A lot of that “destroyed food” is animals who lived their entire lives in tiny, filthy cages just so that they could be killed and rot in a plastic bag.
Supermarkets destroy food if it doesn't sell. We can always feed the world. We just don't.
Submitted 2 weeks ago by VetOfTheSeas@discuss.online to workreform@lemmy.world
https://discuss.online/pictrs/image/f8e1e712-2db0-40dd-b7d4-8acce709449d.jpeg
Comments
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
LordCrom@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I consider that just morally outrageous. To kill something so we can survive is nature’s law of predator and prey… But to kill and not have it consummed seems like the cruelest evil.
Kptkrunch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean the cow probably doesn’t care if you needlessly killed it to throw away the meat or to eat it… both are unnecessary and both result in the same outcome for the cow. Both are also destroying the planet. “Predator/prey” is a great appeal to nature that I am sure many people use to justify themselves lazily shuffling through Walmart to throw frozen burgers into their cart.
axx@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Not even, there’s no biological need to eat animals or what they produce. We’ve established that much. It’s just a choice, a preference, a form of cruelty (“I don’t need to eat, but I will chose to because it pleases me, now suffer and die without bothering me”). Throwing their corpses to waste is just the cherry on top.
osanna@lemmy.vg 2 weeks ago
to kill someone
Ftfy
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
i mean lots of wolves only eat half the sheep … have you ever seen a half-eaten sheep? i have
jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Fuck that. To CREATE something and force it into a state of lifelong dependence is even more evil.
IAMgROOT@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
capitalism is responsible for that we can easily establish ethical farming
forkDestroyer@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
I think unethical farming is present in every large system, no?
Thor_Whale@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
The same can be said for it all. Big grocery is a cancer. But so are over priced farm to table country stores. We need pricing to make sense because in the end we all lose.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I do a lot of big events at hotels, and you would be shocked at how much amazing food they throw out. I know you think you know, but trust me you have no idea.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Big events are irregular things with hot, fresh food, so it doesn’t surprise me. It would be nice if the food could go to a food bank, but that one would be a logistical nightmare compared sending a regular, but small amount of baked goods from a local grocery store to a local food bank.
pipi1234@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hey, give me some numbers please.
I fear I might be overestimating it and getting angrier by the minute.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Impossible. There’s no way you could possibly imagine it.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I once saw a hotel throw out at least a dozen delicious pork roasts (I grabbed a couple before), 2 entire queens of key lime pies, and too much of everything else to quantify. It was a massive banquet for 2000+, and they made lots more food than they needed.
But that was only one banquet, on one night, in one hotel. I am in one of the major convention cities, and banquets like that go in EVERY night, in multiple hotels. Some hotels are hosting multiple conventions at a time, as well as their Local Social events like Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. The food waste is mind-boggling.
I understand that they have to carefully monitor the food safety protocols, but I don’t know why vans from food banks can’t be waiting at the hotels at 9 pm at night, to collect any leftover food, and rush it back to refrigeration, to be reheated and served the next day.
Or even that night. I’m sure hungry homeless people wouldn’t mind waiting until 10 pm to eat, if it meant a feast like pork roast mashed potatoes, and key lime pie.
arsCynic@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I recently went to the store to buy some pastries before closing—you can already know where I’m going with this. The pastry cupboard was empty so I went to check the lady who cleans them out. They were all in a three big boxes stacked on top of each other, filled with soon to be thrown pastries. I took two and paid full price. Knowing how ridiculous this is in contrast with the rest having been thrown in the trash 10 minutes later.
Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
To my shame I worked at a supermarket bakery in my early 20s I would empty all the bulk bins into a garbage bin and into the dumpster every night. I complained multiple times that it could be bagged and donated, they relented and let me pack up expired prebagged breads to a shelter but never the bulk stuff.
I would at least eat as much as I could as I threw it out but there was only so much I could do.
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
it’s probably wise not to patronize places like that if possible.
arsCynic@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I totally agree, but not with its feasibility. Wouldn’t this only be possible in a non-globalized world with far fewer humans where everyone could grow their own food and be self-sufficient within their communities? I’m pretty sure I can’t get my lentils locally. Similar reasoning my other foodstuff; waste is pretty much the standard. Or I’m just making excuses because I’ve grown accustomed to the convenience of getting all my stuff in one place.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
They need the poors to fight their wars and work on their factory floors.
And to focus on perceived races, while keeping women and queers in their places.
(I’m working on the last line, too long)
TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It seems to me that affordability starts with housing, because it is usually a household’s single largest monthly expense. And it seems to me the best way to make housing more affordable is to make it non-profit. That doesn’t necessarily mean city owned or other public housing, nor does it mean tax payer funded or subsidized housing, but having apartment buildings owned by a non-profit organization that charges tenants only enough rent to cover their expenses without any extra going to the owner as profit. And the thing, non-profit housing isn’t only theoretical. It exists right now, but it’s relatively rare. The reason is for-profit landlords don’t want it because they can’t compete.
Let’s say you have two identical apartment buildings, but one is owned by a non-profit housing cooperative and the other is owned by a private landlord. The non-profit housing cooperative is going to have the same ongoing expenses (property management, maintenance, etc) as the private landlord, because the apartments are identical, but rent will be lower at the non-profit housing because they charge only enough rent to cover expenses whereas the private landlord charges rent to cover expenses plus some for his own personal profit.
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
yeah, in germany a few weeks ago the news made the headline that for-profit rent-out company vonovia makes 30c profit for every 1€ revenue. that’s extreme. that means they’re charging almost 50% more than they had to to operate at-cost.
also in vienna there’s a lot of city-owned apartments and rents here are really affordable. sincerely, written from my 550€/month apartment (roughly $600/month)
also a huge roadblock to lower construction costs is unnecessary complex building codes, zoning laws, and again zoning laws.
- unnecessarily complex construction regulations for example include zoning laws that prescribe that you can’t build multi-family houses on a single lot. this means two houses instead of two apartments in one house, which makes construction significantly more expensive.
- zoning laws also forbid in many places for example to operate supermarkets close to where you live. this is mostly a problem in the US, not so much in europe. it means you have to drive everywhere, which makes your cost-of-living higher.
- zoning laws, again, prescribe things such as minimum lot-size, which means you only have the option to buy 1 large lot instead of 1 small lot, even if you would be content with a smaller house on a small lot. also if not enough area is designated in a city as land for building, then that means that there’s a lack of supply, which makes the land more expensive, which makes the house more expensive.
Xerxos@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
There is also the rent-to-own option, which nearly no one uses. After paying the rent for X years, it’s your house now - a portion of the rent went toward buying the place. It should be transferable to another person or paid out if needed.
That’s how you generate generational wealth, even in lower-income situations.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Credit where credit is due.
I live in NYC and voted for him, but I honestly thought he’d be bogged down by an entrenched bureaucracy and not actually do much.
It was worth the price of admission just to see the Lesbian Fire Commissioner.
Triumph@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
What I would give to be the person in charge of lesbian fires.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
You wouldn’t last a minute at a lesbian fire.
DaleGribble88@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Oh they call me the fireman, cause baby that’s my name…
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It was worth the price of admission just to see the Lesbian Fire Commissioner.
Why? Is she building a series of canals to divert water for firefighting? Because that would be legit funny. Because it’s a dike.
eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
In my opinion if you’re not a dyke it’s better to not apply it to a person.
I think the joke about a lesbian building a dike is funny personally so you got away with that one.
Worstdriver@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I work returns in a Costco. In fact, I’m typing this on my phone in the little office we have in receiving.
Food either gets sold or gets pulled for various reasons. Pulled food goes first to the local food banks. What can’t go to them goes to a farm, a local pet rescue group, and to a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation group.
Anything left over from all that goes into a bin to be turned into high grade compost, which gets sold for $5 for a 20lb bag.
It takes time and money to do this, and it gets done anyway because the will is there.
iocase@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Me when there are Costcoposters
TBH though I love Costco. They actually pay their employees well, value their customers, and do things correctly. It’s living proof that things could be different it’s just a group of around 300 people set the incentive structures and propaganda used to program everyone and everything…
Worstdriver@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well, before Costco I worked at Walmart. You can imagine the difference in environment
lordziv@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
In my country I used to work at once of the largest supermarket chains and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that we donated any food that didn’t sell to our local food bank called “Nourished For Nil” which would then take the ingredients and cook some meals and then you could go get a box of food from them once a week for free, no questions asked.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
We have too good to go, it’s an app where shops can sell stuff that is near end of life at a discount. Some shops are better than others, we spent £3.99 for a portion at a local bakery recently and got 2 huge bags of baked goods.
Food doesn’t get wasted and it costs very little compared to it’s regular value. There is also a charity that focuses on similar things but
elitist cuntsfriends and family have said I can’t go there because I am not starving. They make it sound like a food bank when it’s a shop selling products cheaply - or it was, they closed recently. Wanted to go but heavy social pressure/judgement not to put me off…JadedBlueEyes@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Olio is a similar one that takes the food a bit before close, and distributes it to whoever can pick it up from their “food waste heroes” at no cost
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Thanks. Just downloaded it. In my area it looks like mostly baked goods.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Kinda makes sense as they have a short shelf life.
Yliaster@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
He does sound like he’s doing a lot more than the average politician rn, but I wonder if he’s just gonna end up w a crossheir to his head for it.
areakode@riskeratspizza.com 2 weeks ago
Going up against the Pedo class will always paint a target on people working to change the system. We need MORE Mamdanis in this world. Keep voting for the good guys!
Yliaster@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Agreed. Maybe the US could revive itself if there were similars in the other 49 states.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I just woke up. I’m not even out of bed. Why you gotta make me sad before I’ve even put socks on???
Yliaster@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s just how things are, unfortunately. Not saying it should be.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
He’s trying to build out a changed Democratic Party in NYC. They way, even if he goes, there are others who will implement a better government.
Yliaster@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s great but it’s still just NYC and not “US”
Surp@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I love mamdani but “who” are these people that are scared? Many of them openly don’t give a shit and literally say it…
AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
You mean like the president who literally called his voters stupid and does exactly the detrimental shit to the country he ran his campaign on? Yeah, I get the skepticism, lol.
Digit@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Supermarkets destroy food if it doesn’t sell. We can always feed the world. We just don’t.
Somehow, I dyslexic speed-reading misread that at first as:
Supremacists destroy food if it doesn’t sell. We can always feed the world. We just don’t.
Planchette_Phantom@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve always called it first glance dyslexia
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes, yes and of we made everyone who makes 250k/yr pay 3865$/mo for ubi income of 1800$/mo for everyone in the country it would work out.
RagingRobot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I worked at Panera break in college and we would donate the leftover baked goods at the end of every night to a food pantry thing. Also they would let us take some home too. It was pretty nice.
I think they are some kind of regional franchise though so it could have just been ours
Auli@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
It is not that easy. It is not a question of can we feed people but can we get the food to them. Produce that doesn’t sell is not going to last shipping again.
bless@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Don’t worry, I’m sure that there are kitchens less than a day’s drive away
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
If we build centers for distributing food people will come.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
It absolutely is that easy. In every city there are organizations which will gratefully accept food donations and distribute it to humans that need it.
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
When I’m president, I’m going to spend every dicking dollar on education, so the masses understand that a single person doesn’t make as much difference to 360M people as those 360M We the People do to themselves.
My twelfth grade English teacher told me the machines are broken, they just don’t know they’re broken, so the bigger machine made of machines grinds on. There’s a scene in the matrix about this, how the average person is so dependent on the matrix they will fight to defend it.
What truly is possible to the human form? Society is 1776 updated to 2026. What if we just started fresh, what would we make and be then? Would it be 1776 2.0, or something else entirely? I think of democracy afforded in the modern day where only a republic was good enough before with the communication potential available then.
HotsauceHurricane@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Heaven forbid right?
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
At least one local hypermarket does sell food at discounted price before they go off. Some poorer families rely on them.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Supermarkets should be able to write off the expenses (transportation, stagging, etc) related to donating soon-to-expire foods to food banks. And not just normal income deductions, but actual direct deductions from taxes. That is, if you spend $1000 loading and shipping expired food to the food bank, you pay $1,000 less in taxes.
Truly incentivize giving food to the poor.
dellish@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It sounds great on the surface, but you just know there are total assholes out there who would exploit the system with artificially inflated shipping costs to the point where they’re hardly paying tax at all. This, as is commonly said, is why we can’t have nice things.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, there’s solutions to this problem and the idea that all of them don’t do this a failing of the store’s management.
France had to pass a law that banned food getting thrown out that could be given away.
I also noticed that Costco started offering more prepared chicken foods after it became more well known that their cheap rotisserie chickens would will dumpsters at the end of the day.
potpotato@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My tiny local market does 40% off and then FREE for products near expiration.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Im in connecticut and my govenor is up for primary. He’s done okay, but you can tell he is trying to compete with the younger fella up for the D primary. I hope the younger fella wins, but in the meantime 70ish old Lemont is trying to make headlines with “proposals” (nothings passed) that are based on policies that would benefit the working class.
I love to see the fear. I should write the old man and ask him to endorse his younger canidate. Near certain these guys just dont want to give up their comfortable positions of power due to some psycological desire.
adarza@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
a few of the stores here, including both ‘grocery’ stores, do contribute close-dated and past-dated foodstuffs that isn’t actually spoiled or bad to the local food pantry, who then distributes it to a huge line of people each week.
some weeks it’s a pretty light box to pick up, but every now and then there will be a package of porterhouse or t-bones at the bottom of the box underneath all the “should’ve been eaten a week ago” produce.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We have a couple of services where I’m at now, where as food approaches its best before date, it goes into the app where you can order it at a discount and then go pick it up in store. If it can be frozen, they’ll also freeze it to prolong its shelf life.
I once got a large box of like 50 frozen burgers (frozen by default, not fresh to frozen) for like 80% off because they’d reached the best before on the box. They weren’t freezer burned or anything like that, they were perfect.
A lot of places would have just thrown that out.
LordCrom@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The main problem is this :
A supermarket could donate food that will expire shortly to anyone or any charity. But if that near to expiration date food makes someone sick for whatever reason, that person could sue the supermarket. Insurance companies would charge a lot to cover that risk so stores opt to throw it out rather than do the morally correct thing and donate it because it costs them money reducing profit for no return to the stockholders.
If the US would pass a law shielding companies from lawsuits related to donated food, then this could become the norm
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Aren’t political positions like titles which just give privileges and very little responsibility.
/s
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Ok so what happens when you put food that close to going off onto a ship for a few weeks? You’re just shipping rotten food to people.
The problems of logistics isn’t “a choice” it’s a very real thing.
Since the advent of GMO, starvation ls largely about political instability and conflicts. It’s hard to get food to warzones. Something to think about before promoting violence as a solution to a problem.
jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
There are 26 billion chickens, a billion pigs, a billion and a half cattle and bison, and another almost six billion sheep, goats, and ruminants living in human captivity. They all get fed. We feed them more than the total human population of the Earth can possibly eat.
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Don’t know about your shit hole state, but in EU trade of expired food is strictly forbidden.
Because health concerns.
Z745812939054@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
the peasant class exists to generate more money for the owner class, not the other way around.
always has been
PixellatedDave@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I think also rich people need to have poor people otherwise they won’t be seen to be rich. Also wealth = power
Z745812939054@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
you make a good point, but i think of “rich people” as the families who have been unimaginably wealthy for hundreds of years. not musk, not bezos, bill gates, etc. the “old money” doesn’t care if you know they’re rich–in fact they would prefer you didn’t. they just want to control the trajectory of your life in order to keep you in your place, and prevent you from encroaching on their position of power.
think warburgs and rothschilds, not the idiotic rich people flaunting their wealth on twitter
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Yeah. A rich person can’t exist when no-one’s poor.
LongLive@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
is there a low volume (byte wise) guillotine available?