25 to 50 percent of produce is thrown away every year, most of it before it even hits the shelves of your local grocery store. Only the most perfected, blemish-free products are allowed to enter the grocery store. Batches of fruits and vegetables go from field to landfill each year.
And this isn’t because of their taste, their food value or their expiration date. Nope, as it turns out, the produce business can be a bit of a beauty pageant in itself. In the U.S., we have extremely high standards for the appearance of the foods we see in the grocery store. Fruits and veggies are inspected, and if they differ from the ideal in shape, coloring or other external factors, they go uneaten. Small imperfections, like a slight change in shape or a darkening of color due to sun exposure, are enough to fail inspection.
Nationally, this is a big problem. But globally, it’s a huge problem. Roughly one-third of all the food grown and produced on earth is wasted each year. This worsens our ability to thrive economically, environmentally, and meet the basic needs of those who go without proper nutrition.
It’s well-known that with the resources available to us, we could easily feed everyone on planet Earth. But, in order to do that, we need to start making more sustainable choices.
A possible solution? Look for the ugly ducklings.
In the last year, ‘ugly’ food as grown in popularity, and many are choosing to buy their produce outside of the grocer.
Organizations like Imperfect Produce, based in San Francisco, are working to make ‘ugly’ food more mainstream. The growing delivery service selects some of its less beautiful, but still extremely tasty fruits and veggies, and delivers them right to your door. And what’s even better? Because they’re a little bit special, the produce they sell is up to 30 to 50 percent less than traditional grocery store prices.
But this doesn’t just benefit the individual, it benefits the nation. If we were to start consuming more of the food that goes uneaten every year, we could save billions of dollars in food production costs. That saves dollars and valuable resources. Other countries have already started to implement sustainable food consumption plans into their legislation (and their grocery stores). Environmental and food sustainability activists -- those like Tristram Stuart -- have spoken out about how much is being wasted, and how exactly we can start to lower that percentage.
These so called ‘ugly’ foods aren’t just just delicious; they’re fun. Finding a twisty cucumber or a lumpy carrot should be something to revel in, and enjoy. Fruits and vegetables were not meant to look exactly the same. They, like everything else, come in all shapes and sizes, with individual quirks of their own. So we should take the lessons we learned as young ones, and take them with us to the grocer’s: It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
