Since Reporting Nazi Blogs Doesn’t Seem To Work…

Orange ball!! ORANGE BALL!!

Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

The demand for ‘perfect’ fruit and veg means much is discarded, damaging the climate and leaving people hungry

Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a “cult of perfection”, deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment. By one government tally, about 60m tonnes of produce worth about $160bn (£119bn), is wasted by retailers and consumers every year - one third of all foodstuffs. 

But that is just a “downstream” measure. In more than two dozen interviews, farmers, packers, wholesalers, truckers, food academics and campaigners described the waste that occurs “upstream”: scarred vegetables regularly abandoned in the field to save the expense and labour involved in harvest. Or left to rot in a warehouse because of minor blemishes that do not necessarily affect freshness or quality. 

When added to the retail waste, it takes the amount of food lost close to half of all produce grown, experts say.

Retail giants argue that they are operating in consumers’ best interests, according to food experts. “A lot of the waste is happening further up the food chain and often on behalf of consumers, based on the perception of what those consumers want,” said Roni Neff, the director of the food system environmental sustainability and public health programme at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore.

“Fruit and vegetables are often culled out because they think nobody would buy them,” she said.

But Roger Gordon, who founded the Food Cowboy startup to rescue and re-route rejected produce, believes that the waste is built into the economics of food production. Fresh produce accounts for 15% of supermarket profits, he argued.

“If you and I reduced fresh produce waste by 50% like [the US agriculture secretary] Vilsack wants us to do, then supermarkets would go from [a] 1.5% profit margin to 0.7%,” he said. “And if we were to lose 50% of consumer waste, then we would lose about $250bn in economic activity that would go away.”

The farmers and truckers interviewed said they had seen their produce rejected on flimsy grounds, but decided against challenging the ruling with the US department of agriculture’s dispute mechanism for fear of being boycotted by powerful supermarket giants. They also asked that their names not be used.

“I can tell you for a fact that I have delivered products to supermarkets that was [sic] absolutely gorgeous and because their sales were slow, the last two days they didn’t take my product and they sent it back to me,” said the owner of a mid-size east coast trucking company.

“They will dig through 50 cases to find one bad head of lettuce and say: ‘I am not taking your lettuce when that lettuce would pass a USDA inspection.’ But as the farmer told you, there is nothing you can do, because if you use the Paca [Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act of 1930] on them, they are never going to buy from you again. “Are you going to jeopardise $5m in sales over an $8,000 load?”

Massive food waste is based into capitalist agriculture. If the vast majority of the food produced in America’s farms was brought to market, it would drive prices down rapidly, threatening the profits of retailers. Less than 1% of this surplus food ever reaches the mouths of the hungry. 

quilt by Chinami Terai

Kings & Beggars - Breve regnum (15th century student son from Krakow)

Breve regnum erigitur, 

Sublimatum deprimitur 

Et depressum elabitur 

 Transmutato tempore.

Puerilem militiam,

Perargutam peritiam,

Regentium industriam,

Hanc eduxit in opere.

Cracoviensem filium,

Fulgentem velut lilium

Ac de numero milium

Cunctis praeferendum

Octo dierum spatium

Hoc sustinet solatium,

Post hoc regis palatium

Plagis feriendum.

Namque regis electio

 Fit studii neglectio

 Ac desolatur lectio 

 Tota septimana

[ID Photos of a small painted clay sculpture of a horse with simplified features with short pointed legs, small rounded tail, and in a standing pose with an arched neck. It is painted to look like prehistoric cave art. Each photo shows a different angle. End ID]

Holy shit dude

This sounds like... really important? What the FUCK Disney??

“the submarine trip was stupid and rooted in classism”, “it’s absolutely hideous how much more manpower was put into saving and reporting on them vs the 500 migrants who died in a similar horrible fashion”, and “despite their actions, no human being (especially not a nineteen year old) should deserve to die like this, especially when their death will not actually herald any positive change/abolishment of the billionaire class” are three thoughts than can and should coexist. you don’t have to mourn their deaths, but you don’t need to celebrate them, either.

you should always be careful when you fall back asleep again after waking up because sometimes you will just have a pleasant little snooze but sometimes you'll get trapped in TIME PRISON. unfortunately there is no way to predict this.