I’m unsure I get your point, how does waste prevent a shortage from becoming a famine ?
Also, both raw cauliflower and tinned tomatoes can be eaten almost as is.
Comment on All this produce is going to spoil at the food bank where I volunteer
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 days ago
Not being funny, but what the fuck is a homeless person going to do with a raw cauliflower?
I often see carrier bags of dry pasta, tinned tomatoes and stuff just dumped at the roadside, because the person they’d given it to has no way of doing anything with it. Apparently they’re supposed to give only food they can prepare, but that clearly doesn’t always happen.
Food waste is part of the system. It’s fine. It’s what stops a shortage from becoming a famine.
falcunculus@jlai.lu 4 days ago
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
how does waste prevent a shortage from becoming a famine ?
Making the expected production a higher number than the expected need will give the headroom necessary to deal with a shortage without people starving.
If you’re aiming to produce food for a population of 100,000, but have the capacity to make food for 200,000, then you can afford to waste half of your food without starvation. You can also accommodate a 50% drop in production without starvation.
So that buffer is expected waste, but it’s also starvation resistance.
And009@lemmynsfw.com 4 days ago
That potential waste of food can be transported to another group of people
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
If you’re accommodating another group of people you should produce enough to always feed them, too, not just sometimes in surplus years. The whole point is that you’ve gotta plan for a surplus, otherwise you risk starvation in bad years (and it doesn’t make it any better, morally, if the people who bear the risk of starving are “another group or people”).
kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
I think the point is that if you do that, then you’re just increasing the amount of people in the equation, and if they become dependent on you and the production drops, somebody will be lacking food again.
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
Not everyone who comes through the food bank is homeless.