In this episode of A Healthy Bite, Manuel Bruscas, author of Real Tomatoes are Ugly shares some enlightening facts about world hunger.
Many attribute the hunger problem to availability; however, the world as a whole produces sufficient food.
Food Security
According to the Food Security Program, there are four dimensions of food security.
Physical availability of food - supplyEconomic and physical access to food - Food utilization - how the body uses foodStability - the three previous factors happening consistently
In this episode, I tell Manuel a story about a conversation I had with my son, which you may have had with your children.
We are finishing up dinner, and the conversation goes like this:
Mom: "Please eat all of your food; there are starving kids in the world."Son: "How does eating everything on my plate help starving kids in other parts of the world?"
Supply and Demand
Setting aside the fact that my son loves to debate, this had me questioning my logic. I knew that food waste and hunger were related, but I wasn't sure how to explain it to my son.
Subscribe to A Healthy Bite for other solutions to reducing food waste, coming Thursday. Right now, listen to this episode, as Manuel explains how I can respond to my son's question.
Manuel Bruscas coauthored a book titled Real Tomatoes Are Ugly to raise awareness of a global issue: Food Waste. The title of this book is derived in part by the dictatorship of beauty in society, according to Bruscas.
Get a peek of Real Tomatoes Are Ugly in the video version of this podcast
Would you buy an ugly tomato?
Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a "cult of perfection," deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment.
"In 2015, we disposed of 37.6 million tons of food waste," according to the EPA.
I think for many of us is that we are busy, and we're in a hurry - we don't stop and think, "do I need this?" So, poor planning, impulse buying, and avoiding imperfect produce are top factors in food waste.
We have an abundance mindset. If our fridge has empty space, just like a plate, we feel like we need to fill it up.
Waste on the farm.
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one-third of all food grown is lost or wasted, an amount valued at nearly $3 trillion. Almost half the food produced in the US is wasted on the farm.
Prices change, and it is no longer profitable to send that food to the market.
Loads of lettuce, kale, broccoli, spinach, and other greens are dumped in the landfill because they can't sell it to the best buyer. Ton trucks full of perfectly good food, being dumped at the landfill.
Wasted food is the single most prominent occupant in American landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This food in the landfill emits methane 30-100x more potent than carbon dioxide.
How does perfect produce not make it to the market?
For example, imperfect peppers or tomatoes are left on the ground, plowed under in the field. An imperfect cauliflower, perhaps the color is yellow or slightly purple instead of white. This "off-color" cauliflower is tossed because it doesn't meet a beauty standard.
Even produce that is "too big" can be discarded. A banana that has too much curve, or one that is too straight, may not make it to market. As consumers, we expect our fruits and vegetables to be "photoshoot ready." It's the equivalent of expecting all people to look like airbrushed models.
This perfection is not realistic!
We can't blame it all on farmers. Produce is "graded," and farmers know that to bring inconsistent shapes and sizes is a risk to their livelihood.
Other places perfectly edible food gets wasted include:
in transitin the supermarketat homein the restaurant
Some of what farmers grow ends up going to feed livestock. But people are hungry,
