Food waste is more complex than throwing away uneaten food bought from a supermarket. It is the land we use and the crops we grow. Just imagine instead of growing so much sugar, we replaced it with something more nutritious. So many years we have been told that sugar encourages obesity and over-eating leading to many health problems.
The UK is just behind Malta as the most obese country in Europe. If we overeat, is that not food waste?
What are your thoughts?
I think it's too simplistic, as it assumes we're comparing like with like, but that's not straightforward.
I assume you're working on the basis that overeating means overeating calories? So then we have to consider caloric density Vs food waste. If we consider 100 calories of sugar (hard because we don't see the waste that comes with that), against 100 calories of broccoli/ peas/ cabbage, are they the same, greater or worse when it comes to food waste?
When we scale up, do we produce more food waste if we merely eat 2000 calories of meat and veg, or do we produce more if we eat 2500 of hydrogenised oil, sugar and flour? We can't say easily because we don't see most of the byproducts and waste behind the scenes.
I also think you have to consider the reasons behind some food choices: e.g. for financial reasons, many prefer longer shelf-life products, as they don't go off as easily, which means less food waste at home (although again, we don't see the behind the scenes waste).
I’ve thought about the behind the scenes waste. Stores over order fresh produce to make their displays look pretty and enticing. So much of it gets thrown away. The cost of the waste is factored in to the price of the product and passed along to the consumer. So in reality, we pay for the product not once but twice. It would make us healthier if waste was decreased by the stores and we had more money.
It can if it means that meat eaters eat more of the whole animals rather than just the 'prime' cuts and feeding the much of rest to pets. The offal tends to be more nutrient dense and very healthy healthy for us but how many people will eat offal these days?
If chocolate could disguise the awful, I might think about eating it. Jokes aside, this could be a good time to start reintroducing offal if it was a less expensive way to get protein and nutrients.
Perhaps you need some good recipies. Because they're nutrient dense you don't need so much so you can just use a proportion of offal in things like spicy meatballs. In the UK we have meatballs called faggots which I love, Here is one recipie. thespruceeats.com/classic-b...
I read the recipe. Thanks. I’d definitely enjoy that, but I have to watch my cholesterol levels like a hawk. I imagine there are other parts of the animal that don’t have as much fat? I should research it for myself. It would be interesting to read about how offal is received in the states, too.
Colesterol is an essential means to package fatty acids in your blood which is water based. The 'bad colesterol' your blood is made in your liver from excess glycogen. It has been found that colesterol levels bear no relationship to risk of cardiovascular disease. Look for a book called 'A Statin Free Life'which will explain it fully.
I can’t take statins anyway and the food I eat is key to keeping my numbers where they should be. I already know how to live statin free, my cardiologist educated me on that many years ago. I haven’t completely cut out animal fat from what I eat, I just can’t overdo it. And I rarely eat prepackaged store bought baked goods.
I've read that omega3s are best obtained fresh from fish as they can oxidise when processed and kept in caspsules as supplements.
do you really know what you’re eating?
