NBC News story about about half the world's supply of food is wasted because retailers and customers are effectively...too picky.
"As much as half of the food produced worldwide ends up being thrown away every year because shoppers are too choosy about the appearance of fruit and vegetables, a report said Thursday.
The world produces about four billion metric tonnes of food a year but up 2 billion tonnes is never eaten, the…
I have never re-blogged anything, and this particular entry does not really go with the theme I have created so far...but it IS a personal blog, so I am going to post it as it is about an issue that drives me crazy - perfectly good food is thrown away because it isn't pretty enough for consumers... I mean, we all experience an element of being ignored or shunned in high school for being weird looking (or was that just me?), but can't the food at least be used in processing if consumers can't get past that it doesn't look perfect? The food from my garden does not look perfect, but I still eat it...and I live to breathe another day...
In this day and age I think it has a lot to do with the ever present fear of being sued. We are such a litigious society that it’s just better safe than sorry for a company or restaurant. If a woman can sue McDonalds because she spilled the hot coffee she just bought on herself, imagine if someone were to actually get sick from such food. It really does suck that we live in a society where you have to think like that, where trying to help people can get wind you up in court.
Agreed! But if the food was safe, it could be used in some sort of food processing (cut up, frozen vegetables, for instance), and no one would know that it did not look perfect.
I guess I have am a little sensitive to this from when I used to work in restaurants during college – watching them throw out TONS of food every night just boggled my mind. That, and many of my favorite charities are focused on making sure people have enough food to eat to survive. Plus, I know we are losing productive farmland every year and there are fewer people willing to become farmers…And I think I have rambled on enough 
No worries about too much rambling. If people didn’t jump up on the soap box for something they believe in, nothing would get ever get done.
This is a serious issue, but not so serious at my place. We do look out for slightly spoiled veggies/fruits while picking up, but we don’t really concentrate on how good they look. Perhaps we do, and I am not consciously aware of it! But then, at some point of time we might agree that many beautiful things in life are hollow (inside)