Food waste turns stomachs in environmental circles

Deutsche Welle – Christmas has become a traditional time for over indulgence in Western countries. The holiday season seems to provide everyone with an excuse to eat and drink to excess. Supermarkets burst with sweet treats and a mind-boggling selection of festive fare. While most of it will be ingested, more than a third of food in Europe and the United States will grow moldy fur in the back of the fridge, pass its use-by date and land in garbage. In the United Kingdom, one of Europe’s worst food waste offenders, around 6.7 million tons of purchased and edible food, worth £10.2 billion (11.2 billion euros, $16.6 billion), are annually discarded. Around 4.1 million tons of this wasted food comes directly from food manufacturers. Read Article

Ed – Not only is our current system a grossly inefficient use of the Earth’s finite resources, but it is also hugely immoral. How can we describe ourselves as civilised when the richest billion waste 40% of its food produce, and yet the poorest billion of our fellow humans barely manage to scrape enough for one calorie malnourished meal a day?

Tags: debt & wealth, food & agriculture