Food Mountains; Waste and Waist.

McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut.

pop quiz: the lyric above is from what song and artist? clue: one hit wonder group eat their dinner rapidly.

So, the ski season in Europe should be in full swing; I should have enjoyed a couple of fab ski trips, but I’m still in the UK and a bit bored, so apologies in advance for this ranting post that is unrelated to mountain skiing, but is about food mountains…

Join up the Dots.

Most days we can hear on the news, or sometimes read ‘facts’ about:

1. Farmers won’t be able to produce enough food to feed us.
   Population growth, climate change, land use, drought, increased demand for meat rather than veg, financial speculation, disease and pests might all contribute to future food shortages.
2. Food is too expensive.
   Food prices are set to outstrip inflation, the cost of imported food has eaten into real incomes and it’s going to get worse! Parents can’t afford to feed their kids, hence Marcus Rashford has stepped into the FSM arena.
3. Food mountains are being wasted.
   The average household throws away food worth £470 a year; the equivalent of 24 meals a month. On top of that, supermarkets throw away tonnes of food; Tesco revealing that it threw out 30,000 tonnes in six months.
4. Most people look like food mountains.
   Nearly 63% of adults and 30% of children in England are overweight or obese; that makes England the fattest country in Western Europe. The cost of this hits the NHS; nearly 12,000 people were admitted to hospital for a problem related to the fact that they were fat.

Call me naive, but isn’t there a solution staring us in the face?

1. Eat less food.
   Portion control, planning meals and weighing ingredients at home is not hard and means you only cook enough for the meal and don’t have any waste or excess waist!
   One between two, or even three or four, is good advice when eating out!
   I’ve read that a McD’s burger has increased in size from 1.6oz to 8oz since the 1950s – that’s over four times bigger!
2. Waste less food.
   We should rename a BOGOF offer to BOBO – Buy one, bin one!
   We should never buy extra fresh food just because it’s on offer.
   Tesco report that over half of fresh salad goes straight from fridge to bin – where is the sense in that?
3. Spend less on food.
   If we’re eating less, wasting less and buying less it stands to reason we’ll be spending less.
   If there wasn’t waste or excess waist; household food budgets could be cut by 20% to 30%.
4. Grow less food.
   If we’re eating less, wasting less and buying less, less will need to be grown.
   OK, with a growing population probably not less, but it should be manageable.
   And, where did our obsession with uniform size and shaped vegetables come from?
   We should not throw disfigured fruit and veg away – if the French can do it…

Now I’m not stupid enough to believe the ‘average’ represents all or that a country where food is state controlled is the answer, but surely it is possible to use some of the Government money, which is actually our money, already being spent on loads of separate projects to tackle each problem separately, to create joined up thinking and actions.

pop trivia: “McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut” taken from the ‘Fast Food Song’ by the ‘Fast Food Rockers’ actually from 2003, but the video is definitely inspired by the 80s!