Waste Uncovering the Global Food Scandal

About this book

Please note that the paperback omits the plate section that was originally included in the hardback, even though the list referring to them still appears after the table of contents.

The world has a 'food problem' – rapidly rising prices, shortages, 100 million people starving, environmental depredation – or it thinks it does. Waste shows that farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in North America and Europe discard between 30 and 50 per cent of their fresh produce – enough to feed the starving in the world six times over. Additionally, while affluent nations throw away food through neglect, up to 40 per cent of some crops in the developing world are wasted because farmers lack the basic infrastructure to process and store them before they rot.

Waste is both a personal journey over the world's food waste mountain and an objective investigation of this environmental and social problem. During his travels from Yorkshire to western China, Pakistan to Japan, Tristram Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy, but also inspiring and innovative solutions. Terrible though it may seem, the global food waste problem is also a great opportunity – tackling it is easy. Unlike giving up air travel for the sake of the planet, avoiding food waste can be achieved without much sacrifice.

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Biography

Tristram Stuart has been a freelance writer for Indian newspapers, a project manager in Kosovo and a prominent critic of the food industry. He has made regular contributions to television documentaries, radio and newspaper debates on the social and environmental aspects of food. His first book, The Bloodless Revolution: Radical Vegetarians and the Discovery of India, was published in 2006 to great critical acclaim.