Waste Not .... Update

The TV programme last Friday about eating food past it's use-by-dates proved to be very interesting - if a little stomach churning too.  The reporter did indeed eat food past it's use-by-date for two weeks - although as far as I could see only for one meal or portion of a meal per day - with no apparent ill effects.  I personally would not want to eat sausages or chicken five or six days past the use-by-date but he said they tasted fine and laboratory tests proved that any bacteria in the meat was well and truly killed off in the cooking process.  I did think it was a bit of a con that the last few days involved the reporter eating an 11-days-past-it's-use-by-date muffin - not too much risk of food poisoning there I would have thought - and on the final day eating a piece of mouldy bread which he toasted.  I've certainly been known to eat mouldy bread when I was younger - although I tended to pick the mouldy bits around the edges off before I ate it.  I don't really think the programme was going to change the way I feel about use-by-dates on food but it was a good way of making people think about the food they throw out because it has gone past it's date.

What did interest me a great deal though was the interview with a 'freegan' - somebody who takes food out of the industrial wheelie bins at the back of supermarkets.  That really was a revelation to me.  I'd heard of freegans before but had assumed that what was thrown away by supermarkets was food that was pretty much unsaleable, or that it would be out of it's wrapper and sort of mouldering away at the bottom of a filthy bin.  The selection of perfectly good food that was well wrapped and, in some cases, still in date was amazing.  He and the reporter filled numerous carrier bags with the food and took it to Anthony Worral Thompson who then proceeded to cook up a veritable banquet with it all.  I think I'm right in saying that the food that had been 'freeganed' had come from an Iceland store and as our local Iceland store's back entrance leads on to a public car park it did set me wondering about what exactly might be available in their bins.  Sadly, I'm not sure I would ever have the 'neck' to actually start foraging around in Iceland's bins (or any other supermarkets come to that), especially at this time of year when it is daylight until so late.  Maybe in the depths of a dark winter's evening!!  But the sheer amount of food the freegan liberated does beg the question of why this food - which appeared to be perfectly usable - was not passed on to something useful like a homeless charity or the Salvation Army who could really make use of this food, rather than sending it to landfill.  The sheer scale of the waste was overwhelming and, as the freegan pointed out, this is happening at the back of every supermarket, on every high street in the UK - scandalous!

Comments

[Claire]

I know what you mean about passing it on to charities - when there are meetings in our building, the amount of buffet food (and expensive buffet food at that - £7 per head) just sites in reception for people to pick at as they go past, but we are not allowed to give it to the street drinkers who congregate outside our office block, or indeed the homeless shleter I used to take my "leftovers" to. They are not allowed to accept it now due to "health and safety" - in my eyes this is ignorance around health and safety regulations and sees a huge amount of food go to waste. Not sure though, what we can do to change things.

[Gill]

It was a really interestng programme, I do think we need to use our common sense regarding food, the use by/sell by dates need to be there but often food is quite safe beyond those dates. I remember first hearing about Freegans last year, on the TV programme "Wife Swap" when they swapped a wife from an affluent family with the wife from the Freegans. The wife gave it a go to her credit and did all sorts of things like live in a camper van,use a chemical loo and scavenge for food at night! The teenage son of the Freegans wasn't happy living like that,and they seemed a bit odd to me. Can't say you'll find me in a bin at the back of Tesco's.

[sharie]

Hmmm, I really am thinking of going bin raiding. What bugs me more than anything is how these big supermarkets only reduce their end of date stuff by ridiculously small amounts 10p off a £2 item. If they want to sell it reduce it to at least half price or better still to 10p!

If prices continue to soar you're going to find me in those bins one night for sure!

[Sharon J]

I'm absolutely disgusted at the amount of food we waste in this country, not only by shops but by the individual consumer too. It hate throwing away anything that's edible but I'm afraid as a society, we're very selfish and just don't want to have to share. Better to bin it!