Food Glorious Food

[jambutty]

Recent reports have indicated that for every one pound spent on food, thirty pence worth does not get eaten and is thrown away.

Recent reports also reveal that there are millions in the world actually starving to death through not just lack of food but from its cost.

A further report – and this will please the veggies amongst us – suggests that we are not using our arable land anywhere near as efficiently as we can. The report went on to state that an acre of land growing wheat will feed more people than that same acre set aside for cattle/sheep grazing. The implication being that using land to produce meat instead of cereal/root crops is the real cause of the world food shortage. I would suggest that indiscriminate breeding also has an effect. Not forgetting the re-distribution of food or rather the lack of it.

It was also suggested that any land that can be ploughed should be used to grow food for humans and not animals. Only land that cannot be ploughed should be used as grassland for animals.

Can you see where this is going?

Enter GM crops.

And eventually the world as portrayed in the film Soylent Green where the masses got fed a ‘nutritious’ biscuit whilst the well off and their cohorts fed on proper meals.

Stop the world I want to get off.

[Margaret Pilkington]

That doesn't happen in my house...we eat what we buy.....leftover food is recycled into some other dish......if food looks alright and smells alright, we eat it. I disregard most of the Sell by dates.

[WillowTheWhisp]

Building on arable land doesn't exactly help either - nor does paying farmers not to grow anything or, as in the case of a farmer friend of mine, to grow trees instead of food.

[cashman]

another report that i consider to be a load of cobblers, virtually zilch gets thrown away in our house, these sort of reports to me are just from nerds justifying their jobs.

[jambutty]

Originally Posted by cashman

another report that i consider to be a load of cobblers, virtually zilch gets thrown away in our house, these sort of reports to me are just from nerds justifying their jobs.

Go to any tip and have a look how much food is thrown away. Better still ask the seagulls who are getting fat on the pickings. Oh! And have a good sniff as well.

The report may well be exaggerated (they usually are) but there is still a lot of substance in it.

Supermarkets throw away tons of food that has passed its sell by or should that be use by date.

Once upon a time pigs, who will eat just about anything, were fed pig swill. That being unsold food from shops and restaurants and spoiled veg from greengrocers. As I understand it, nowadays they are fed on feed that has been grown for the purpose of feeding them and virtually no pig swill. Although I am sure that there will be some pig farmers who go and collect or have delivered pig swill.

[cashman]

i probably interpreted it wrong, took it to mean every pound spent by householders, n on that basis i said its cobblers.

[polly]

Food gets waisted in our house because husband cannot be bothered to take the weeks veg out of their plastic bag, (guess what this afternoons conversation was about)
Mind you why do they put organic vegetables in a plastic bag and then in a plastic box?

Anyway, back to topic, it has been known for a long time that that the food we produce is done in an inefficient way, piling crops into animals to then kill and eat means we have to grow three times as much to produce the same amount of protein.
The most efficient method would be to grow more soya and this has the advantage of being easier to ship to poorer countries.

[Benipete]

Originally Posted by jambutty

Go to any tip and have a look how much food is thrown away. Better still ask the seagulls who are getting fat on the pickings. Oh! And have a good sniff as well.

The report may well be exaggerated (they usually are) but there is still a lot of substance in it.

Supermarkets throw away tons of food that has passed its sell by or should that be use by date.

Once upon a time pigs, who will eat just about anything, were fed pig swill. That being unsold food from shops and restaurants and spoiled veg from greengrocers. As I understand it, nowadays they are fed on feed that has been grown for the purpose of feeding them and virtually no pig swill. Although I am sure that there will be some pig farmers who go and collect or have delivered pig swill.

Not yet having lost all my marbles I tend not to indulge seagulls in meaningfull conversation.However my last conversation with a pig lead me to believe that it became illegal to feed them with swill some years ago.

[steeljack]

not sure if this is the correct thread , but most of my organic kitchen waste (potato peelings/ food scraps/coffee grounds etc.) goes down the waste disposal unit , everything apart from bones , tea-bags , and 'stringy' cabbage and celery stalks, it all ends up at the sewage works where the aerobic (sp?) digester microbes eat everything up , have several friends in the south of England who have these units in their kitchen sinks but dont know how common they are in lancashire .
sorry but just a comment

[lettie]

We tend to have far less waste in our house these days. I have stopped buying fruit and veg at supermarkets and now get everything from the market. Surprisingly, this has worked out far cheaper because we now only buy what we need. It is amazing that having to lug your spuds and veggies home without the car makes you buy less, therefore, no waste, less cost and far superior tasting fruit and veg.

[jambutty]

Originally Posted by Benipete

Not yet having lost all my marbles I tend not to indulge seagulls in meaningfull conversation.However my last conversation with a pig lead me to believe that it became illegal to feed them with swill some years ago.

If feeding swill to pigs is illegal it doesn’t surprise me. I mean why feed them for virtually free when you can force pig farmers to buy feed.

The god of money has spoken again!

[MargaretR]

Originally Posted by jambutty

If feeding swill to pigs is illegal it doesn’t surprise me. I mean why feed them for virtually free when you can force pig farmers to buy feed.

The god of money has spoken again!

The ban was imposed following a large e-coli outbreak in the north east, which was traced to pig swill from a restaurant

[jambutty]

Originally Posted by [email protected]

The ban was imposed following a large e-coli outbreak in the north east, which was traced to pig swill from a restaurant

Whilst in HMS Collingwood (Electrical Training Establishment near Fareham, Hampshire) as a sprog sailor one of my out of normal hours duties was, amongst others, the piggery. All swill was thoroughly boiled before feeding it to the pigs, allowed to cool first of course. Would e-coli survive boiling? I don’t know for sure but I doubt if it could.

Maybe some farmer decided to cut costs by not boiling thoroughly or even boiling at all?

What puzzles me is how it was possible to trace the source right back through the pig to swill taken from a particular restaurant. After all its swill would have been mixed with swill from other places, then boiled up and then fed to many pigs. It could have been weeks, months even before those pigs were slaughtered to produce a variety of pig meats. Would all the meat from one particular pig go to the same retailer/restaurant or same area?

Sorry [email protected] but your statement just doesn’t ring true.

[MargaretR]

I will have to websearch for the news - about 2 or 3 yrs ago - will get back

[MargaretR]

After 20 mins browsing I concede that I have misled
The ban on feeding swill was implemented after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease
http://www.sunflower-health.com/info/fmdnews.htm