Alfred Schnittke - Story Of An Unknown Actor, Op. 125

Alfred Schnittke - Story of an unknown actor, op. 125

Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

The demand for ‘perfect’ fruit and veg means much is discarded, damaging the climate and leaving people hungry

Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a “cult of perfection”, deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment. By one government tally, about 60m tonnes of produce worth about $160bn (£119bn), is wasted by retailers and consumers every year - one third of all foodstuffs. 

But that is just a “downstream” measure. In more than two dozen interviews, farmers, packers, wholesalers, truckers, food academics and campaigners described the waste that occurs “upstream”: scarred vegetables regularly abandoned in the field to save the expense and labour involved in harvest. Or left to rot in a warehouse because of minor blemishes that do not necessarily affect freshness or quality. 

When added to the retail waste, it takes the amount of food lost close to half of all produce grown, experts say.

Retail giants argue that they are operating in consumers’ best interests, according to food experts. “A lot of the waste is happening further up the food chain and often on behalf of consumers, based on the perception of what those consumers want,” said Roni Neff, the director of the food system environmental sustainability and public health programme at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore.

“Fruit and vegetables are often culled out because they think nobody would buy them,” she said.

But Roger Gordon, who founded the Food Cowboy startup to rescue and re-route rejected produce, believes that the waste is built into the economics of food production. Fresh produce accounts for 15% of supermarket profits, he argued.

“If you and I reduced fresh produce waste by 50% like [the US agriculture secretary] Vilsack wants us to do, then supermarkets would go from [a] 1.5% profit margin to 0.7%,” he said. “And if we were to lose 50% of consumer waste, then we would lose about $250bn in economic activity that would go away.”

The farmers and truckers interviewed said they had seen their produce rejected on flimsy grounds, but decided against challenging the ruling with the US department of agriculture’s dispute mechanism for fear of being boycotted by powerful supermarket giants. They also asked that their names not be used.

“I can tell you for a fact that I have delivered products to supermarkets that was [sic] absolutely gorgeous and because their sales were slow, the last two days they didn’t take my product and they sent it back to me,” said the owner of a mid-size east coast trucking company.

“They will dig through 50 cases to find one bad head of lettuce and say: ‘I am not taking your lettuce when that lettuce would pass a USDA inspection.’ But as the farmer told you, there is nothing you can do, because if you use the Paca [Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act of 1930] on them, they are never going to buy from you again. “Are you going to jeopardise $5m in sales over an $8,000 load?”

Massive food waste is based into capitalist agriculture. If the vast majority of the food produced in America’s farms was brought to market, it would drive prices down rapidly, threatening the profits of retailers. Less than 1% of this surplus food ever reaches the mouths of the hungry. 

My favorite version so far.Beautiful music,obviosly, but also beautifully acted and staged.The “messenger”part actually made me cry in class ,something I haven’t done since I was 14.

Monteverdi’s l'Orfeo, conducted by Jordi Savall, performed by Le Concert des Nations, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and soloists.

I am so fond of this version, from the elegant set to the instrumentalists (crisp and full of vigour) to the warm and frankly imperfect singing. But what really makes it is Mr Savall’s entrance. The drums and brass start playing, and there he goes, striding down to the pit in his billowing robes. Jordi, you magnificent bastard!

terrorists: strike manchester

media: that's!! horrible!! oh my goodness!! #prayformanchester

terrorists: strike egypt/syria/jordan

media: cricket noises

Today we learned that conches, the sea-dwelling mollusks who live inside those big, beautiful conch seashells in warm tropical waters, peer out at the world with cartoonish eyes on tiny eyestalks. They see you. They see everything. And what’s more, they can regenerate their peepers should they happen to lose one or both of them.

“One 1976 paper dug into the specific behind these animals’ alien eyestalks. Sitting at the tips of long stalks, they contain retinas with both sensory cells and colored pigment cells. But the story gets weirder because obviously, it gets weirder. After amputating the conchs’ eyes, a fully-formed replacement took its place 14 days later. Humans, we really are losing this evolutionary game.”

But wait, that’s hardly the only surprising set of eyes under the sea. Scallops have eyes too, LOTS of them:

Conch photos by Redditor buterbetterbater and via @shingworks.

[via /r/pics and Gizmodo]

Reblog if you think it’s okay to platonically say “I Love You” to your friends