Average family throws out £400 of food each year

It's World Vegan Day - more of that in a mo - plus more about Tesco burning 5,000 tons of meat - but first an astonishing £10 billion of food is thrown away in Britain every year - that's 6 million tonnes of food wasted - £400 per year for the average family and a huge impact on the environment - indeed if we all stopped that would be like taking 0ne in five cars off our roads. It is no wonder local authorities across the south west are supporting Love Food Hate Waste to encourage residents to pledge to reduce their food waste.

Photos; recent Apple Day in Stroud - wonderful selection and below two apples - the red one looked great but was floury and imported and the other a local tasted great - of course not always like that!!

Their aim is to collect 25,000 pledges from across the South West area. Simply by pledging to reduce your food waste, you will not only be doing your bit to help the environment, but could win some prizes. Go and make your pledge before 20th November at:
www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/southwest

This campaign is great but a pity their blog is not up-to-date - far better they link to My Zero Waste blog - indeed I've sent them an email suggesting that!

World Vegan Day

So to World Vegan Day - the day is about highlighting all the issues relating to meat and let's face it we all need to do our bit to cut meat consumption - it has been lots in the news recently - and it is good that we are starting to recognise the vast damage done by our high meat diets. Initiatives like Meat Free Mondays are good but I don't think they go far enough - it is time we started to also pay for the damage our habits do to the environment - a carbon tax is long overdue - The Telegraph raised this issue on Friday - see here their article re green taxes.

I should however dispel the myth that all Greens are veggies - The Green Party does not advocate that people become vegetarians or vegans. As noted before on this blog I was a vegetarian for years but I do eat some organic meat now.

It is clear our diets impact on climate change, and also on the countries that produce so much of our animal feed. Indeed before on this blog I've also covered the impact of meat eating on water resources - see here. With pressure on land from growing populations, and with world food prices increasing, the price of meat will inevitably increase too. In future years people who choose to eat meat will probably find themselves eating less of it, but hopefully of a better quality. Indeed if folk end up saving money on food as a result of this campaign maybe some will choose to buy better quality?

However it is also important that we do much more in terms of teaching nutrition in schools, including vegetarian and vegan nutrition, as well as making sure the full range of options are available in school meals and on the menus of other public institutions. Everyone should have the right not only to choose, but to have good information on which to base their choice.

Green or Gross?

Anyway now to that news re Tesco - I was sent a link to the news item here from the Cincinnati Vegetarian Examiner - Tesco is apparently “recycling all meat waste into heat and electricity”.

Tesco says their company is producing more than 5,000 tons of wasted meat each year which they then convert in to enough energy to power more than 600 homes for a year. While it is admirable that the company is trying to be green with efforts such as diverting 100% of the waste produced by their UK business from landfills, it is a tad sickening that they are allowing their stores to over-order so much meat that more than 5,000 tons are “wasted” yearly.

Viva’s press statement said; “To turn this wasted meat into power might seem like a good idea at first, but you have to ask yourself why is so much left over and why are so many animals dying to provide this excess? Surely killing fewer animals in the first place should be the aim.”

Indeed we do have to think - what an incredibly wasteful society we've become. So to finish this blog try The Ecologist film re meat here.