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Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

theguardian.com

31–40 of 45 posts

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#31
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. I'm surprised that the difference is considered to be that great.

Soft, sweet apples are better for pies. Maybe throw in a couple of crisp, tart ones for texture and flavor, but you probably wouldn't want to eat a pie with nothing but Granny Smiths.

That's curious. I specifically choose Granny Smith when making apple crumble! They are hard and almost sour when fresh, but are broken and humbled by the heat.

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#32
> scarred vegetables regularly abandoned in the field to save the expense and labour involved in harvest.

So what? Most plants on the planet's surface are "abandoned in the field".

Where I live, there are vast areas of blackberry bush. Most of it is not picked by humans. Oh, the annual waste!

These vegetables will help fertilize the next crop. It's just not yield-efficient use of the agricultural surface area, that's all.

There is an opportunity for someone who can figure out how to grow perfect vegetables: they can make as much profit using a small fraction of the farm size.

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#33
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soft, sweet apples are better for pies. Maybe throw in a couple of crisp, tart ones for texture and flavor, but you probably wouldn't want to eat a pie with nothing but Granny Smiths.

That's curious. I specifically choose Granny Smith when making apple crumble! They are hard and almost sour when fresh, but are broken and humbled by the heat.

Most pie recipes I've seen call for multiple varieties, especially from different categories http://frugalliving.about.com/od/foodsavings/qt/Best-Apples-... My grandmother used mostly Braeburn and Northern Spies, my mother uses Crispin and Granny Smith. I think a crumble might break down the apples more than a pie with its protective crust, so harder varieties might work better there.

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#34

I would say 10%-15% is lost to insurance fraud. A lot of times when the crop yield is less than 50% of expected yield farmers will just disc the fields and claim 100% loss.

Source?

Do the crop insurance companies not go out and verify the claim?

Do they not correlate crop loss with other events in the area (flooding, high winds)?

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#35
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. I'm surprised that the difference is considered to be that great.

Growing up in the South it's fairly common to see that many people think that the fruit you won't eat from the hand, for whatever reason, are often better for certain recipes of desserts and preserves.

That's because it is. Different acid concentrations, cell walls strengths, etc lead to some apples being better suited for some things than others. Kind of like fillet vs strip, it's all the same meat, but very different, and cooks differently too.

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#36

I would say 10%-15% is lost to insurance fraud. A lot of times when the crop yield is less than 50% of expected yield farmers will just disc the fields and claim 100% loss.

Source? Do the crop insurance companies not go out and verify the claim? Do they not correlate crop loss with other events in the area (flooding, high winds)?

It was just conjecture on what I grew up around. They do go and verify the claim but most of the time they won't fault the farmers if the field is already reseeded after all they need to make sure the cover crop comes in good if the main crop failed. There's a lot of insurance fraud in agriculture mostly because the companies don't have the resources to go and check every farm. And to your final point they do correlate it to natural disasters, those events are rarely as catastrophic as they're reported though.

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#37
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days it's mostly an economic thing. Food's there but some people don't have money to buy it. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-fac...

That link (at least, the section you linked because I didn't read the entire page) doesn't say anything about it being economic, it just gives the numbers and even goes to show that we've apparently been making progress in reducing world hunger. Also, it's kind of a good thing for economic causes to be producing excess. The other option is to be under-producing (because 100% efficiency is a pretty hard target to hit,…

Ah sorry, I couldn't link properly. The bit I meant was:

>What are the causes of hunger?

>What are the causes of hunger is a fundamental question, with varied answers.

>Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people’s lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. As of 2015 (2011 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were just over 1 billion poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less...

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#38
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree there's not a shortage problem. We are who definitely need to change our mentality. As an individual customers, not wanting only the pretty and shiny ones. As a company, by not wanting only max profit disregarding environment harm. Considering that this may never happen, it would be good if there would be no logistic issues/transportation costs (maybe subsidized by the government?) in order to ship this perfe…

" Six months were passed and it was still looking pretty and shiny." Given the right conditions, it's not a problem for apples to stay fresh for a long time. We usually keep apples, grown in our own garden without any "chemicals", through the winter in a cellar or attic. Not sure if it work for all kinds of apples though.

The big orchards store apples in "controlled atmosphere" rooms, and they keep quite well for many months. (Anecdotally true from shopping at Bishop's Orchards in Guilford, CT.)

http://modernfarmer.com/2013/08/the-science-of-cold-apple-st...

Re: Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

#39

"I would say at times there is 25% of the crop that is just thrown away or fed to cattle" One of these is waste, one not. Perhaps their definition of waste needs to be reviewed.

It's a waste if that is not an efficient way to feed cattle. There's a reason we don't grow watermelons intentionally as cattle feed.
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