Every year 15 million tonnes of food is thrown away in the
UK; about half of which is domestic food disposed of for one reason or another.
Of this over a quarter is fruit or vegetables, ten percent dairy and twelve
percent ready meals. In the US, 40% of all food is thrown out because it has
passed its due date.[1]
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| Speaks for itself, doesn't it? Photo: freshproduce.org.uk |
Why is so much food wasted? Why is so much food thrown away
uneaten, or even unopened? There are a whole variety of reasons and there is no
single solution, but one reason may be our confusion over the variety of dates
on packaging; Best before, Use by, Display until and Sell by.
Use by dates are normally only on foods that will
deteriorate quickly; fresh items like prepared salads, fish and meat, that is
to say foods that may be harmful if eaten after the specified date, whereas Best
before dates denote that after that date the quality of the food may be
impaired although it will still normally be safe to eat. This may apply to
tinned foods in particular. Display until and Sell by dates are instructions
for retailers rather than indicators to buyers. We have developed such a paranoia
about food labelling that as soon as any of these dates have been passed we may
feel it best to err on the side of caution and throw the food out rather than
take a chance, but food labelling cannot be an exact science; food doesn’t go
off immediately the use by date is passed. A piece of meat is not like a
library book; it doesn’t expire exactly when the date on the packet says it
will; there is no internal clock in a
chop that says that at 11.59 on Thursday the meat is safe to eat but at 00.01
on Friday it is not.
I am not suggesting that use by dates be ignored but just as
you wouldn’t eat an obviously rancid piece of meat that had a use by date of
tomorrow, why throw out that perfectly edible steak that has a use by date of
yesterday? Our old friend common sense has a large part to play in deciding
whether or not food is safe to eat.
One of the dilemmas that I have, and I’m sure I am not alone
in this, is that I may buy something like some vacuum packed, sliced ham that
has a use by date on it, open the pack, use some and place the rest in a
Tupperware container in the fridge. When I next go to use it I have no idea
what the use by date was, so the thought process may go like this: “Hmm, how
long has this been here? No idea, could be a few days, I wonder if it’s OK?” I
am certain that in many households this results in perfectly good food being
thrown away because of the fear that it is off. I am as guilty as anyone of
doing so occasionally, but most times I eat it anyway (unless it is obviously unfit
to eat), so far (touch wood) without any dire consequences.
I am old enough to remember the days when food did not come
with use by or sell by dates. My parents’ generation used their experience and
common sense to decide if food was fit to eat, but then again my parents
shopped in a totally different way to how we do today. When I was very young my
mother had a fridge with a tiny icebox, large enough to store a packet of
frozen peas and little more. We did not have a freezer. By and large my mother would
shop almost every day; nowadays most families go to a supermarket once a week
and buy in bulk. Now that I am retired I have largely abandoned the weekly
shop, except for bulkier items like toilet rolls, kitchen towels, bottled water
and the like, and instead buy meat, potatoes, milk and vegetables on a daily
basis, or as needed.
The weekly shop is in my view another key reason for food
waste. When I shop at my local supermarket I see people with trolleys laden
with food enough to feed the five thousand. A lot of this will go into the
freezer I suppose, but even then how often do people look in their freezer and
realise that those chicken breasts have been there six months? Are they safe to
eat, or should we throw them out? Better not take the chance, so out they go.
Supermarkets themselves have to shoulder a significant
portion of the blame as well. Buy one, get one free (BOGOF), or half price
offers are so enticing that it is easy to buy more food than we really need. I
have occasionally bought fruit and been told at the checkout, “Oh, they are on
special offer, buy one get one free,” to which I often reply that yes, that may
be so but I can only realistically eat the one portion I have picked up before
they go off so the other pack, if I bought it, would simply rot and be thrown
out. Enticed by the prospect of something for nothing, I have, in the past
bought food which I could not eat in time and sadly thrown it away. I am sure I
am not alone. Mind you, buying in bulk, or buying larger packs is not
necessarily cheaper anyway, as I found buying teabags recently. Per bag, a pack
of 80 was more expensive than a pack of 40, so why buy the larger box?
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| Supermarkets assail shoppers with "cheap" offers, Photo: Daily Telegraph |
Then there are packet or portion sizes. We don’t eat vast
amounts of bread in our household, and as I have written before, my gluten
intolerance means that I do not eat ordinary bread anyway, but the size of
loaves of bread and packets of rolls commonly sold in supermarkets means that
in the normal course of events much of it would go stale or mouldy unless I
freeze at least half of what I buy as soon as I get home. Nonetheless I often
find myself having to throw out the last few slices from a loaf.
With the busy lives that so many people lead these days, the
temptation to do one vast weekly shop is great. Who, when they have been at
work all day, wants to do food shopping on their way home if they don’t have
to? But the weekly shop is the greatest cause of food waste in this country in
my view, because it encourages overbuying, which leads to food sitting in the
fridge unregarded until the use by date has expired. The BOGOF deals, the
supersized packets and the fact that supermarket shopping inevitably leads to impulse
purchases. Buying things because they look enticing rather than because they
are really needed has the effect of shoppers coming home with food that they
realistically have little chance of eating before it becomes inedible. This,
coupled with the tyranny of the use by date, inevitably leads to food waste, or
the consumption of food we don’t really need to eat simply to avoid it being
wasted. Perhaps this is a factor in the increase in the number of people who
are defined as clinically obese and, because of the nature of the foodstuffs
that are being over consumed, the rise in diabetes.
I am lucky in that I have more time to shop these days and
so do so more regularly; I am more likely just to buy what I need for the day
or the next couple of days. As a result I find that I throw out far less food
than I did a year ago, but even for those who by necessity must shop less
regularly, a critical examination of what is in your trolley would go a long
way to reducing the amount of food we waste every year. After all, does that
BOGOF offer save you any money, or benefit you in any way if you just throw the
second pack away uneaten?
[1] In
Boston, Mass., The Daily Table, a hybrid food store and restaurant, will now
only sell food that has passed its sell by date. See http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/359261.
Also, see the BBC website, “Five expired foods you can still eat” at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-24305902
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