30% of fruit and veg thrown away because its mishappen

jenster

after seeing todays news 30% of ugly veg doesn't even make the shops due to it not being so called perfect ie mishappen / not cylindrical / not uniform

I know would Buy it and make very good use of it

and if so why do we waste it :mad:

would you do the same ?

[Deleted User]

Oh Yes!!!!!! I use all of the home grown stuff regardless of wether it would win a vegetable show or not! The justification given that people go through the produce to get the nicest looking ones is not true. I go through the produce to find what is not bruised or damaged so it lasts longer in storage. How silly they are yes?

foxgloves

The 'perfect fruit & veg' thing is one of these things supermarkets tell us we want, so they have to supply it. A while back I read Joanna Blythman's book 'Shopped - the shocking power of supermarkets' & it does indeed contain some extremely interesting & shocking stuff. One of the things she talks about it how supermarkets reject any fruit or veg from farmers if it is not exactly the 'right' size or 'shape', yet as a keen home veg grower, I know that nature determines this, carrots, apples etc, come in different shapes & sizes!! It's ridiculous....& then of course, the farmer doesn't get paid for the whole crop he or she has devoted to the supermarket's contract. Example: I still have a bucket of our own apples in my kitchen. I guarantee not a single one of them would have got through supermarket criteria, yet I have thrown virtually none of them away & have eaten them as fresh fruit, stewed them, made chutney, jellies, jam, muffins, stuffings, cakes, they may be all shapes & sizes but they taste delicious. Supermarkets have a lot to answer for.

Sarah2011

We started getting a fruit and veg delivery from Riverford last year. It's all delicious, much better than the stuff we were getting from the supermarket, but at first we both kept thinking that it looked a bit odd. We couldn't put our finger on it, it didn't look bad or off, just a bit odd. Then we realised we just weren't used to seeing fruit or veg in a range of shapes and sizes . It is ridiculous that so much food is wasted for such a stupid reason.

Any

I don't understand it at all.
When I worked on strawberry fields the pretty strawberries went into one pile for supermarkets and the not so pretty went for jam factories.

You can use/disquise uggly veg in a lot of ready made meals/jars/sauces, so why completely waste it??

That is obviously ignoring the obvious "just because it's uggly doesn't mean it tastes different" argument..

raphanius

i have a regular veg box delivery from riverford so i have already opted for natural ugly veg rather than supermarket uniformity. i do get slightly annoyed that i pay a premium for my choice though. surely stuff that no one wants should be cheaper?

CompBunny

YES!! I would definitely be happy to buy mishapen fruit&veg. All of that waste is disgusting. So many people would happily eat those "rejects"!

I don't care what size or shape my carrots are if I'm going to just chop them up into batons or soups or grate them! In fact, eating a whole carrot as a snack, as long as I can wash it it could be hexagonal for all I care!

C_Mababejive

Its a tragedy. Always buy loose fruit and veg. EG Yesterday Tesco,three in a net bag onions £1.00 .Fished in the loose onions bin,picked out three and bagged them. Weighed= about a pound,cost..41pence.

foxgloves

Agree about the wrapped stuff. Why on earth does a swede need to be entirely shrink-wrapped in plastic?? I'm sure supermarklets would say that shrink wrapping cucumbers & caulis is maybe protective but swedes? They've got to be pretty much bomb-proof.

[Deleted User]

I think in this day and age with so many folk tighening their belts it is disgusting to throw good food away I don't care what my carrots or spuds look like I just want to peel 'em, cook 'em and eat 'em and the cheaper I can buy 'em the better
Perhaps if someone could be entrapanurial enough to open a 'wonky veggy' shop or a 'silly shaped fruit' shop they would make a fortune from folk like me who really just want to eat fresh fruit and veg and not have it covered in plastic wrap
I was born and brought up in an age when any food thrown away was almost criminal,(in fact I do believe during the war you could get into serious trouble by binning food)I very rarely throw anything out foodwise as with a freezer there is no reason to.If the bananas are starting to go 'over' a bit i chop them up and cover with custard, job done and nothing wasted
To see food banks in this country in the 21st century then to hear that food is being thrown away just beggers belief

C_Mababejive

#10 agree...yesterday dived in fridge to make ham and cheese sandwich. Pulled out a chunk of applesmoked posh cheese which was already opened and wrapped in foil. It looked slightly iffy round the edges. Knife out,trimmed,on sandwich..yummy..job done.