Millions of tons of food ends up in garbage

Millions of tons of food land in Germany in the garbage

03/11/2015

Almost a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger and malnutrition. On the other hand, in industrialized countries, mountains of food are being thrown into the garbage. Waste of food is not only an ethical problem, it also affects the environment.

People around the world are suffering from hunger and malnutrition
Almost a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger and malnutrition. As the UNICEF Children's Fund reported last year, every fourth child under the age of five is chronically malnourished worldwide. Malnutrition plays a major role in an immense proportion of infant deaths. Children from poor families and rural areas are particularly likely to be underweight. Despite the fact that such tragic facts are known, mountains of food end up in garbage in industrialized countries. In Germany millions of tons of food are thrown away.

Over a billion of food ends up in the garbage
According to the FAO, around one third of the food produced for human consumption is destroyed worldwide. This is about 1.3 billion tons per year, reports the dpa news agency. According to a study by the University of Stuttgart, nearly seven million tons of food go into the garbage of German households every year, especially fruit and vegetables, as well as baked goods, leftovers or dairy products. According to the agency, this amounts to 82 kilograms of food per person, ie about two fully packed shopping carts worth around 235 euros. Already at the production food is sorted out, because they do not meet fixed standards.

Awareness of the value of food lost
According to the dpa experts see the heart of the problem in the affluent society. Because food is constantly available to most people in Western nations, many have apparently lost consciousness of their value. From typical „disposable traps“ speaks the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food in this context. Among other things, this includes bad planning before shopping, seduction by special offers as well as discounts or errors at home storage.

Expiration Date is not an expiration date
In addition, many groceries go into the bin because the best-before date (MHD) has been exceeded. This is often misunderstood as the expiration date. For packaged products, exceeding the BBD does not mean that the food is no longer edible. Many packaged foods are still safe to consume afterwards. Caution should be exercised with meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. If, for example, the consumption date is exceeded for packaged meat, severe food poisoning can occasionally occur, which often results in diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

Waste of food pollutes the environment
However, food waste is not just an ethical problem in the face of famine in many parts of the world. The waste also has a direct impact on the environment, as valuable resources are wasted. For example, about 1,000 liters of water flow to produce one kilogram of bread, and for one kilogram of cheese it even amounts to 5,000 liters. It is even more extreme when one kilogram of beef is produced: 15,000 liters of water flow through it. Experts call for the sensible recycling of unavoidable waste, for example as compost or for the generation of energy in biogas plants. Another aspect of food wastage was discussed in a UN report last year. At the time, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization announced that three billion tons of polluting gases are being wasted every year by food waste. (Ad)