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Old 07-28-2015, 03:33 PM   #1
Talon87
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Food Waste

John Oliver talks about food waste in America.

Food waste, especially groceries throwing away perfectly good food instead of donating it to the poor or allowing their employees to take it home with them to do as they will, has bothered me for a long time. The part at 11m30s where the one guy asks the grocery employee about where the food goes at the end of the night, etc? I did that myself at my local grocery not but one year ago, after years of wondering what happened to all of the food in the produce and deli sections. So this episode was right up my alley.

I was pretty surprised by some of the things I learned while watching. For one, I didn't know that an American law prevents good Samaritan food donors from getting sued by hungry families or homeless people who eat donated food and get sick from it. Like a lot of people, I bought the groceries' lies -- intentional or otherwise -- about how the food is illegal to donate to homeless shelters. I've been so upset about it all this time, feeling that we the common people ought to play Robin Hood in this one instance and give the food to those who need it even if it means breaking the law ... that to discover that it isn't even illegal in the first place and that the groceries are just lying to us is ... well, it makes me very upset.

Regarding Oliver's concerns about the cost of moving all of that food out of a grocery and into welcome hands (which he proposes should be dealt with by way of tax breaks), here's an idea for you: "everything must go, no payment necessary"-grade clearance sales every night. I know the groceries don't want to lose money, but ffs this is a simple way to get the food taken off your hands that you were just going to throw away anyway. And if you're really worried about people abusing the system, just make it so that they have to provide government-issued identification that vets them for receiving it. Example: you can't come in at 2am to get free beef if you make $90,000 a year, but you're more than fucking welcome if you can prove you're unemployed or otherwise living in poverty. I know, I know: there are problems with my proposal, problems of people abusing the system even with the checks we could think up to put in place. But fuck, man: it just isn't right to throw away hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of perfectly good meat and produce just because no one bought it by the end of the night.

Another thing I didn't know before watching this video was that the Senate can pull fast ones like that, gutting a House-passed bill of 100% of its content and then putting it up for a Stage 2 vote. And I kind of have to question if Oliver reported that correctly, because if he did, then just on the surface of things it seems brazenly immoral and ought to be illegal. What I thought they could do was ...
  1. They could leave the House bill's contents in but could add some of their own, vote on it, and then the amended bill would have to be re-looked at by the House and re-voted on before it could be sent to the President.
  2. Same as #1 except they take out some of the old contents.
  3. Same as #1 except they take out 90% of the old contents.
But I didn't think that they could take out all of the old contents. And I also didn't think that it would be enough to just pass it in the Senate at that stage and to call it a day and send the bill to the Oval Office for signing into law. Someone more familiar with American law want to clarify this situation please?
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Old 07-28-2015, 04:10 PM   #2
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There are a lot of reasons for firms not to give away food and it is a regrettably costly and logistically awful thing to try and do but I've previously spoken with Brits about why the American legal protection is necessary before you can really do it. You have one up on us in that regard.

Also, they may be lying, but they're probably just misinformed.
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Old 07-28-2015, 05:38 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Regarding Oliver's concerns about the cost of moving all of that food out of a grocery and into welcome hands (which he proposes should be dealt with by way of tax breaks), here's an idea for you: "everything must go, no payment necessary"-grade clearance sales every night. I know the groceries don't want to lose money, but ffs this is a simple way to get the food taken off your hands that you were just going to throw away anyway.
I really like this idea, even from a purely business perspective. If word gets around that Store X gives away free food that's about to expire, it gets people into the store. "Hey, while I'm here, I may as well buy this thing too."
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Old 07-28-2015, 06:59 PM   #4
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A bit related to this was when I was hunting for volunteer experience and couldn't find any gigs. The local schools are filled with vacancies for teachers, and I'm probably better qualified than many of those already employed there.

But the school board won't even let me on campus, even if the students have to suffer being denied a potential tutor. The reason is because if it's found out that I'm supplying donated service superior to paid service, the teacher's union fears that the school district would use it as evidence to suppress wages for teachers.

It makes sense but is extremely "dickish" to the students. In my eyes, there's no god dang reason to protect the interest of a teacher who doesn't exist yet over that of students, i.e. someone who would get paid less because I'm providing a superior service for free. It goes to show that special or corporate interests really do not have the client's interest at heart, they are 100% geared to protecting their own profile streams.

As for Talon's concern, I think a better use would be to have a special designated compost or something to make best use of the food's nutritional properties. Throwing something away is about the worst thing one can do, recycling isn't 100% better due to the energy costs that go into recycling plastics and cans. In reality, recycling (just like electric cars) merely shifts the burden of waste away from the public so they don't feel morally responsible. It's still bad for the Earth overall, the real solution is to not use plastics at all, or simply wash out the bottles before and after usage.

I think dog food/pet food is probably one of the worst other uses for animal waste products, compost that stuff!
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Old 07-28-2015, 10:03 PM   #5
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Man, am I glad this popped up. I didn't think there were many people who cared about it around here...

As someone who has spent a large chunk of their life living in poverty, the very concept of wasting food rubs me the wrong way many times over. I always get particularly annoyed when kids throw out their lunches at school. I always kind of let it slide back when I lived in one o the poorer counties, since anyone eating school lunch there was getting it for free and their parents were probably evading taxes anyway, so it came to no harm to them. But I've moved to a significantly richer county since then, and people are still wasting food, despite the fact that their parents paid for it. Seriously, all that dough could've been used for better things than being thrown into the trash bin!

As for the business side of the problem, I have noticed that a few places in the area have been doing a few things to alleviate my worries. The Dunkin Donuts nearest to me allows employees to take home any excess, for example, while one of the five local Krogers (don't ask) has a shelf where they sell excess baked goods on supersale. It might not be much in the grand scheme of things, but at least it's a step in the right direction and way better than throwing it out back for the stray cats and genetically modified grasshoppers! I really would be quite happy if the supersale thing was expanded to be the go-to strategy for grocery stores, and I'm certain that there plenty of other people across the nation who share this sentiment.
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Old 07-29-2015, 12:06 AM   #6
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I know some fastfood places don't allow employees to take home waste. I guess it's because they think the employees might make excess food just to take it home. It's still a fucking waste though. In one I worked at, I atleast took out waste for cats, but they eventually disallowed even that! Can't even feed the cats with excess food!

For grocery items, I think there are a few places that use out of date groceries. There's a store around where I live called "United Grocery Outlet" that is almost nothing but out of date food. It also sells meat....... 4lbs of pork chops for $7, but that makes me nervous. I managed to score a few boxes of 30 granola bars for $5. There's also some people at flea markets that sell "waste". Being a cheapskate makes you look for the cheapest options available.

I'm not sure if it still goes on, but there was a program that gave free food to families living in poverty. I wish I remembered the name of it so I could look that up.
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Old 07-29-2015, 06:01 PM   #7
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The charity I work at regularly at least takes two day old bread and confectioneries that the stores can't sell, but we generally don't take produce unless it's reasonably fresh.
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Old 07-30-2015, 09:16 AM   #8
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Oh god I died at the Trump joke

As someone who lives with parents who go completely anal if I have a single grain of rice left in my bowl when I get up off the table I never realized how bad food waste had become. While I'm not surprised where the root of this problem came from (mixture of large corporations needing money and Americans having silly perceptions of things it still irritates me greatly that Americans waste so much food even though many people in the same country go hungry.
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Old 07-30-2015, 11:13 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
here's an idea for you: "everything must go, no payment necessary"-grade clearance sales every night. I know the groceries don't want to lose money, but ffs this is a simple way to get the food taken off your hands that you were just going to throw away anyway.

Some stores do this, but not to the volume they probably should be. A few of my local grocery stores will sell food either just expired that day or about to for ridiculous discounts, unfortunately these sales are usually reserved for only things like baked good and other store-brand items. This sort of mentality should really spread to name-brand products as well as fruits and vegetables which are seldom given this treatment. Throwing out still good fruits, vegetables, and dairy is one of the reasons dumpster diving sprung up as a trend. It may not be "perfectly good" by any means, but it's definitely still edible. I have heard some stories of stores donating certain items they were going to throw out to food shelters and soup kitchens, but it's definitely not commonly practiced.

I think eventually it all comes back to this collective selfish societal mentality certain classes and people in America have had for a while in "it's mine and I'm not sharing more for me less for you" that is beginning to change with new generations and group-think, and I think there's a lot more empathy beginning to develop as well to some degree.

There's so much money and food wasted on a daily basis that could be being used for super important things but ultimately it won't totally change until people make the change happen together.
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Old 07-30-2015, 11:22 PM   #10
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We have enough food in the world that no one should go hungry but some people are selfish bastards and so good doesn't get to people who need it.
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Old 07-31-2015, 12:58 AM   #11
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Addressing the grocery discounts at midnight thing since I've seen several people bring it up in response to me now ...

Yeah, my own local grocery does what you guys are describing too. But that isn't what I called for. Compare:
  • Taking bread, donuts, cakes, and other baked goods ... placing them on a special shelf near the milk aisle ... and saying "Was: $2.99. Is now: 99˘".
  • Saying that your entire produce section (not covered by orange security tarp and monitored by clerk/armed cop) ... as well as your entire meat section (ditto) ... as well as your entire bakery section (ditto) ... anything not under the tarp that is in these sections ... is being liquidated and can be taken by you out of the store for $0 and 0˘
I'm advocating for the second one. Because the first one a) already happens but b) is paltry compared with what we need to be doing.

Am I saying that people should get free food throughout the grocery? Well no. Most boxed and canned groceries (e.g. boxes of pasta, cans of beans, cans of tuna, jars of mayonnaise, frozen pizzas) have shelf lives that range from weeks to years and in 99% of cases the good in question will be sold before it goes bad. (And as for the 1%, as of right now you may as well toss it just so as to not introduce unnecessary complexity at this stage of the game. We can talk about salvaging the 1% later.) What I am saying, though, is that when it comes to the perishable departments -- namely produce, meat, and baked goods -- anything you don't choose to hide under a big ol' orange security tarp you may as well say, "This can be taken out of the store free of charge. You still will need to check it out formally. We've placed stickers on all the relevant items just in case anyway, just to make sure no mischief takes place. But when you scan the item, it'll ring up as costing $0.00." There's no point in talking about a clearance shelf because no shelf in the store would be large enough to house all of the supposedly spoiled produce, rotten meat, and stale baked goods that the store was readying for the dumpster. You may as well sell it clean off the shelf. And not even "sell" it: give it away. Because you were going to throw it away anyway, you motherfucker, and don't act like you weren't.

Like I said in my initial post, I understand that the proposal could have flaws. Ways for people to exploit the system, etc. But one countermeasure to exploitation that I can think of is to make it so that the only people who can actually participate in this event have to provide a government-distributed form of identification that basically vets them for this sort of program. Something like proof of being on Welfare. Something like proof of being in the income bracket of $0 to (say) $35,000. Something you could show at checkout that proves you're not just taking advantage of the system. And failure to show the ID means you don't get the perks and you buy the goods at normal price.

I don't know about your guys' groceries, but I know that at my local 24-hour grocery, we have an armed officer who patrols the checkout aisles (and usually just stands around the self-check out station) from like 9 at night until 5 or 6 the next morning. That's his job. He's posted there by the city to make sure that no one burgles the grocery. The point is, a designated officer would likely be instrumental in ensuring that such a program as the one I've proposed would work without incident.
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Old 08-03-2015, 07:49 AM   #12
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Just learned something recently that I'd like to share: "Apple cores" are a myth, they don't exist. You are free to eat the entire apple, only spitting out the stem and the seeds. I never bought into any legends about the "apple core" being poisonous or anything, but I did think that the apple got hard and gross once I got close to the seed house, and so I threw away almost half of the apple like everyone else does. Once I got this idea out of my head that you're not supposed to eat the centre, I discovered that it is in fact totally fine and there really isn't any texture change.
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