Food Not Bombs
I did my first Food Not Bombs a few days ago. I’d never thought I’d ever be involved with anything like this; if you turned to me a few years ago and told me I’d be chopping 50 onions for one of the biggest strikes in the past 100 years, I wouldn’t believe you.
Food Not Bombs started in the 1990s in the US to highlight food wastage and the politics of food; why is that so many people go hungry when so much food goes to waste? Why is it we spend so much on war when people are dying from starvation?
Did you know that a third of all our food ends up being thrown away? Or that 18 million tonnes of food ends up in a landfill, which amounts to the value of £23 billion, and the price is rapidly skyrocketing because of global food inflation? Then, think of all that food, and think of the people going hungry internationally. One in twelve people are starving all over the world and 15 million children die a year of hunger. The cost is phenomenal. I found out these statistics before I embarked on my Food Not Bombs and I twiddled with my thumbs in the co-operative vegetarian shop, Hungry Planet, as I awaited for people to show up.
I was gobsmacked at the food they brought. The food from Foot Not Bombs comes primarily from skipping, which is the practice of going into bins and finding food. You know those large Ikea bags, the blue ones you can buy at the store? Onions, garlic, a litre of olive oil, potatoes, rocket, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, olives, you name it, they found it. They came back with five of those, all filled to the brim with food. In addition, there were a few carrier bags full of bread. I was under the impression that any food the supermarket throws away usually had to be thrown away, eliminating the danger of being ill from diseased food. This isn’t the truth. Much of the food they throw out is edible but because of protocol they have to throw it out; many supermarkets even go to the length of pouring bleach over the food they throw away. Sure, I can understand throwing out perishable foods, like milk, and cheese, but seriously, flour takes years to go bad as do many spices.
I had a friend who was a Freegan, somebody who lived off food they found that had been discarded. He once told me that he found a box of wine that had been thrown out because one had smashed en route and the red wine within it had marred the labels of the other bottles. Damaged cereal boxes, but the cereal was fine. Damaged cans of tomatoes they threw out, but perfectly edibile. The absurdity of sell-by dates on foods like harissa and of potatoes. When I thought about it, lots of the food I buy doesn’t go off when it says it does. It can keep for much longer than that, as long I handle them well ; e.g. potatoes and onions in a dark place, keep bananas in the fridge, regularly wash peppers. Now imagine all of the waste that we could avoid using common sense. Now think about it on a larger scale with the tight regulations of the government; they say a third of food waste is made by consumers, a third by producers, and a third by the corporate chain, like supermarkets.
Around ten of us were at Food Not Bombs. We all chopped, skinned, peeled and much more, after deciding on the dish we were going to make, vegetarian burgers. I wasn’t there to give them out to the picketing teachers or the demonstrators, but I’m sure they went down well. We made at least a hundred vegetarian burgers, and all from food that would have rotted.
Info » Environment » People
News » Categories » Food & Drink
Related Article:
IMAGE: It's A Bomb! by thealmightyprophetgitboy
2 Comments – Postiwch sylw
RoLouG
Rhoddwyd sylw 10 mis yn ôl - 5th July 2011 - 16:21pm
Great article, really opened my eyes to how much food we waste on a daily basis. I am terrible for wasting food, bt i really will try to stop now!
Stormer007
Rhoddwyd sylw 10 mis yn ôl - 5th July 2011 - 18:57pm
I'm with RoLouG. I tend to waste a lot of food, but I'll do my very best to try and cut down. Thank you for another great article! You articles are always very enlightnening =)