{"id":220422,"date":"2022-10-10T12:01:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T11:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=220422"},"modified":"2022-09-29T04:51:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T03:51:49","slug":"go-and-tell-the-hungry-that-their-food-is-being-thrown-in-the-garbage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/10\/go-and-tell-the-hungry-that-their-food-is-being-thrown-in-the-garbage\/","title":{"rendered":"Go and Tell the Hungry That Their Food Is Being Thrown in the Garbage"},"content":{"rendered":"

28 Sep 2022 – <\/em>These are facts, not guesses: about 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted and lost\u2026 every single year, the equivalent of one ton per each of the one billion hungry people, many of them are those who produced the food.<\/p>\n

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Controlling the loss and waste of food is a crucial factor in reaching the goal of eradicating hunger in the world. Credit: FAO<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The findings have been reported by the World Bank<\/a>, whose recent study: What a Waste 2.0<\/a> also informs that the number of wasted calories \u201ccould fill hunger gaps in the developing world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On this, it reports on the breakdown of the number of calories wasted per day and per person \u2013out of the recommended 2.000\u2013 : 1.520 calories in rich North America and Oceania \u2013of which 61% are by their consumers\u2013, and 748 wasted calories in wealthy Europe.<\/p>\n

With a much bigger population than Europe, a similar amount of calories is reported as wasted in industrialised Asia (746), compared to 414 in South and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

Subsaharan Africa and Central Asia register 545 wasted calories per person and day, and Latin America 453, according to the World Bank\u2019s report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For its part, the United Nations, on the occasion of this year\u2019s International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction<\/a>, on 29 September, reports that reducing food losses and waste is essential in a world where the number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise since 2014, and tons and tons of edible food are lost and\/or wasted \u2026 every day.<\/p>\n

How is the food of the hungry being wasted?<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

Two main reasons lay behind such food waste and loss. One of them is attributed to inadequate transport and storage facilities in developing countries.<\/p>\n

But the major one is the rules imposed by the markets.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the dominating marketing, the profit-making technique consists of selecting part of the crops while discarding great amounts of food, just because they are \u201cugly,\u201d \u201cnot nice\u201d in the eyes of the consumers.<\/p>\n

This way, millions of tons of potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, lemons, apples, pears, peaches, grapes\u2026 are every day left in the field or thrown in landfills, while millions of litres of milk and millions of eggs are dumped in the sea just to reduce their availability in the supermarkets, therefore raising their prices, and this way make more money.<\/p>\n

Another market rule is to attract consumers with \u201cspecial\u201d offers, such as \u201cbuy one, take two\u201d or more, while advertising their products as natural,\u201d biological, grown in the field, etc. Other foods are presented as gluten and lactose-free; zero added sugar, more Omegas, more healthy\u2026 and cheaper.<\/p>\n

Add that they fix tight \u201cexpiration date\u201d and this way, pushing consumers to dump the extra amount of food they are induced to purchase just to take advantage of such \u201cspecial\u201d offers.<\/p>\n

The consequences<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n