4 ms·

Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food. Bigger problem is eating out (restaurants, fast food) where 90% o

by ftvbffg 10y ago

Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food. Bigger problem is eating out (restaurants, fast food) where 90% of money is wasted. Or buying expensive ingredients like meat or very processed foods. 10 times more food can be bought if choosing wisely. I pay maybe 4$-5$/day for food and I routinely throw away half. That's 2$/day wasted. But eating at restaurant wastes so much more.

bpodgursky 10y ago
> very processed foods That's not really accurate though. Half the point of heavily-processed foods is that they can use non-aesthetic parts of the animal or plant to produce edible food. - Mechanically-processed chicken is made out of the parts of a chicken that you could never sell as beautiful chicken breasts - Baby carrots are carrots that are too ugly to sell - Fillers like corn syrup and soybean oil are calorically incredibly cheap to produce, and very efficient use of cropland. More accurately, it's organic and locally-grown foods that waste the most cropland by being low-density (and are thus more expensive).
- ftvbffg 10y ago
  Yes, of course. I've meant prepackaged expensive meals.
nickff 10y ago
Eating at restaurants is not a waste of money, it is much more efficient for many people. At a restaurant, you can get food much more quickly, and with no cleanup time afterwards; if you value your time, this can quite easily turn out to be a cost savings compared to home-prepared meals (especially if you value variety). It used to be more common to purchase restaurant food, and home-cooked meals were a luxury for the rich a few hundred years ago, but income and sales tax have imposed higher transaction costs, and made restaurant food more expensive.
- finid 10y ago
  > It used to be more common to purchase restaurant food, and home-cooked meals were a luxury for the rich a few hundred years ago, but income and sales tax have imposed higher transaction costs, and made restaurant food more expensive. The point you tried to make with that seems twisted. Home made food was the norm, so when something like MacDonald started, it was actually not junk food, but more like food that only the rich could afford. In the present environment, even with income and sales tax, restaurant food is cheap - relatively, of course. You can get a lot for $2 USD. The problem is that type of food is bad for you in the long term.
  - nickff 10y ago
    No, street food and restaurants were very common historically, (at least) going back to Ancient Greece and Egypt.[1] In those times the poor often did not own kitchens or cooking implements, and spent so much time working that they did not have time to cook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_food#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_food#History
    - tatterdemalion 10y ago
      Both of these narratives are incomplete - in other contexts (e.g. any primarily pastoral society) the poor did not eat meals prepared by people outside of their kinship group almost ever. The reality is that the relationship between food preparation and class have been very different in different food cultures; you can perform a comparative analysis to critique our food culture, but a narrative of a "historical shift" from "how it used to be" is misleading.
      - nickff 10y ago
        I am referring to the history of the cultural antecedents of the western world, which have also had a dominant effect on the vast majority of the human race. I am not trying to address the history of Rapa Nui.
greenshackle 10y ago
How much time do you spend grocery shopping and cooking? If you make 100$ per hour it doesnt take long before eating out is more economical.
- djKianoosh 10y ago
  but that equation doesnt take into account the enjoyment one gets from eating a fine meal at a restaurant or at home, or the quality of the food (perceived or actual) that one consumes. you may believe calories are calories regardless or you may not. so many more things factor into that equation. long term health (pro and con) for example.
  - greenshackle 10y ago
    Of course, there are so many factors to eating. I was responding narrowly to OP's claim that eating out is bad because it's expensive.
- geodel 10y ago
  I think it also depends on if $100 / hr can be extended beyond 8 hrs /day and 5 days a week. Often those high rates are for 40 hrs per week. Any extra hrs are either part of fixed salary jobs or unfinished deliverables for whatever reasons.
  - greenshackle 10y ago
    However much you value your free time then. Which may actually be more than your regular hourly wage. Consider that most people need to be paid more to work overtime. It also depends whether you consider cooking work or fun. Some people like doing it, others don't. I don't make $100/hour and I do enjoy cooking, so I don't eat out that much, but I do believe for some people it makes perfect sense.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  With kid's the logic changes. How much time do I want to be stuck waiting in a restaurant? Supermarket shopping is actually more fun.
forgetsusername 10y ago
What you spend at a restaurant is someone else's income, so it's not really wasted. Throwing food away is a net loss of a valuable resource.
jimjimjim 10y ago
Maybe this is a US thing? I can't really imagine relying on a restaurant or fast food for day-to-day food. For a restaurant to survive they will add things to the food to TASTE better than competing restaurants, this will almost always be salt, sugar and oil/butter. Like humans think music recorded slightly louder is richer than music recorded slight quieter, I don't think people realize why one restaurants food tastes better than another. so sure for socializing, meals while traveling and special occasions restaurants are fantastic, but surely day-to-day it's gotta be bad for you.
samblr 10y ago
cannot agree more on eating out is such a burn or waste. 2 KFC meals = 12 kilos of rice or pasta = 50 meals at least ?
- mmagin 10y ago
  You need more than rice or pasta to survive.
  - greenshackle 10y ago
    Rice and beans at the very least, to get all the important amino acids. You need at least some fat too. You can survive for a long time on just rice+beans+vegetable oil - emphasis on survive - it's not optimal for health, obviously. You want to throw in at least some fish and vegetables for health.
  - samblr 10y ago
    it is difficult to accept for us that may be for couple of billion people on earth have one or two varieties of food daily.
stcredzero 10y ago
Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food. That's not inconsiderable. The global problem with food/hunger is one of distribution. If 50% of the food demand in the industrialized 1st world is just waste, reducing most of that could increase the share of food purchasing power of the rest of the world.

by ftvbffg 10y ago

bpodgursky 10y ago

> very processed foods That's not really accurate though. Half the point of heavily-processed foods is that they can use non-aesthetic parts of the animal or plant to produce edible food. - Mechanically-processed chicken is made out of the parts of a chicken that you could never sell as beautiful chicken breasts - Baby carrots are carrots that are too ugly to sell - Fillers like corn syrup and soybean oil are calorically incredibly cheap to produce, and very efficient use of cropland. More accurately, it's organic and locally-grown foods that waste the most cropland by being low-density (and are thus more expensive).

ftvbffg 10y ago
Yes, of course. I've meant prepackaged expensive meals.

nickff 10y ago

Eating at restaurants is not a waste of money, it is much more efficient for many people. At a restaurant, you can get food much more quickly, and with no cleanup time afterwards; if you value your time, this can quite easily turn out to be a cost savings compared to home-prepared meals (especially if you value variety). It used to be more common to purchase restaurant food, and home-cooked meals were a luxury for the rich a few hundred years ago, but income and sales tax have imposed higher transaction costs, and made restaurant food more expensive.

finid 10y ago
> It used to be more common to purchase restaurant food, and home-cooked meals were a luxury for the rich a few hundred years ago, but income and sales tax have imposed higher transaction costs, and made restaurant food more expensive. The point you tried to make with that seems twisted. Home made food was the norm, so when something like MacDonald started, it was actually not junk food, but more like food that only the rich could afford. In the present environment, even with income and sales tax, restaurant food is cheap - relatively, of course. You can get a lot for $2 USD. The problem is that type of food is bad for you in the long term.
- nickff 10y ago
  No, street food and restaurants were very common historically, (at least) going back to Ancient Greece and Egypt.[1] In those times the poor often did not own kitchens or cooking implements, and spent so much time working that they did not have time to cook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_food#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_food#History
  - tatterdemalion 10y ago
    Both of these narratives are incomplete - in other contexts (e.g. any primarily pastoral society) the poor did not eat meals prepared by people outside of their kinship group almost ever. The reality is that the relationship between food preparation and class have been very different in different food cultures; you can perform a comparative analysis to critique our food culture, but a narrative of a "historical shift" from "how it used to be" is misleading.
    - nickff 10y ago
      I am referring to the history of the cultural antecedents of the western world, which have also had a dominant effect on the vast majority of the human race. I am not trying to address the history of Rapa Nui.

greenshackle 10y ago

How much time do you spend grocery shopping and cooking? If you make 100$ per hour it doesnt take long before eating out is more economical.

djKianoosh 10y ago
but that equation doesnt take into account the enjoyment one gets from eating a fine meal at a restaurant or at home, or the quality of the food (perceived or actual) that one consumes. you may believe calories are calories regardless or you may not. so many more things factor into that equation. long term health (pro and con) for example.
- greenshackle 10y ago
  Of course, there are so many factors to eating. I was responding narrowly to OP's claim that eating out is bad because it's expensive.
geodel 10y ago
I think it also depends on if $100 / hr can be extended beyond 8 hrs /day and 5 days a week. Often those high rates are for 40 hrs per week. Any extra hrs are either part of fixed salary jobs or unfinished deliverables for whatever reasons.
- greenshackle 10y ago
  However much you value your free time then. Which may actually be more than your regular hourly wage. Consider that most people need to be paid more to work overtime. It also depends whether you consider cooking work or fun. Some people like doing it, others don't. I don't make $100/hour and I do enjoy cooking, so I don't eat out that much, but I do believe for some people it makes perfect sense.
bbcbasic 10y ago
With kid's the logic changes. How much time do I want to be stuck waiting in a restaurant? Supermarket shopping is actually more fun.

forgetsusername 10y ago

What you spend at a restaurant is someone else's income, so it's not really wasted. Throwing food away is a net loss of a valuable resource.

jimjimjim 10y ago

Maybe this is a US thing? I can't really imagine relying on a restaurant or fast food for day-to-day food. For a restaurant to survive they will add things to the food to TASTE better than competing restaurants, this will almost always be salt, sugar and oil/butter. Like humans think music recorded slightly louder is richer than music recorded slight quieter, I don't think people realize why one restaurants food tastes better than another. so sure for socializing, meals while traveling and special occasions restaurants are fantastic, but surely day-to-day it's gotta be bad for you.

samblr 10y ago

cannot agree more on eating out is such a burn or waste. 2 KFC meals = 12 kilos of rice or pasta = 50 meals at least ?

mmagin 10y ago
You need more than rice or pasta to survive.
- greenshackle 10y ago
  Rice and beans at the very least, to get all the important amino acids. You need at least some fat too. You can survive for a long time on just rice+beans+vegetable oil - emphasis on survive - it's not optimal for health, obviously. You want to throw in at least some fish and vegetables for health.
- samblr 10y ago
  it is difficult to accept for us that may be for couple of billion people on earth have one or two varieties of food daily.

stcredzero 10y ago

Food waste is very small problem. If it was eliminated there would be 1.5 times as much food. That's not inconsiderable. The global problem with food/hunger is one of distribution. If 50% of the food demand in the industrialized 1st world is just waste, reducing most of that could increase the share of food purchasing power of the rest of the world.