Britons must stop wasting food in an effort to help combat rising living costs
Well it does kind of make sense. Supply and demand etc etc. It's partially to do with the floods and weather last year but if there's a
shortage of food (hence wheat prices etc) it would help if we didn't waste quite so much!!!
I think the only slightly amusing thing is the way we keep on hearing of "economic cooling", "rising living costs" and other
euphamisms.
Still, you know what they say. When someone else loses their house- it's a recession. When you lose your house- it's a depression.....
Supermarkets are one of the biggest food wasters, years ago unsold/bad food used to go for pig feed now its just chucked in a hole in the ground.
Theres nowt wrong with most of it anyroad.
Cheers,
Bob
I never throw food out, I have two big gready dogs who stare at my dinner when I'm eating and rake through the rubbish bags incase they missed
something 
Stand by for VAT on food, rationing and fat-police stopping people in the street to measure their BMI.
There seems to be no aspect of our lives that this government doesn't want to regulate. If Brown had said "we want to encourage people to
waste less" I would go along with it. But it's the "must stop" that worries me.
We used to behave in a civilised manner because we knew it was right - now, if we do, it's because we will be fined otherwise. The whole idea of
personal responsibility is being destroyed by government dirigism.
No doubt they will come up with legislation that fines us for wasting food - then the poor will suffer if they do while the rich won't need to
worry because they can afford it.
[Edited on 8/7/08 by Macbeast]
yeah but it is not as if the wastage of food is a recent phenomena?
hahaha this one makes me laugh.
I'm sure my family is the same as many other and we perhaps throw away when its gone manck and mouldy, otherwise we also scrape of the mould or
pick it out the jam pot! best before dates are a common laughing point in my house, so the figure of £400 odd quid per family per year that has thrown
around by the govrnment must mean there are some who must throw away HUGE amounts of food!!!
Also - food shortage! haha. I saw on BBC news Yesterday that acres of farmland are to be turned back into wetlands for the birds and the bees and to
stop climate change as the climate is out of control (and when exactly was it IN control!!??) ROTFL
Oh and america is to fund Africa so it grow crops for export - hang on i thought that that is where the problem of mass starvation is - why would they
want to send it of the country!! (i know $$$ but i'm making my point!)
Look, lets get rid of Mugabi and go from there...
[Edited on 8/7/08 by iscmatt]
Although i dislike Brown massively it does annoy me at the way that the media report things like this.
The comment that he made about not wasting food was about one sentance in a 5 minute plus briefing. The media has siezed upon this one comment and
have persisted in quoting it out of context.
Sorry for the rant but the media make me even madder than the politicians some times.
.....for the record though i think we do waste too much food in the west.
quote:
Originally posted by 02GF74
Britons must stop wasting food in an effort to help combat rising living costs
supermarkets are to blame in part for this. lots of fresh things packaged in huge quantities that you cant hope to use. we cook with fresh stuff most
days and even we cant use the huge bags of some veg they insist on selling. unless you ate it every day for a week you just have to waste some. making
soups is the only way around it, but i know that not every one has this much time.
we allowed them to destroy all the small shops where you could go and buy just what you needed, then they seduced us with unrealistic prices for kilos
of just about to go off produce thats got more airmiles than me by forcing low prices on local producers.
anyway food isnt really expensive, if it was we'd all treat it like our grandparents did, not an ounce to be wasted, and everything re used. they
understoodd the value of food, and in real terms it was a lot more expensive than it is today.
i remember my grandma not throwing away a scrap of pastry after the pie was made and making something else with it. its that kind of attitude we need
to get back to. spend more time on that, and cars and less time in front psps and tv.
god i sound old.....
I think it's well recognized that supermarkets chuck out too much perfectly good food. My local supermarket chucks out loads of food into a big skip in the car park. I've not infrequently seen people skip-diving to get out some just-past-the-sell-by-date goodies. I've never been tempted myself though but it does seem a waste...
I blame all these do gooder removing preservatives from food! In the good old days food actually lasted so you didn't throw it away...
I now find that a loaf of bread is pointless because it never lasts more than 48 hours before it starts going mouldy!
Bring back preservatives!!! - actually I'm serious - bring them back! it's costing me a fortune in wasted food!
This was on the radio last night. Apparently, last night's meal at the G8 was an 8 course affair. I hope he cleared his plate!
quote:
Originally posted by DaveFJ
II now find that a loaf of bread is pointless because it never lasts more than 48 hours before it starts going mouldy!
it's still fine though
thats my point - since when did everyhting have to go in the fridge!
I don't have room in there for loaves of bread!
You used to expect a loaf to last a week in a bread bin...
Nowadays things like Jam and tomato sauce have no preservatives and are expected to be kept in the fridge also...
I even pickled onions say on the jar - keep in fridge once opened..theyre pickled ffs!
This sort of generalisation really annoys me - we rarely throw food away in our house, ever.
1. We buy what we need, when we need it.
2. If we happen to have any surplus, it's made into something then frozen for later eating.
3. We mostly buy fresh ingredients from local farm shops and butchers, so very little packaging waste and spoilage.
Apart from not wasting stuff, we also know exactly what goes into our food (salt, fat, & so on).
[Edited on 8/7/08 by David Jenkins]
Use-by dates are a major culprit - too many people, especially younger people (women, dare I say it) are obsessed by these and seem to be incapable of
using their eyes or nose to determine whether food is ok.
We buy mainly from local butcher, fishmonger and smallholder so no use-by dates to obsess over.
As students, we used to regularly skip-dive at supermarkets and it was incredible the amount of perfectly good food that they slung out. This used to
be given out to homeless charities etc but I suppose it was stopped on some idiotic H+S grounds, so it was left to us students and the junkies of West
London to fight it out in the Fulham Tesco's carpark :-)
Nick
it was you was it!!
you owe me a bag of muffins! ggrrrr......
we as a family don't get chance to bin much food not with two growing kids they can clear a full fridge in an hour easy ........ if thats all
he can come up with .. knife crime running out of control petrol prices sky high ...... Browns a knob and his days are numbered
We make our own bread 5 loaves at a time and freeze it, lasts all week. I've just made a curry from Sundays left over beef joint and it was enough for today and tomorrow. I made spicy pickled onions at Christmas and we are still eating them, they get better with age and last years tomatoes that didn't ripen are now chutney. Who is it that's wasting food?
Nobody gets taught how to cook using basic ingredients any more...
I do a lot of cooking, and enjoy doing it. My wife does the cakes 'cos I'm rubbish at them, but I'll have a go at most other stuff.
Thinking about most of the responses here - maybe the sorts of people who would make their own car are the sorts of people who'd cheerfully cook
their own food? Do their own DIY? And so on?
[Edited on 8/7/08 by David Jenkins]
When I heard this yesterday I guessed the next part of the argument that was to come.Sure enough on the news this morning there was something about
prices of some foods such as meat need to go up to reflect the damage they are doing to the enviroment.I suspect this could come in the form of VAT on
meat etc or some similiar stealth way of fleecing us.
Paul.
quote:
Originally posted by woodster
we as a family don't get chance to bin much food not with two growing kids they can clear a full fridge in an hour easy
When this 'waste food' story was reported on the BBC news last night, I particularly liked how part of it was presented infront of the
tables as they were cleared after a meal by the GT leaders - the amount of left over food was astonishing. Leading by example - I think not.
Waste food You have got to be kidding , I can barely afford enough to eat once I've put petrol in my car
funny how the government is moving blame to the consumer and not for the extortionate fuel prices which have compounded costs and resulted in farmers seeking revenue from alternative means. Well that politics for u
quote:
Originally posted by clairetoo
Waste food
Hmmm... VAT on food... now why didn't I think of that!
Thanks Ladies and Gents.. must go now and update the new budget
If you have any other good money spinning ideas (taxing ideas) then keep them coming!
[Edited on 9/7/08 by Gordon Brown]
before long we will have the tax tax which will be a 100% tax on all tax paid, this might go some way to reducing the UKs debt of ~£200bn as since old gordy sold off all the gold reserves we have bleep all else!
Excellent idea! keep 'em coming!
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Brown
Excellent idea!