Chapters and Pages Covered:
For the second quarter of this I covered pages 76-150. The chapters that were covered where the rest of chapter 5 through part of chapter 10.
One major topic that I covered during this second quarter of the book was that their is a major financial problem involving waste in our world. One reason people waste so much money on food that they don't need or end up just throwing away is because it makes them feel comforted by knowing they have enough food to each as much as they'd like. I learned that one way to reduce the amount of waste is that governments try to put a financial spin on waste and how much it costs. Therefeore, people will feel bad about how much money they are wasting on food they are not using and try to cut down to save money.
Another topic that was covered during the second quarter of the book was that years ago people were allowed to gather food for themselves and their families from local farms after they had harvested. They were able to gather the leftovers to eat for themselves. Today, that is not allowed to happen. People can get arrested and prosecuted by going on to others land and taking their food. This food is now being wasted and thrown away into landfills and hurting the environment immensly.
Cosmetic standards was another large topic that was covered during this second quarter of this book. If fruits or vegetables do not look how consumers want them to look they are disposed of and not used or boughten by the company. These products are then distrubuted to the landfill or farmers try to use them in other ways that are more environmentally friendly. This is a hard task to do since a large amount is rejected each year. An average of 20-30% of a farmers product is not used each season because of cosmetic standards.
I also learned a lot about fish farming and the impact of eating meat over vegetables briefly. I will continue to read about this more in chapter 10 when I continue for next week as well. However, I have learned one major fact that vegetables require less water than meat to produce and in the long run meat production will lead to loss of human lives if we continue the way we are.
One significant thing I learned was that as humans we need to let grocery stores know that we do not care about the cosmetic looks of produce. This will help farmers in selling more of their crop and creating less waste in the long run. Another significant thing I learned was that rich countries are to blame for the amount of food wasting because when countries have more money they tend to buy more food that they do not end up eating, resulting in food waste. We can learn from these two ideas in the future to help reduce our waste immensly.
New Terminology:
- Glean - to gather (grain or the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers. (taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/)
- Fastidious - excessively particular, critical, or demanding; hard to please (taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/)
- Traipsed - to walk or go aimlessly or idly or without finding or reaching one's goal (taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/)
These things I learned greatly affect society and our future. If we continue to produce as much meat as we do we will continue to make many emissions and affect the economy. Also, if we continue to care about the how our produce looks on the outside we will continue to produce as much or more waste in the future. This will lead to a negative impact on our environment like it is already having. If we could take some of these issues and find solutions for them and change our lifestyles, we could help to make the Earth what we want it to be. All it takes is a little effort.
This book seems very interesting and has some good facts. It is true that much food is wasted and thrown away because its appearance is not up to all consumers standards. When we go to the grocery store and pick out fruits and vegetables we first grab the biggest ripest ones. By the time they are all picked through there is so much waste.
ReplyDeleteI am embarrassed to say that I often do not buy produce if it does not look good. I think the American population today was brought up to check their fruits and vegetables to make sure they haven't "gone bad". It will take a while for everyone to change these habits, but it sounds like it would do a lot of good!
ReplyDeleteThis book seems like it contains a lot of information. That is a bummer that people put so much emphasis into what their food looks like before they eat it because then in the long run they are only creating more waste!
ReplyDeleteThis book has some good topics. It is interesting that produce takes less water to grow than animals do! You would think produce takes more water, because often times they are majority of water. Sounds like a good book!
ReplyDeleteYour book seems really interesting. I think we shouldn't care as much with how our produce looks on the outside beacuse then we just waste the food.
ReplyDeleteI can see how there could be problems with going on to people's land to get leftovers but it would be a great way to make ure that nothing gets left behind or wasted. I'm sure there are neighbors in smaller towns that don't mind if their friends or neighbors help themselves.
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ReplyDeleteI really like the points you have made. I remember Dr. V mentioning in one of our first class sessions that grocery stores are one of the biggest food wasters. I wonder if it would be possible for farmers and gardeners to set up a contract with grocery stores where the farmers/gardeners could receive the old grocery store food to compost for their fields?
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