4 ms·

The lie of expired food and the disastrous truth of Americas food waste problem

45 points by DocFeind 5y ago

aliasEli 5y ago
Long but very interesting. I have read multiple articles about the problem, and this is probably the best one.
- bnajdecki 5y ago
  I agree - long, but definitely worth reading
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    Tell them and tell them and tell them. I persisted, but finally gave up. We donate food that’s close to expiration to the local food pantry. They will take it after expiration, but they treat it separately and usually put it in the “free” table.
the_lonely_road 5y ago
This feels like a problem that doesn’t need to be solved. Solving it might even be worse than not solving it. Do we really want our food production system to become “just in time”? Delivering exactly how much we need exactly when we need it. Overproduction feels like a safety net for when things go wrong. We really don’t want a food shortage the same way we had toilet paper shortages or gas shortages. Food shortages topple governments and empires the way other shortages don’t. The obvious solution is to keep production at say 150% of demand but if we are going to do that then we are going to be ‘wasting food’ just like you waste time with all those database backups you never needed. The only difference is we went though all this hoop jumping to make the end user not waste so much food just to push the waste back down the line to the producers (which as the article points out are already throwing away a bunch of food themselves under the current system.) All in, I would say this issue is close neighbors to the US switching to the metric system completely. Just not worth all the fuss and cost of doing it even though it has some feel good reasons for why getting to the other side of that big initiative would be worthwhile.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Maybe the solution is to overproduce on things with longer shelf life, which can be stored and transported without refrigeration, so any excess past the target 150% (or other figure) can be donated easily to other parts of the world?
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Maybe the solution is to overproduce on things with longer shelf life, which can be stored and transported without refrigeration Then you get people complaining it's "ultraprocessed" >so any excess past the target 150% (or other figure) can be donated easily to other parts of the world? The logistics of this probably makes it more expensive overall than just donating bulk corn or whatever.
- sfink 5y ago
  I think you need to take the water consumption and greenhouse gas production into account. This isn't a small amount of overproduction. I agree that a healthy buffer is necessary and good, but we are way way beyond that. Producers do not need to overproduce at the current scale. Demand is not wildly unpredictable.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Food waste is not an issue. The whole point of an industrialized food system is that we all can eat. Being able to throw food away should be considered a good thing compared to the rest of history before the 1940s. People back then often ate what they could get and were skinny cause they couldn't eat. Obviously in a perfect world we'd consume things to the max percentage possible, but it's not a perfect world. This article comes from a pretentious first world view that forgets most of the world starved in a pre industrial era for most of their lives. Having people become obese is very weirdly a good problem to have since it's a lot easier to resolve than having to figure out how to equitably get enough food for your people to be satiated.
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  It depends on the definition of waste. Excess food that no one wants, or food that is thrown out that someone hungry could eat.
- igouy 5y ago
  "Malnutrition Hits The Obese As Well As The Underfed" https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/785566796/malnutrition-hits-the-obese-as-well-as-the-underfed https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/7855667...
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    Blaming obese people's food choices is like blaming spoons for making you fat. If you can afford to become obese, you most definitely can afford to purchase fresh vegetables and healthier options all around. It's not the same thing as malnutrition because you're starving. One is death because your arteries are clogged. The other is death because you're body can't sustain itself.
ziml77 5y ago
I wish there were good resources on identifying if products are still safe to eat. Not just guidelines on how long they are likely to last, but also what indicators to look for to know that you should definitely throw the food away. And also things that are known to happen to the appearance of food over time that doesn't actually affect its safety.
- srswtf123 5y ago
  Have you tried stilltasty.com? I believe they have signs to look for to determine its bad. I’ve found their guidelines quite valuable!
  - ziml77 5y ago
    Wow! Thank you! That's exactly the kind of resource I was looking for. It says what happens over time to the food and what signs indicate that it's no longer safe instead of just past its prime. I'm certainly going to be referencing that site from now on.

45 points by DocFeind 5y ago

aliasEli 5y ago

Long but very interesting. I have read multiple articles about the problem, and this is probably the best one.

bnajdecki 5y ago
I agree - long, but definitely worth reading
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Tell them and tell them and tell them. I persisted, but finally gave up. We donate food that’s close to expiration to the local food pantry. They will take it after expiration, but they treat it separately and usually put it in the “free” table.

the_lonely_road 5y ago

This feels like a problem that doesn’t need to be solved. Solving it might even be worse than not solving it. Do we really want our food production system to become “just in time”? Delivering exactly how much we need exactly when we need it. Overproduction feels like a safety net for when things go wrong. We really don’t want a food shortage the same way we had toilet paper shortages or gas shortages. Food shortages topple governments and empires the way other shortages don’t. The obvious solution is to keep production at say 150% of demand but if we are going to do that then we are going to be ‘wasting food’ just like you waste time with all those database backups you never needed. The only difference is we went though all this hoop jumping to make the end user not waste so much food just to push the waste back down the line to the producers (which as the article points out are already throwing away a bunch of food themselves under the current system.) All in, I would say this issue is close neighbors to the US switching to the metric system completely. Just not worth all the fuss and cost of doing it even though it has some feel good reasons for why getting to the other side of that big initiative would be worthwhile.

throwawaysea 5y ago
Maybe the solution is to overproduce on things with longer shelf life, which can be stored and transported without refrigeration, so any excess past the target 150% (or other figure) can be donated easily to other parts of the world?
- gruez 5y ago
  >Maybe the solution is to overproduce on things with longer shelf life, which can be stored and transported without refrigeration Then you get people complaining it's "ultraprocessed" >so any excess past the target 150% (or other figure) can be donated easily to other parts of the world? The logistics of this probably makes it more expensive overall than just donating bulk corn or whatever.
sfink 5y ago
I think you need to take the water consumption and greenhouse gas production into account. This isn't a small amount of overproduction. I agree that a healthy buffer is necessary and good, but we are way way beyond that. Producers do not need to overproduce at the current scale. Demand is not wildly unpredictable.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Food waste is not an issue. The whole point of an industrialized food system is that we all can eat. Being able to throw food away should be considered a good thing compared to the rest of history before the 1940s. People back then often ate what they could get and were skinny cause they couldn't eat. Obviously in a perfect world we'd consume things to the max percentage possible, but it's not a perfect world. This article comes from a pretentious first world view that forgets most of the world starved in a pre industrial era for most of their lives. Having people become obese is very weirdly a good problem to have since it's a lot easier to resolve than having to figure out how to equitably get enough food for your people to be satiated.

failwhaleshark 5y ago
It depends on the definition of waste. Excess food that no one wants, or food that is thrown out that someone hungry could eat.
igouy 5y ago
"Malnutrition Hits The Obese As Well As The Underfed" https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/785566796/malnutrition-hits-the-obese-as-well-as-the-underfed https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/7855667...
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Blaming obese people's food choices is like blaming spoons for making you fat. If you can afford to become obese, you most definitely can afford to purchase fresh vegetables and healthier options all around. It's not the same thing as malnutrition because you're starving. One is death because your arteries are clogged. The other is death because you're body can't sustain itself.

ziml77 5y ago

I wish there were good resources on identifying if products are still safe to eat. Not just guidelines on how long they are likely to last, but also what indicators to look for to know that you should definitely throw the food away. And also things that are known to happen to the appearance of food over time that doesn't actually affect its safety.

srswtf123 5y ago
Have you tried stilltasty.com? I believe they have signs to look for to determine its bad. I’ve found their guidelines quite valuable!
- ziml77 5y ago
  Wow! Thank you! That's exactly the kind of resource I was looking for. It says what happens over time to the food and what signs indicate that it's no longer safe instead of just past its prime. I'm certainly going to be referencing that site from now on.