I would like to know a basic conversion for that banana you let go rotten, something like it the same energy as a light bulb for how ever many hours.
I have food waste perspective from working in restaurants and on boats, a mother who hates to waste anything and another who is more obsessed with things going off.
Working on boats I have spent around 15 thousand dollars on feeding around twenty people for a month. I try to reinvent and reuse all the leftovers but no one cares and all are so spoilt, I guess at least a quarter of what I buy and make goes into the bin. In some restaurants the food waste is given to pig farmers, very few compost and the majority nothing with this resource.
The freegans, it is possible to live off the waste of society. On one trip around Manhattans supermarkets at around 10pm I took home hundreds of dollars of perfectly good food. You feel strange about eating out of rubbish bags but it is astounding what you find. This is an example of the flaws in the capitalist economy, why isn’t this food being sold at a discount or given to needy? Because it might effect the profits if people can get stuff cheaper or free. The food being wasted everyday in
Living with a Guatemalan family I feel bad leaving a grain of rice on my plate even when meals are well carb heavy is an understatement. Pasta, potatoes, tortillas, beans, bread and rice all appear in some combination most meals.
The only other time I survived on carbs was as a student when we only had rice pasta and potatoes so my flat mate decided to cook all of them.
I am told in some under educated Mayan villages families face malnutrition when they are perfectly capable of having a balanced diet. They sell all their vegetables, eggs, milk and other produce to buy beans and corn.
Thinking in terms of green house gas and carbon reduction, reducing food waste seems to be an overlooked issue. How can a tax be imposed on food waste? Supermarket should be charged for disposal of foodstuff, something that reflects the energy loss and encourages efficient use of the resource. Be it composting or some form of making use of the energy.
There seems to be so many options to make use of this resource all we need is some legislation to force our lazy asses into it.
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5 comments:
I agree with you, we must do something about it, and be conscious, and responsible after realizing how things around us might not be as good and efficient as we think. In many cultures that we might even consider primitives there´s no such thing as waste. It all serves a purpose and its been known for many years.
Iniciatives like http://www.altardaselva.com/
are a good example of how an idea can totaly change realities.
Using the resources in a sustainable way, and according to the real needs, not the ones invented by publicists or fashions. Image and Reality again... Id love to quote Victor Papanek and his definition of method for a responsible designer: "...An honest use of materials, never making the material seem that which is not, is good method. Materials and tools must be used optimally, never using one material where another can do the job less expensively, more efficiently, or both." He was an interesting one...more on him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Papanek
Lets keep reasoning please :)
I hope those Guatemalan creatures left you in peace. Safe travels bro.
Enjoying the blog mate keep it up... where to next?
good im glad youve got on to this. have been thinking hard about it.
have a look at http://www.whitmandirectaction.org/projects/
This guys drove a biodiesel bus from the US to central america, to teach small communities how to make their own energy. They also wrote a book on how to make biodiesel using the stuff available on that area, like algae, castor oil and lard and you can download it for free... its in spanish. Might be good to pass around in guatemala or use it on you classes!
Im looking for some sort of heating rod now, to make a batch of biodiesel... If all goes well we could be driving for free to wanaka!
bro, its so true.. I'm going through more food than i can believe feeding 12 people a week.. and like you, trying to re-invent a re-use leftovers, to encourage everyone to try everything, to eat everything. and like you, no one cares. if the saw it yesterday, they dont want it today..
I reckon a way of making people realise what the direct cost of this is would be beneficial to more than just the wallets.
A recently released report (for the G8) suimmit, reckons the world production of vegetable foods needs to increase by 50% by 2050 and meat foods by 80%, just to meet current demasnds.. thers barely enough food at the moment for those on the edges of poverty..how are we going to deal with this..
what happens when these hungry people realise they have nothing left to loose by mobilising and moving to richer greener pastures .. billions of them..
we need to be more aware of what we eat, what we throw away and what we reuse and how to be more efficient in every aspect of that triangle...
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