Several dozen years ago there was a common cooked practice such as “gleaning”, in which people with few resources, after a day of harvest, searched the fields for food that had not been picked because they were considered “ugly”.
The landowners allowed them to collect them so that they could consume them and even make new products with them, for example, jams.
Nowadays, most of the food that is not harvested because it is considered that its appearance is not pleasant to the eye, are simply thrown away. It is such a common practice that it has become a habit not only for farmers, but for all consumers, a situation that unfortunately has great environmental, economic and social consequences.
The canons of beauty and food waste.
According to information from the United Nations, a third of the world's annual food production is lost or neglected, which is equivalent to about 1.300 million tons of food and around $ 6,916,000,000 pesos.
The first food discrimination is carried out by the farmer, but there are still more stages. The next one will be carried out by the intermediary buyer, that is, supermarkets or distributors, to later move on to the third discrimination, which is the one carried out by all consumers who buy food in the recauderías or shopping centers.
Currently the way in which foods are selected for consumption is solely with a visual evaluation, due to their very small or very large size, if their shape is irregular or simply according to personal criteria of what is "beautiful or ugly"; despite the fact that the products not selected can be consumed with all the nutritional and health guarantees.
This food in perfect condition can be used not only to prepare the same dishes as fruit, which is visually pleasing, it can also be used to make creams, jams or sweets.
From an ethical and moral point of view, the waste of fruits and vegetables that are wasted each year is questionable, when the poverty rates and famines that are registered in the world continue to increase. Simply this loss of food is immoral.
In some places, you can even buy "ugly" food at lower costs. Consuming it also helps agricultores have less waste and higher profits, but it is especially important to remember that by purchasing these products we prevent millions of tons of food from going to waste and being eaten.
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Last modified: 2024-10-10T01:30:54+11:00
