A staggering amount of food is wasted every year, both in business and households. Why is this happening? What can be done to tackle this problem? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge and experience.
Food wastage is becoming ubiquitous, which is not only limited to households but stretches to food providers. The following paragraphs shall discuss the causes of this propensity and suggest some potent remedies.
People have a natural tendency of eating that may first appeal to eyes; thus, to ensure that edible goods look alluring, eateries tend to use only those portions of vegetables and fruit that look attractive, and the rest is discarded without a second thought, leading to dumping of, fit to consume, edible goods simply because they have a blemish, or are out of shape.
Similarly, consumers tend to over procure food, an inherent human tendency and sometimes due to being promoted by advertisements, tempting schemes by supermarkets, in order to stock enough, but most of which is never consumed and is discarded into trash bins once they outlive their validity date, or are spoiled: for example, nearly three million liters of milk and eight tonnes of chicken is trashed every year in the UK by households.
Overcoming this appalling trend is possible provided prudent habits are embraced by both the households, as well as businesses: where the domestic consumers must adopt the habit of wisely making the choice while purchasing fruits and vegetables, the food providers must be judicious and serve even the pieces that are despite being slightly out of shape, but good to be eaten. Further, the state should intervene and impose penalties for wasting the edible material, and alternatively create food banks to collect and serve mindlessly disposed of meals to the destitute.
To conclude, undeniably, this propensity is fueled by irrational practices, but meticulous planning and use of goods, apart from some punitive measures can stem this malady, and help avert the catastrophic eventuality of scarcity of food.
