Hugh's War on Waste

[Deleted User]

As harrowing as it is for the individual farmers concerned, the inevitable consequence of increasing farm productivity in a country where bellies don’t need more food is that you either waste food, or some farmers go out of business. If we were to actually eat all the surplus food as HFW seems to expect, every man woman and child in the country would be gaining five stone a year in weight.

In a first world consumer society where the population has enough, the only way to grow the economy is by persuading people to waste more, not less, that’s why economic growth is environmentally damaging. What HFW is asking for but doesn’t seem to realise is an end to economic growth, and in that he has about as much chance of succeeding as shoving lard up a cats a r s e with a hot knife. When it comes to economic growth versus waste, we actually pay people to throw stuff away: butter mountains, wine lakes, car scrappage, boiler scrappage etc.

lessonlearned

You're dead right there Jack.

mOdern economies are built around, production, consumption and waste. If everyone stopped consuming and wasting western economies would probably collapse.:rotfl:

Farming subsidies were bound to be a double edged sword, leading to over production and waste.

However, excess waste does create problems with both pollution and over consumption of resources that are finite, eg oil, fuel.

Soils get depleted, water levels fall, timber reserves cannot be replenished quickly enough.

It's a conundrum......

Justamum

I'm just watching this, and felt sorry for the farmers who had to get rid of a load of parsnips. They obviously love farming so to see food they've grown thrown away was obviously very upsetting.

Another thing - I'd never thought of putting hummus in soup. I must try that. I usually have it on baked potatoes, or have a couple of slices of toast which I dip into the pot (I can eat a pot on my own very easily!)

I'd be very annoyed if Hugh F-W came up to me in the supermarket and threw some of my food away. I throw very little away.

Our rubbish isn't sorted out - we have an energy from waste plant and whatever you throw away goes straight into the incinerator. However there is a big push for recycling over here. I've been recycling for decades, and anything we don't want which might be useful for someone else goes either to the local Hospice Shop or Age Concern shop.

Living_proof

Overproduction is just as difficult to deal with from the allotment-user's point of view. I never know what will germinate, what the weather will do, which pest and diseases will strike and in lots of ways have little control over the destiny of my crops. I don't eat eggs so don't have chickens so a lot of surplus items are composted. That's after I have dried, frozen, pickled or brewed what I can, but actually I end up with too much. And there's the courgette conundrum - one year your grow two plants and have a zillion courgettes. The next, being more considered, you plant just one. Which gets instantly beheaded by a monstrous slug. Can't win!

Justamum

Living_proof wrote: »

And there's the courgette conundrum - one year your grow two plants and have a zillion courgettes. The next, being more considered, you plant just one. Which gets instantly beheaded by a monstrous slug. Can't win!

Last year for the first time I grew courgettes. Planted 12 seeds which all grew, gave 8 plants away, planted 4 in the garden two died and I got quite a decent crop from the ones which were left. This year I planted 6 which all grew so I put them out, two were chomped by slugs or snails and another one just died. Out of the remaining three I got very few courgettes this year.

I also planted some pepper seeds this year, which grew beautifully with dozens of fruit on them. Unfortunately they were only very small fruits which I was puzzled about, so I picked one and tried it, and it turned out to be a very hot chilli :eek: I hate chillis, so I picked them all and DH gave them to someone at work. I gave the seeds away. I'll buy another packet next year and hope they don't put the wrong seeds in it again!

honeythewitch

jack_pott wrote: »

As harrowing as it is for the individual farmers concerned, the inevitable consequence of increasing farm productivity in a country where bellies don’t need more food is that you either waste food, or some farmers go out of business. If we were to actually eat all the surplus food as HFW seems to expect, every man woman and child in the country would be gaining five stone a year in weight.

In a first world consumer society where the population has enough, the only way to grow the economy is by persuading people to waste more, not less, that’s why economic growth is environmentally damaging. What HFW is asking for but doesn’t seem to realise is an end to economic growth, and in that he has about as much chance of succeeding as shoving lard up a cats a r s e with a hot knife. When it comes to economic growth versus waste, we actually pay people to throw stuff away: butter mountains, wine lakes, car scrappage, boiler scrappage etc.

The more cheap parsnips etc we eat, the less room for fatty and sugary foods, maybe?

Not throwing food away doesn't mean we have to eat more.
For instance, the woman throwing out the couple of slices bacon could pile more onto her bacon butty instead of chucking it, but she would be better off freezing the surplus, therefore buying less bacon.

Pollycat

honeythewitch wrote: »

The more cheap parsnips etc we eat, the less room for fatty and sugary foods, maybe?

Not throwing food away doesn't mean we have to eat more.
For instance, the woman throwing out the couple of slices bacon could pile more onto her bacon butty instead of chucking it, but she would be better off freezing the surplus, therefore buying less bacon.

I whack all sorts of stuff in my freezer.
If I'd got space, the bread people were chucking away would have gone in.
But - I have to confess that I don't like bacon that's been frozen for too long. I seems (at least to me) to take on a sickly sweet taste.

[Deleted User]

honeythewitch wrote: »

Not throwing food away doesn't mean we have to eat more.

Yes it does if we keep producing too much. I'll say it again: if we eat all that is produced we'll put on five stones a year.

tuskel

jack_pott wrote: »

As harrowing as it is for the individual farmers concerned, the inevitable consequence of increasing farm productivity in a country where bellies don’t need more food is that you either waste food, or some farmers go out of business. If we were to actually eat all the surplus food as HFW seems to expect, every man woman and child in the country would be gaining five stone a year in weight.

What HFW is asking for but doesn’t seem to realise is an end to economic growth, and in that he has about as much chance of succeeding as shoving lard up a cats a r s e with a hot knife.

lessonlearned wrote: »

mOdern economies are built around, production, consumption and waste. If everyone stopped consuming and wasting western economies would probably collapse.:rotfl:

Yeah, but... no. That is what we are brought up to believe now and that is what all the ads and government (who is in the producers pocket) tell us to reinforce it. Actually, can you remember, not so long ago we didn't have a society like that? People couldn't afford everything, but nor did they want or need to. You didn't buy clothes for every season and gadgets didn't have to be better and bigger every year. Not everyone even owned a car, let alone two, which seems to be quite common nowadays. Christmas didn't mean a massive spending spree and everyone didn't get mountains of presents. But were we unhappy? I don't think so.

I'm not that good at explaining it, but GreyQueen posted a link in another thread which talks about exactly that: What if we didn't just consume, consume, consume? (There would be less chinese tat here for one thing and they wouldn't be as powerful as they are, which does worry me with their human rights record!) The article is interesting and not that long. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/09/what-if-everyone-became-frugal/

tuskel,
sincerely

[Deleted User]

If the supermarkets were to NOT reject misshaped veg but sell them along with the straight ones in the same bag then the farmers would not have to produce so many parsnips and there wouldn't be a large surplus at the end of the harvest. As it is the farmers have to plant almost 50% more seedlings than they actually need to BECAUSE the supermarkets reject so many of them and that's where the wastage comes from, isn't it silly?