Britons throw away third of ALL food

[mountainhiker]

Wasted Food

British consumers throw out a third of all food bought, worth some 10 billion pounds (12.7 million euros, 19.5 million dollars), a study showed Thursday.

The average household throws food worth 420 pounds each year into the waste bin, rising to 610 pounds for those with children, said the study by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap).

This includes 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots, 5,500 whole chickens and 440,000 ready meals, it said.

"These findings are staggering in their own right, but at a time when global food shortages are in the headlines this kind of wastefulness becomes even more shocking," said Environment Minister Joan Ruddock.

Great article, but, you have to wonder just how big a sample of the population that they used and how that would compare to say France on the other side of the channel... not really that far away...

[Simon]

The numbers are unbeliveable, there is no question about it.

It wouldn't be so bad if the UK had a good garbage program (like the food being turned into compost/dirt etc) but this food is just being dumped for no use.

But you also have to count in all the poeple who live in the UK. London alone has more people than the whole Sweden!

If I had the time yesterday I was planning on writing something short about this... Maybe later today..

[lynnsher]

Hmmm...this got me thinking about my Grandma.

Why? You may ask. Well, I always thought she was odd. She didn't waste one bit of food. I'm talking chicken bones so clean that we could throw them in the trash and not worry about animals coming to get 'em : )

Anyway, part of my point is, she didn't waste food because she had know real hunger in her lifetime. She was a refugee out of Czechoslovakia in WWII. She and my Grandpa walked across the Alps into Italy to escape the Nazis. During that trip, they survived on berries and whatever they could find. And even before, food was scarce because of the war.

But in the big picture, I think if all of us can think back to our grandparents, we'll remember how little they wasted...not only food.

And isn't that the ultimate Green lifestyle? We should get back to the basics of waste not, want not.

[Steve_Barker]

But in the big picture, I think if all of us can think back to our grandparents, we'll remember how little they wasted...not only food.

I would say with my parents generation (children during rationing in the 40s England) went the other way. They became obsesed with quantity of food (and other things) - alas the quality was overlooked - this made a ready market for battery hens, and microwave meals.

[mountainhiker]

I would say with my parents generation (children during rationing in the 40s England) went the other way. They became obsesed with quantity of food (and other things) - alas the quality was overlooked - this made a ready market for battery hens, and microwave meals.

Contrasted to the current generations with maxed out credit cards and living in houses they cannot afford. And having no real appreciation for what they have. :sceptical:

[Simon]

Well, I would say everything is relative .

I think it's better to try to imagine how people in developing countries have it than our grandparents..

[Steve_Barker]

Contrasted to the current generations with maxed out credit cards and living in houses they cannot afford. And having no real appreciation for what they have. :sceptical:

As a child I can remember the change. In 1967 my mom used to bake each week, so that we had bread, cakes and biscuits for the week. By 1970 we were getting everything from Tesco, because there were cheep cakes, it just was not worth baking them anymore (alas, they tasted awful). Over the following years houses became centrally heated, we stopped getting busses, and bedrooms stopped having frost on the inside on winters mornings.

Subsiquent generations were born straight into having "everything", and do not remember that much of this affluance was built up by having to go into the shops each week, and pay of the weekly instalment in the book. Thus, people slightly younger than myself see these things as rights/indespensible needs - hence, the maxed out credit cards etc.