It is time to stop throwing away food just because it’s ugly.
I am the first to say that when I got shopping for produce, I am looking for the most beautiful, pristine specimens of vegetation every to grace the face of Whole Foods. However, I recently read some statistics that are making me rethink my veggie snobbery. According to the National Resource Defense Council, nearly 40% of food in the US is wasted, and a huge portion of that is perfectly edible, but doesn’t look perfect. In fact 26% of produce never even makes it to the grocery store because is thrown away by farmers for not being cutesy enough.
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The Ugly Fruit and Veg Instagram account was created by food activist Jordan Figueiredo to raise awareness about this colossal waste. He currently has 130,000 followers, and that number is growing.
According to him:
“All this food that’s going to waste that, as an industry, we’re content to compost. We’re not focusing enough on solutions to prevent waste from the start,” he said in a phone interview. “Rather than shaming people, it’s celebrating food in a way that reels people in. That’s why social media works so well.”
The movement is gaining momentum, and a service called Imperfect Produce jumped on board, and now delivers imperfect-looking fruits and veggies to people to prove that there is a market for food that doesn’t look perfect.
So the next time you are harshly judging an apple, or decide not to eat a banana because it has a brown spot, think about what will happen to that food after you discard it, and about all the other people that would love to eat it, and then shove it right in your imperfect mouth.
