Best before dates part II
Monday, July 23rd, 2012 | Religion & Politics, Thoughts
Earlier today, I wrote about best before dates, suggesting that one way to reduce food waste would be to ban them. It ended on a “why not?” question. But there is a reason why, which would have totally changed the tone of the blog post, so I’ve put it in a separate one.
The reason is, people actually like living in a nanny state when it comes to these things. I like the fact that it tells me on the packaging when I should throw something away and the reality is that it will probably be reasonably close to the actual time it will be past its best, so what is the harm?
Of course, you can argue that reducing food waste would be beneficial, but as Rob Lyons points out, reducing our own food waste doesn’t help feed the third world – people aren’t starving in Africa because we’re eating all their food. It’s economics that drives food production and if we weren’t buying their food, they simple wouldn’t grow it.
In fact, you can go even further to say that because we buy more food than we need and simply bin a lot of it, it actually increases the amount we buy from the third world and thereby helps to support their economy by essentially subsidising unrequired food production.
Earlier today, I wrote about best before dates, suggesting that one way to reduce food waste would be to ban them. It ended on a “why not?” question. But there is a reason why, which would have totally changed the tone of the blog post, so I’ve put it in a separate one.
The reason is, people actually like living in a nanny state when it comes to these things. I like the fact that it tells me on the packaging when I should throw something away and the reality is that it will probably be reasonably close to the actual time it will be past its best, so what is the harm?
Of course, you can argue that reducing food waste would be beneficial, but as Rob Lyons points out, reducing our own food waste doesn’t help feed the third world – people aren’t starving in Africa because we’re eating all their food. It’s economics that drives food production and if we weren’t buying their food, they simple wouldn’t grow it.
In fact, you can go even further to say that because we buy more food than we need and simply bin a lot of it, it actually increases the amount we buy from the third world and thereby helps to support their economy by essentially subsidising unrequired food production.