How To Store Water | Survive Food Crisis | Emergency Preparedness Kit | United States Food Shortage

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http://food-crisis-turning-the-tide.tumblr.com The UN claims that Food production must double by 2050 to meet the demand of the worlds growing population. However, most of the worlds productive farmland is already in use, so increased food production will require extending intensive farming methods with greater use of pesticides and fertilizers leading to the increased release of greenhouse gases. Paradoxically, UK government policy is attempting to deal with both of these problems simultaneously with plans to 'boost food production in Britain and reduce its impact on the environment'. Is this realistic, or is there an easier way? Calculations based on waste and calorie intake suggest that the UK has access to at least double the food necessary for adequate nutrition. Since farming, retail and eating habits are probably similar throughout the developed world, this implies there is no real food crisis in terms of the amount produced, only in how it is consumed. Therefore, a better strategy must be to focus on reducing food waste rather than growing more. This would minimise the impact on the environment, reduce food expenditure, and achieve better food security with a healthier lifestyle for the population. Using our present methods, significant food waste occurs at all stages of the food industry. The first waste stream occurs at the production stage due to damage and accidental harvesting through weather, pestilence and machinery, resulting in unsuitable quality and appearance. In storage, losses can be attributed to pests and micro-organisms causing reductions in the nutritional values and edibility of food. Further losses are generated during processing and packaging due to the handling of food and by shrinkage in weight or volume. Whilst foods which contradict safety standards need to be removed from the food chain, such regulations can conflict with efforts to reuse food waste such as in animal feed. The amount of food wasted before arriving at the retailer is unknown but may amount to at least 20% of that farmed. Of the food which arrives at the retailer 5% is wasted due to exceeding 'use by' dates and package damage. Dr Martin Caraher, an expert in food policy at City University in London, says: 'Use-By dates are in retailers financial interests. If customers throw food away, they have to replace it by buying even more. Use-By dates can be a happy accident for them'. The largest waste stream is by the consumers themselves who throw away 30% of all preventable wasted purchased food. Whilst a proportion of this is discarded by being left uneaten on the plate or unserved, much food is rejected for being unfresh or beyond the 'use by' date of the package label. Whilst this could be blamed on poor domestic management, consumers are heavily influenced by marketing practices, and have limited control over purchase quantities and the packaging of food, which are the responsibility of the food industry. Finally, including children it is estimated that we eat on average about 2320 Kcal/day/person in the UK. This, could be an underestimate, yet is still 10% more calories than is necessary for an average persons recommended intake based on the UK age distribution and gender and reference nutrient intake tables. In addition to placing extra strain on the food supply chain, this can lead to a variety of health problems for individuals who eat far more than their required intake. In total, according to these calculations only about 45% of the food actually farmed is actually necessary for adequate nutrition, and most of the remaining 55% of waste is preventable, amounting to the equivalent of 72 million tonnes of greenhouse gases per year in the UK. This is approximately 10% of the total UK output and almost as much as its entire transport system! There have been previous initiatives to reduce food waste. The official UK government line is that 'most of the major supermarket retailers in the UK....have committed to work with the Government's waste-reduction programme (WRAP) to identify ways they can help us, their customers, to reduce the amount of food thrown away'. All this suggests that voluntary regulations are either ineffective or far too slow to take effect. The bottom line is that waste is endemic to contemporary economic ideology because corporate obligations require them to increase growth and profits and an effective means of achieving this is by encouraging excessive public consumption. Until these objectives are replaced with ones that are more beneficial to society than businesses, any significant progress in meeting sustainable targets without imposing strong regulations will be very limited. http://survivalkitsbook.info/