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[prawn_86]

I'm not so sure about that McLovin...Perhaps "you cannot feed the current diet to the world on organic free range food at the same price..." would be more accurate.


CanOz

Saw an interesting study recently showing that half the Worlds food goes to waste. That is a combination of general household food waste, use by date laws, consumer fussiness, transport, and farm wastage from having production all come online at once.

If we could improve this figure it would go a long way to feeding more people, or feeding the current amount better

 

[bellenuit]

Fair point. But most of the GM foods I read about are designed to help grow crops in harsh environments etc.

You can't feed the world on organic, free range food.

I posted a link to this story last week on another thread. I heard it reported on ABC Radio today.

How an anti-GM activist learned the science of high-yield crops and became a campaigner for GM

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...cally-modified-crops/articleshow/18041185.cms

 

[MrBurns]

I would argue that butter is tampered with. It is after all altered milk...

What about cooking? That alters the structure of the proteins in food before we eat it, is that not manipulating 'food'? In fact one could say that cooking meat changes it from food to an ingredient if our previous quote was to be used...

What do you define as chemical manipulation? Is putting nitrogen (that has been used by the trees that should be there in the first place read farmed) back into the soil via fertiliser considered manipulation?

What I'm referring to is a paleo diet, caveman diet, eat what they did and you're on top of the world.

Very hard though, I gave up sugar for a while and lost weight, wasnt as hungry but old habits return.

Butter instead of margarine

No ice cream

No soft drinks

If it tastes sweet it's no good. etc

 

[McLovin]

I posted a link to this story last week on another thread. I heard it reported on ABC Radio today.

How an anti-GM activist learned the science of high-yield crops and became a campaigner for GM

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...cally-modified-crops/articleshow/18041185.cms

Interesting.

GM food seems to get tagged as Frankenfood but the reality is that most it is just a refined process that humans have used for hundreds of thousands of years. Take the cow for example, there was something like 100 aurochs that were domesticated all those years ago and humans have over the last few thousand years created whole new breeds of cattle with the specific purpose of milk or meat, from that single herd of 100.

 

[MrBurns]

I dont trust the multinational companies these days, they would sell their own grandmother down the drain for a dollar.

Your health ? that's the least of their concerns, they all all pwerful and buy polititians like you buy chewing gum.

Just watch your back and dont take everything at face value.

If you give up sugar alone you'll lose weight without doing anything else.

The biggest consumers of sugar in the world are Coke, Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes

 

[sptrawler]

I dont trust the multinational companies these days, they would sell their own grandmother down the drain for a dollar.

Your health ? that's the least of their concerns, they all all pwerful and buy polititians like you buy chewing gum.

Just watch your back and dont take everything at face value.

If you give up sugar alone you'll lose weight without doing anything else.

The biggest consumers of sugar in the world are Coke, Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes

Just ban Bourbon and Scotch.lol

 

[MrBurns]

Just ban Bourbon and Scotch.lol

There are exceptions, now bite your tongue.

 

[Julia]

Saw an interesting study recently showing that half the Worlds food goes to waste. That is a combination of general household food waste, use by date laws, consumer fussiness, transport, and farm wastage from having production all come online at once.

If we could improve this figure it would go a long way to feeding more people, or feeding the current amount better

I'm always blown away when I read this stat. Why is there so much waste. I rarely throw anything out.
Surely it shouldn't be beyond the capacity of most people to plan what they need to buy?

If you give up sugar alone you'll lose weight without doing anything else.

I'm pretty sure you've promoted this myth before. Just think about it, Burnsie: if you ate no sugar at all, but rather consumed great amounts of starchy carbohydrates (think pasta, fried chips, heaps of butter and oil with all of it) I can assure you that you'd still gain weight unless you were extremely physically active.

Just not true to suggest the absence of any one food component will mean weight will not be gained.

 

[MrBurns]

I'm pretty sure you've promoted this myth before. Just think about it, Burnsie: if you ate no sugar at all, but rather consumed great amounts of starchy carbohydrates (think pasta, fried chips, heaps of butter and oil with all of it) I can assure you that you'd still gain weight unless you were extremely physically active.

Just not true to suggest the absence of any one food component will mean weight will not be gained.

It's not a myth I've done it and it works.
If you give up sugar you wont want to eat those other foods you mention.
Try it.

 

[Smurf1976]

Surely it shouldn't be beyond the capacity of most people to plan what they need to buy?

I also very rarely throw anything out, and if I do it's because there's something wrong with it.

Things are very different overall however. There is some waste in production and processing. Shops throw huge amounts of food away - not sure exactly how much but I know that it's significant. Likewise many restaurants etc too.

Then there's consumers, some of whom seem to believe that a "use by date" means literally that. Most people would know that there's nothing likely to be wrong with a bag of chips (for example) that's a month out of date but there are people who would actually throw it away. With few exceptions (milk comes to mind), those dates are a very broad indication at best and should be treated as such.

 

[sptrawler]

Well I've come up with a magic solution to all this food wastage and garbage.
It is a huge world wide problem, in the past Australia has been put forward as a place for nuclear waste dumping.
I think that is unfounded as we don't even have nuclear generation.
However, if you think about it and I'm sure Bob Brown would support it.
Why not have all the waste food and garbage dropped off between Australia and Indonesia, re establishing the land bridge that existed when the Aboriginals came?
It would have to save lives with the treacherous boat crossings and proccessing would be easier, also most countries are trying to find new areas to get rid of garbage.
There you go another win win situation.

 

[prawn_86]

I'm always blown away when I read this stat. Why is there so much waste. I rarely throw anything out.
Surely it shouldn't be beyond the capacity of most people to plan what they need to buy?

I also very rarely throw anything out, and if I do it's because there's something wrong with it.

Things are very different overall however. There is some waste in production and processing. Shops throw huge amounts of food away - not sure exactly how much but I know that it's significant. Likewise many restaurants etc too.

Then there's consumers, some of whom seem to believe that a "use by date" means literally that. Most people would know that there's nothing likely to be wrong with a bag of chips (for example) that's a month out of date but there are people who would actually throw it away. With few exceptions (milk comes to mind), those dates are a very broad indication at best and should be treated as such.

Part of it is as Smurf says, but the vast majority of waste occurs either on the farm or on the way to the shop. For one, farmers will generally only pick the best part of their crops, leaving some waste for those marked, blemished etc. This then happens again in the packing shed. Then there will be spoilage during transport also.

Another big issue is the fact that crops all come online at once causing a glut, meaning a lot of product is simply left and not sold as the prices have dropped below cost of production/harvesting. I have seen hundreds of tonnes of grapes and oranges simply picked onto the ground as prices were too low, and that was just in one tiny country town i lived in. In fact i even toyed with the idea of starting a charity to take advantage of this, but between food regulation laws and trying to convince transport companies to move it for free it has so far fallen in the too hard basket, hopefully some other time i will have more money to devote to it.

 

[MrBurns]

If you've every been the to US you'll see that global hunger sould be completely eliminated if they could just harvest the left over chips discarded from their monstrous meals.

 

[McLovin]

I'm not so sure about that McLovin...Perhaps "you cannot feed the current diet to the world on organic free range food at the same price..." would be more accurate.


CanOz

There's two parts to your statement. First off, is it possible to feed 7 billion people if you take away pesticides and high intensity farming? Secondly, given the majority of the world's population live in serious poverty, isn't price the deciding factor as to whether someone lives or starves to death? The amount of food eaten in rich countries is the outlier not the norm.

 

[pixel]

Part of it is as Smurf says, but the vast majority of waste occurs either on the farm or on the way to the shop. For one, farmers will generally only pick the best part of their crops, leaving some waste for those marked, blemished etc. This then happens again in the packing shed. Then there will be spoilage during transport also.

Another big issue is the fact that crops all come online at once causing a glut, meaning a lot of product is simply left and not sold as the prices have dropped below cost of production/harvesting. I have seen hundreds of tonnes of grapes and oranges simply picked onto the ground as prices were too low, and that was just in one tiny country town i lived in. In fact i even toyed with the idea of starting a charity to take advantage of this, but between food regulation laws and trying to convince transport companies to move it for free it has so far fallen in the too hard basket, hopefully some other time i will have more money to devote to it.

very noble ideas, prawn, and I sincerely commend you for your plans.

... and then: what?
Let's say you succeed and get the tons of blemished apples to a place where children are starving because nothing is growing in their region, their parents haven't got jobs, and administration is corrupt.
Forget the "food miles" so many green idealists go on about. Forget also the fact that apples and grapes are not what dieticians would call a balanced diet. Let's also assume you get enough food there to feed them for a month. What will happen? I'll tell you: The population will get used to free food. Jobs will still not be forthcoming because you haven't changed the climate in their region. You'll be expected and feel obliged to continue feeding the hungry mouths for free. Even more so, because 8 or 9 months later, a new lot of hungry mouths will have been added.

So, export the people to those agricultural areas and let them pick the blemished fruit themselves. That would give them jobs and reduce the cost for logistics, right? For a small number, that may be true. However, in their new environment, the lucky immigrants will not be happy to live off food scraps: they will want to have housing, indoor plumbing, consume all the other resources they see their neighbours enjoy. Which limits the number you can help in that way, and the Millions you had to leave behind will still be not much better off. Worse: they will soon fill the numbers you saved, and the cycle will repeat.

 

[prawn_86]

very noble ideas, prawn, and I sincerely commend you for your plans.

... and then: what?
.

Probably going way off topic but i was thinking more along the lines of keeping it here in Aus and giving fruit like oranges to charities that already have soup vans/food delivery etc and also to schools so kids can have something healthy to eat for free.

Many packing sheds throw out plenty of fruit that is fine to eat, just blemished or not perfect hence supermarkets wont accept it, but i am sure a kid here in Aud would, or someone on the streets would.

As i said for now it is unfortunately in the too hard basket due to food regulations and other issues

 

[McLovin]

Saw an interesting study recently showing that half the Worlds food goes to waste. That is a combination of general household food waste, use by date laws, consumer fussiness, transport, and farm wastage from having production all come online at once.

If we could improve this figure it would go a long way to feeding more people, or feeding the current amount better

Yeah but watch people start complaining when shelves are bare in the interest of reducing waste. People want choice. In a free market, if you turn up at the local fruit and veg place and are told "sorry, we're out of apples, come back tomorrow" you'll go elsewhere.

 

[Calliope]

If you have ever bought stone fruit at Coles I am sure you will not do it again. So they must throw most of it out. The one exception is the Tasmanian cherries, they are brilliant.

At the fruit shop I support, the stone fruit and the mangoes are excellent and cheap this year.

 

[MrBurns]

If you have ever bought stone fruit at Coles I am sure you will not do it again. So they must throw most of it out. The one exception is the Tasmanian cherries, they are brilliant.

At the fruit shop I support, the stone fruit and the mangoes are excellent and cheap this year.

Coles fruit is pig swill.

 

[pixel]

Yeah but watch people start complaining when shelves are bare in the interest of reducing waste. People want choice. In a free market, if you turn up at the local fruit and veg place and are told "sorry, we're out of apples, come back tomorrow" you'll go elsewhere.

It also becomes a matter of supply vs demand again. (sorry for re-introducing Economics 101)

If the fruiterers and supermarkets give food away because it's just over use-by date or slightly blemished, they would increase the supply into the still limited demand. A large number of consumers would accept the free hand-outs, further reducing the price that shops can pay the growers of such produce.

It's for that reason that you must either dump (as happens now) or export the excess supply. Sadly, the latter will result in all the negative effects I outlined earlier.