that have to throw shit away feel just as bad about it but have to keep their jobs

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wug wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Nesta wrote:

as mada would say, dearanged

This trailer bothers me because produce culled in the packing house based on its appearance is NOT thrown away, it's processed into other things (except things like lettuce)

So, I actually worked in a packing house (a very small one, so not the best example, but a microchasm of the industry nonetheless), and did a lot of my senior research on food waste.

You've got your firsts - which is your beautiful produce that goes to the grocery store shelves
Your seconds - which will be processed into things like sauces, soups, etc
and your thirds - which typically end up as animal feed

where actual food waste comes in is crops left to rot in the fields due to lack of labor to harvest, or lack of market for it so they don't want to pay to harvest it (remember the pics from early in covid about all the potatoes just being buried?)

grocery store dumpsters are a different thing entirely, the companies, both the ones that produce the food as well as the grocery store want to maintain their image, thus tossing things that don't look good/were damaged/etc. and removing things that are about to expire - even though expired food is still typically safe to eat, it just cannot be guaranteed at the quality standards that the business wants to be represented with.

not making ANY excuses here for a fucked up capitalistic food system, and IT IS wasteful as fuck, but I have a problem with gimmicky misinformation because it stops our progress and makes it look like consumer choices are the problem and they aren't.

bless

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Barbarella wrote:

Snusmumrikken wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Nesta wrote:
x
as mada would say, dearanged

This trailer bothers me because produce culled in the packing house based on its appearance is NOT thrown away, it's processed into other things (except things like lettuce)

So, I actually worked in a packing house (a very small one, so not the best example, but a microchasm of the industry nonetheless), and did a lot of my senior research on food waste.

You've got your firsts - which is your beautiful produce that goes to the grocery store shelves
Your seconds - which will be processed into things like sauces, soups, etc
and your thirds - which typically end up as animal feed

where actual food waste comes in is crops left to rot in the fields due to lack of labor to harvest, or lack of market for it so they don't want to pay to harvest it (remember the pics from early in covid about all the potatoes just being buried?)

grocery store dumpsters are a different thing entirely, the companies, both the ones that produce the food as well as the grocery store want to maintain their image, thus tossing things that don't look good/were damaged/etc. and removing things that are about to expire - even though expired food is still typically safe to eat, it just cannot be guaranteed at the quality standards that the business wants to be represented with.

not making ANY excuses here for a fucked up capitalistic food system, and IT IS wasteful as fuck, but I have a problem with gimmicky misinformation because it stops our progress and makes it look like consumer choices are the problem and they aren't.

bless

I actually came across a pretty thorough twitter thread on this subject the other day.

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deranged

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Barbarella wrote:
I remember on a previous page I mentioned the farm I worked on throwing out butternut squash because it was the wrong shape or size for processing and that was probably a really bad example
because a lot of our processing was done in-house with our farm store
but bigger facilities have more options.
butternut squash is also a really bad example because it was more like excess, rather than ugly.
coordinating with food banks is very difficult because lots of folks using food banks don't know how to cook some of this stuff, or don't have the tools/kitchen to do so.

but most produce we really did try to process or feed to animals as much as we could (the pigs LOVED squash harvest week!)

a lot of work goes into growing food and a lot more goes into sorting it and they don't want to waste all that labor by throwing out food that was harvested.

but leaving food in the field to rot? super common practice. we used to do that a lot, and we'd allow gleaners to come in and pick behind us but 9 times out of 10 they'd never show up and none of us wanted to come in on our day off to get stood up.

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wug wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Snusmumrikken wrote:

Barbarella wrote:
This trailer bothers me because produce culled in the packing house based on its appearance is NOT thrown away, it's processed into other things (except things like lettuce)

So, I actually worked in a packing house (a very small one, so not the best example, but a microchasm of the industry nonetheless), and did a lot of my senior research on food waste.

You've got your firsts - which is your beautiful produce that goes to the grocery store shelves
Your seconds - which will be processed into things like sauces, soups, etc
and your thirds - which typically end up as animal feed

where actual food waste comes in is crops left to rot in the fields due to lack of labor to harvest, or lack of market for it so they don't want to pay to harvest it (remember the pics from early in covid about all the potatoes just being buried?)

grocery store dumpsters are a different thing entirely, the companies, both the ones that produce the food as well as the grocery store want to maintain their image, thus tossing things that don't look good/were damaged/etc. and removing things that are about to expire - even though expired food is still typically safe to eat, it just cannot be guaranteed at the quality standards that the business wants to be represented with.

not making ANY excuses here for a fucked up capitalistic food system, and IT IS wasteful as fuck, but I have a problem with gimmicky misinformation because it stops our progress and makes it look like consumer choices are the problem and they aren't.

bless

I actually came across a pretty thorough twitter thread on this subject the other day.

I think it's very important to point out that many of the documentaries are straight up lying and that it is important to see who made the documentary because there's always an agenda

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Barbarella wrote:

Snusmumrikken wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Snusmumrikken wrote:
bless

I actually came across a pretty thorough twitter thread on this subject the other day.

I think it's very important to point out that many of the documentaries are straight up lying and that it is important to see who made the documentary because there's always an agenda

I had a professor in college who was incredibly hard on me but for the best
I was an agriculture student and I would get emails from him reviewing my papers that would say, "who sponsored this source? did you look?" - fuckin' monsanto or orkin or some shit.
it's just good practice to get into the habit of seeking that information out, and questioning everyone's motives (even your own!)

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wug wrote:

Barbarella wrote:

Snusmumrikken wrote:

Barbarella wrote:
I actually came across a pretty thorough twitter thread on this subject the other day.

I think it's very important to point out that many of the documentaries are straight up lying and that it is important to see who made the documentary because there's always an agenda

I had a professor in college who was incredibly hard on me but for the best
I was an agriculture student and I would get emails from him reviewing my papers that would say, "who sponsored this source? did you look?" - fuckin' monsanto or orkin or some shit.
it's just good practice to get into the habit of seeking that information out, and questioning everyone's motives (even your own!)

Yeah, it's annoying but in the long run it's good

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Felixia wrote:

love this

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wrote:
Bless u guys don't let me run on my own. Be the logic to my feelings.

I was just gonna tell u i was watching it ye