Part 3 - Some Fundamentals of Food
Recycled Bananas - so appealing https://imgur.com/gallery/O8Tw3
Its about 11am, I've just come from the local supermarket (Billa) leaving with over 3 kilos of bananas, about 4 apples and some radishes. It cost 0.00€ Last night I got a big bag of carrots, about 6 multicolored paprikas, a kilo of grapes and whole grain bread. I passed up on all the donuts, and cream filled little cakes, I'm eating much healthier now and have had enough of those for a few lifetimes. Total cost 0.00€ A few days before that I walked away with over 10 kilos of potatoes, some cabbage, radishes, a melo, a lot of peaches and necktarines, around a dozen apples, some oranges and grapefruits, some cups of jogurt, whole grain bread....... Total cost 0.00€ All of this (and Much Much Much more) is being thrown away every day by our supermarkets. All of this is good, edible food going from the farm, to the shelves, to the trash.
Some of us call it food recycling, some call it dumpster diving. I first was introduced to the idea and saw it action 4 years ago in central Europe. I know what many of you reading may be thinking, it went through my mind the first time too, "food from the trash? are you crazy or poor or a deadbeat of society? why would you want to eat rotten food?" Let me say straight up, I am not eating rotten food. I am not digging through table scraps and leftover take aways to find small bits of old food (I know people who have had to do this and my heart goes out to them). I go to big commercial supermarkets and check out thier trash containers where I find at any given time a buffet of different produce, whole, and beautiful. Why is this food being thrown away and not on the shelves or in your kitchens? There are probably as many reasons as there are supermarkets, but in my 3+ years of personal recycling Ive come to understand it as this.
Modern society and supermarkets have trained us to shop and eat with our eyes, not with our stomach.
A few hypothetical situations - if you went into a supermarket and saw the Apple display as a large tray with only 10-15 apples (this is assuming you are not in Venezuela right now - ) instead of the normal stacked piles, what would you think? Would you buy one of these nice crisp green apples? And how is that apple really supposed to look like? You already have the image in your mind don't you? That exact 'perfect' shape of an apple, all apples look like that right? Or how about cucumber? It's supposed to have that 'perfect' cucumber shape right? Can't have any curved cucumbers on the shelves, people might not realize what it is. We have become so conformed to a specific image that we are failing to let nature be nature, to grow in its own unique way. In a larger view, we have built our society and life's in the same fashion. We are all expecting every time we walk into a modern supermarket (it doesn't matter what the name on the door is) to see the exact same thing. Fully stocked shelves and baskets, all fruits and vegetables conforming to the exact same size shape and color. Anything outside of these created 'standards' is somehow seen as bad, ugly or wrong.
Bananas.
I love bananas. They are maybe my favorite fruit (actually a flower) and I have been known to eat almost 30 in one day if given the opportunity. 😁 I have been living over 3 years in the Canary islands where I was working on many different fruit farms including working some with bananas there. Picture a banana in your mind now, a little longer than your hand, a slight curve (ladies don't get too excited) and yellow maybe with a few small brown spots on it. For that specific image of a banana to reach your supermarket and then your mouth is a lot of work and energy. Bananas grown in big bunches in hot tropical and subtropical climate of course. They are cut from the plant very early and very green. Why? Because of course banana bruise easily. And so a long and careful process begins of transporting these delicate flowers to your area quickly before they can turn fully yellow and soft. Then they sit nicely on the shelves waiting for you to pick them up. But the moment they begin to turn a little brown (a completely natural process and develops sweetness) they have to be thrown out. The bananas I picked up today are very yellow with little spotting, very sweet and delicious. Why were they thrown away? I have also recycled banana that are perfectly yellow but very long maybe twice as long as your average banana (ladies calm down please, stop crossing and uncrossing your legs) simply too big for the customer to see, a 'freak' of a banana. Again something that did not conform with normal 'standards'. These fruits had to be picked, packaged, transported (a lot of energy and fossil fuels) from thousands of kilometers away, delivered to individual stores, all to wind up in the trash.
We do not have an over population problem, we do not have resource scarcity problem we have a resource management problem. The food at the bottom of the trash isn't rotten, instead our system is rotten from the top down.
Here are a few quick videos to reiterate my point (I really could go on and in about this and maybe will in another post)
John Oliver
As well as the phenomenal documentary Food INC
I prefer eating my fruits and vegetables as close to the source as I can. I have worked and enjoyed my time on many different farms working the land, harvesting and eating fresh produce, enjoying the fruits of my labor. One of the best times in my life about 2 years ago was working on a mango farm, harvesting and eating as many fresh mangos as I could. There is almost nothing sweeter in this world than a fresh fruit from the tree the moment nature decides it is ready.
Thoughts and comments about this post? Anyone else have experience food recycling? Curious? Go to your local supermarket and just peak in the trash (sometimes it is only put out after closing though).
Thanks for reading.
Paz Amor Luz
So a woman goes to see her Gyneco!ogist. "What seems to be the problem today?" "Well doctor, it's a little strange, but I keep finding postage stamps from Costa Rica in my vagina." "Well let's take a look and see huh?"
He starts a soft chuckle..... "Those aren't postage stamps, those are the stickers from the bananas!"