It is one of the many negative consequences of the domination of advertising over the minds of Western men. Fruits and vegetables not perfect, not beautiful to look at, unworthy to be in a commercial or print ad, don't even deserve to be on the table.
This is what emerges from a Guardian investigation that revealed the true numbers of the problem. It was known that much of U.S. fruit and vegetable production was discarded for aesthetic reasons, but no one imagined that this share was from the 50%. We are talking about an economic value of about 160 billion dollars every year. Good, nutritious food that by the mere fact of not meeting the aesthetic requirements implicitly demanded by end buyers ends up in landfills.
The problem now affects the entire production chain, with each change of hands the fruits and vegetables must pass a beauty contest which becomes more and more severe as one approaches the city and the store counters. But what happens upstream, directly in farmers' fields, at least it re-enters the natural cycle, becoming compost or animal feed. What happens downstream, on the other hand, ends up directly in municipal solid waste.
L'Environmental Protection Agency states that discarded food is the largest single component of landfills and incinerators in the United States. The decomposition of organic material in landfills produces large quantities of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. But experts acknowledge that they are only beginning to come to terms with the true scale of the problem. Globally, all unbeautiful food thrown away or left to rot is responsible for About 8% of global pollution, more than what nations like India or Russia produce.
But from this misguided worship of the aesthetic perfection of food comes not only pollution but also a consequence that is easier to imagine: malnutrition. "There are many people in the United States who are hungry and malnourished. My estimate is that About 10% of the US population does not have enough to eat" said Shenggen Fan, managing director of the Washington-based Food Policy Research Institute. "This is why food waste, the loss of good food, is a factor that we absolutely cannot afford. An emergency for federal policy."
All this is without counting the Waste of water, land and all resources dedicated to agriculture, also thrown to the 50% in the landfill along with the food.
In this crazy, irrational, immoral scenario, fortunately someone is beginning to organize.
Imperfect Produce is a subscription service operating in the San Francisco Bay Area that Home delivery of unpretty food at affordable prices. Subscription growth is exponential, and its organization may set an example to other cities in the US. But private initiative from below always has its limits. Nice thing when once there was the state in charge of solving the people's problems, putting in resources and men who were not driven solely by the nagging for profit.
Source: Guardian.com
