On the day in which begins the FAO summit in Rome, (the UN organization that deals with nutrition and agriculture in the world), it makes sense to talk about a book (which have been published few months ago in Italy) that takes care of food wastage: Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal. The book, edited by Bruno Mondadori Editore, talks about the life choice of Tristram Stuart: living from others' leftovers.
Tristram was 15 years old when he became interested in food waste. He wanted to raise a pig, so he decided to save money and feed it with scraps collected at the school canteen. "There I began to realize how much food is thrown away every day."
The fifteen years old had a brainwave one day before going to school: he tried the organic bread discarded that he usually gave to the pigs and found that it was better than the one he ate at home and that he had bought at the supermarket.
Since then everything changed and Tristram began to eat food almost exclusively recovered from supermarkets and rubbish bins. And he did not make any sacrifice because, as he recounted in the book, between 30 and 40% of food produced by the food chain, still perfectly edible, it is discarded and destroyed.
Tristram is eating not bad food, he is eating what is still good but eliminated from the production and distribution chain. So he can eat ready meals because they prepared too many of them, bread or yogurt close to the deadline but not yet due, or fruits and vegetables, not glossy, oversized or dented that on the shelves of supermarket won't attract the consumer. It seems crazy to think that all this food is thrown away. But it is within the normal management of supermarkets.
The figure seems even more absurd if compared to one billion and 20 million individuals suffering from malnutrition and that during a day are not even able to eat the yogurt we are throwing away. Tristram admits he has not chosen to live this way to challenge the capitalist society, as do many Freeganism, "nor to save, except perhaps when I was a student, but for ecological passion. The best container for me is the empty one".
According to Tristram one of the reasons for waste increasing is the offer "pick 3 and pay 2." Millions of families rush to buy them to save money and then they end up to throw away at least one of the three packs. Simply because they do not actually need it. In Italy we throw every year on average 27 pounds of food per person and we are of the virtuous in comparison to the Americans becuase they throw almost half the food they buy.
The author has traveled the world far and wide to write this book and he welcomed the "poor" Italian dishes , those who are still in the old taverns, from tripe to tails until the beef tongue, examples of how in the past there were less waste of food.
The same attention that has another Italian project, a case that Tristram knows very well. It's the last minute market, a research project of the University of Bologna, founded in 2003 thanks to Prof. Andrea Segrè, dean of the Faculty of Agriculture. The last minute market collects the "waste" of supermarkets, of canteens, of schools and then it redistributes them to those in need. Only between January and September 2009, the recovery of food was of 890 tons, equivalent to almost three million euro and one million and eight hundred thousand meals.
Another demonstration, if the choice of life of Tristram Stuart is not yet enough, that our purchases are never aware. So the next time we are in a supermarket it would be better asking "Will I eat it?" before putting the package into the shopping cart. Perhaps mindful of the billion people for whom a bowl of yoghurt, even expired, looks like a mirage.
Marianna Lepore
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ringrazio Marianna Lepore