Expiration Date Fraud.... 263 million LBs of food every single day go to waste

[singular_me]

while spending a few days in Manhattan I found this today in my email box... so not only the foods we found in most stores are unhealthy but we waste them daily.... this shows how amok the system clearly is. We not only have an industry based on profits causing scarcity but the latter also condones the destruction of production. Expiration dates are truly designed to help $ervice the supply side (aka big corporations), eventually all frauds surface. So much for the overpopulation-not-enough-food theories....

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Even though 47 million Americans are on food stamps and millions of children go to bed hungry in this country every single night, we continue to waste approximately 263 million pounds of food every single day of the year. In fact, that there is enough food produced now to feed everyone. - http://www.endhunger.org/usa_hunger.htm


A 2004 study showed that forty to fifty per cent of all food ready for harvest in the United States never gets eaten. - See more at: http://www.endhunger.org/food_waste.htm#sthash.3ccIHDfR.dpuf



Well, according to a recent Seattle Times article, “food waste” takes up more space in our landfills than anything else does… Some $900 million of expired food is dumped from the supply chain annually, much of it a result of confusion. Misinterpreted date labels cause the average American household of four to lose as much as $455 a year on squandered food, according to researchers......
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021850636_foodwastexml.html


A 2008 report on the relationship between food waste and water waste indicated that less-developed countries experience significant food losses and spoilage. - See more at: http://www.endhunger.org/food_waste.htm#sthash.3ccIHDfR.dpuf

[Son-of-Liberty]

That is a very good point. I knew that expiration dates were artificially low but I never thought about it in this way.

When people try and justify industrial production and GMO crops to "feed the world" I laugh. There is no shortage of food.

When you break down why people go hungry it is because they have no money to buy food, they can't compete for it in the market.

Why don't they have money?

It usually boils down to some sort of government interference in their lives that either makes it impossible for them to produce or keep the wealth they have produced.

[singular_me]

right - this is staggering-crazy news, to this lets add corporations lobbying congress to massively increase food stamps allowance... a path of no return.

[madfranks]

While I don't make a habit out of eating foods beyond their noted expiration dates, I've never gotten sick from doing so.

[Jewboo]

http://blog.nola.com/news_impact/2008/09/large_10FoodStamps07__4344131.jpg
Thousands in southeast Louisiana line up for food stamps (http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/thousands_in_southeast_louisia.html)




Fat Americans still line up for more "free" food even though they can't possibly be actually hungry.


:rolleyes: God forbid they eat day old "expired" bread

[Libertytree]

I've always thought/knew that exp dates are a crock of shit and not just for food either. There's been a couple periods in my life that I survived by buying meat, bread and misc that was outdated, back then they'd sell it at a discount but now they won't sell it at all.

[chad]

i just went through a whole case of stuff i missed in my food rotation, everything in it expired in 2008. we're all still alive.

[woodman]

I've always thought/knew that exp dates are a crock of shit and not just for food either. There's been a couple periods in my life that I survived by buying meat, bread and misc that was outdated, back then they'd sell it at a discount but now they won't sell it at all.

I once worked at a Kroger grocery store just north of Dallas Texas. I was the dairy man. When stuff like cheese or milk would get near or out of date, they would let me mark it down to get rid of it quick. I guess the thinking was "Better to get a little money than none." I'd mark 8 ounce packages of cheese down to 20 cents and gallons of milk way down too. They did tell me that it was illegal to take food out of the dumpsters, but I know people did it anyway.

I have hogs and chickens and a lot of that out of date food that gets thrown out would come in pretty handy.

[mick silver]

i just went through a whole case of stuff i missed in my food rotation, everything in it expired in 2008. we're all still alive. same here . just made a big pot of veg soup

[Libertytree]

I once worked at a Kroger grocery store just north of Dallas Texas. I was the dairy man. When stuff like cheese or milk would get near or out of date, they would let me mark it down to get rid of it quick. I guess the thinking was "Better to get a little money than none." I'd mark 8 ounce packages of cheese down to 20 cents and gallons of milk way down too. They did tell me that it was illegal to take food out of the dumpsters, but I know people did it anyway.

I have hogs and chickens and a lot of that out of date food that gets thrown out would come in pretty handy.

Krogers is the market I was doing this at, it was great, not to mention that's where I met my wife. Here in Fl at the Publix they won't do any of that, it's really a shame.

[Neuro]

i just went through a whole case of stuff i missed in my food rotation, everything in it expired in 2008. we're all still alive.
You were lucky!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXe1a1wHxTyo

[singular_me]

sure fresh foods wont go beyond the expiration dates.... unless they are cooked/frozen. to think of all this wasted foods is discombobulating and upsetting as supermakets cannot have a special aisle with freezers (for the so-called outdated items, which they could sell for much less) because that would cause a major economic crash....

[Hatha Sunahara]

So when I hear the elite claiming that the planet doesn't have the capacity to support all the people we have, I have to stick out my middle finger. There's plenty of food. Nobody should go hungry. There is some deficiency in the distribution system or the marketing system that encourages such waste. I think it's like everything else that is regulated by the government--the policies send the wrong signals, and it creates economic dislocations everywhere. Government policies favor profitability for corporations, and no benefits for consumers. Why can't we have raw milk?


Hatha

[singular_me]

and there is more... the figures below maybe be very conservative...

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Stop food waste

About 90 million tonnes of food is wasted annually in Europe - agricultural food waste and fish discards not included.

About a third of the food for human consumption is wasted globally - around 1.3 billion tons per year, according to FAO;

Food waste in industrialized countries is as high as in developing countries:
◾ In developing countries, over 40% of food losses happen after harvest and during processing;
◾In industrialised countries, over 40% occurs at retail and consumer level.

Food is wasted throughout the whole food chain – from farmers to consumers – and for various reasons.
http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/sustainability/


Causes of food waste

Food is wasted throughout the entire food chain: by farmers, by the food industry, by retailers, by caterers and by consumers. The reasons are diverse and sector specific.

The main causes are:
◾Lack of awareness, lack of shopping planning, confusion about "best before" and" use by" date labels, lack of knowledge on how to cook with leftovers (households).
◾Standard portion sizes, difficulty to anticipate the number of clients (catering);
◾ Stock management inefficiencies, marketing strategies (2 for 1, buy 1 get 1 free), aesthetic issues (retail);
◾Overproduction, product & packaging damage (farmers and food manufacturing);
◾Inadequate storage (whole food chain);
◾Inadequate packaging.

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Parliament calls for urgent measures to halve food wastage in the EU
Up to 50% of edible and healthy food gets wasted in EU households, supermarkets, restaurants and along the food supply chain each year, while 79 million EU citizens live beneath the poverty line and 16 million depend on food aid from charitable institutions. Parliament called in a resolution adopted on Thursday for urgent measures to halve food waste by 2025 and to improve access to food for needy EU citizens.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20120118IPR35648/html/Parliament-calls-for-urgent-measures-to-halve-food-wastage-in-the-EU

[kiffertom]

im the king of eating expired foods! we have a dented can store where you can get stuff up to more than half off! how about irradiating our foods? they would last for a long time!