RETURN TO EARTH

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption, approximately 1.3 billion tons is wasted every year.

The data shows that fruits and vegetables, plus roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food. This includes around 1.7 trillion apples alone. Global quantities wasted per year are roughly 30% for cereals, 40-50% for root crops, fruit and vegetables, 20% for oil seeds, meat and dairy plus 35% for fish.

Food losses and waste amounts to roughly US$ 680 billion in industrialised countries and US$ 310 billion in developing countries. In developing countries 40% of these losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels while in industrialised countries more than 40% of losses happen at retail and consumer levels.

The FAO goes on to state that if just one-quarter of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved; it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people.

What can we as individuals do about this? Ironically large quantities of food are thrown out at the retail stage due to quality standards, due to the appearance of the produce. It may be too big, too small, not straight enough, too straight, too many blemishes or just odd looking. What is this world coming to?

I guess we only have ourselves to blame for being overly fussy, but we as householders are still wasting food that we have purchased. Per capita waste by consumers is between 95-115 kg per annum in Europe and North America, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa, south and south-eastern Asia, throw away only 6-11kg a year.

Whilst this is a huge global political issue, I can’t help thinking that each and every householders needs to take ownership of its own waste and do something positive with it. This is where home composting or council recycling must take place. At the very least this will enable each and every one of us to see firsthand the amount that we waste.  Some of this waste may be natural wastage, such as vegetable peeling, apple cores and orange skins, but it can all be put to good use.

Just think how you realised how much paper, plastic and tins you threw out, when you (hopefully) started recycling these items. The same will be the case with food, albeit on a slightly smaller scale as less volume is involved.

You can compost all your vegetable and food waste, the majority of what falls into the category of carbohydrates, including anything made of flour, such as bread, pasta and cookies, and grains, for example rice, coffee grounds and teabags. If you are a wholefood plant based vegan, then there is not a lot that can’t go in. The main things that have to be avoided are animal products including all meats, fish, all dairy and fats and oils. They take forever to breakdown, attract vermin and end up stinking.

If you are currently throwing these items into your household rubbish bin and sending it to landfill, then you will be contributing to an ever increasing environmental problem. In landfill, organic waste decomposes without oxygen due to the volume of waste, resulting in odorous gases and methane, which has a potential warming potential 25 times greater than carbon dioxide.

Organic waste in landfill also produces leachate, a liquid substance that is created as organic material decomposes. This leachate includes harmful substances and can get into and pollute groundwater and waterways.

This should hopefully have set the scene as to why we need to compost and I will be back shortly with advice on how to turn your kitchen waste into black gold for your garden.

Rape, kidnap and murder

Rape, kidnap and murder. This sounds like the description of a Crime Investigation programme.  Unfortunately it is what is happening all around the world, everyday on many farms and in animal slaughter houses.

Death comes to us all, some sooner than others. Whilst we cannot control our longevity, it is fair to say that at least whilst we are in good health and assuming that we have not faced life changing atrocities that have resulted in serious psychological or physical pain beyond comprehension, on the whole, most of us want to survive and continue living our lives for as long as we can.

Humans are fortunate in this respect in that everything being equal we can continue to live our lives in safety. I realise that there are exceptions, but this is a generalisation. What if however, this life or death decision was taken out of our hands and life could end at any moment.  This is exactly the situation facing billions of farm animals every year.

Unfortunately these non human animals have suffered serious psychological and physical pain beyond comprehension.  Arguably three of the most heinous crimes in our society are rape, kidnap and murder.  These crimes are horrific and rightly instil fear and dread at our very core.

Imagine being a victim of all three, repeatedly during a five year period. This is what is happening every day to sheep, pigs, cows and other farm animals.

These animals are raped to impregnate them by way of artificial insemination in most cases, at the hands of humans.  After carrying their babies and giving birth, their offspring, using cows as an example are forcefully removed from their mothers so that they do not consume the milk destined for supermarket shelves for human consumption.

Following several consecutive pregnancies and kidnapping of their babies, they are deemed surplus to requirements when they are no longer profitable and are transported to the slaughter house, to have a bolt fired into their skull, then they are hung up by a chain tied around their legs and their throats are cut until they eventually bleed to death.  To avoid any confusion, this is the murder part of the trilogy of crimes.

These are sentient beings with emotions, who feel pain and fear. Non human animals who naturally bond with their offspring and cry out when they are kidnapped from them within hours of their birth.  Kidnapping, which happens right before their eyes.

Their lives are cut short, around a third of the way through their normal life expectancy. A decision which is totally out of their control and which is taken in the name of profit, and dominion over non human animals by human animals.

How would we treat the perpetrator if these crimes were committed against human beings? Rape, child abuse and child kidnapping and murder.

The question that has to be asked is how humans can be party to such unnecessary and atrocious crimes against fellow sentient beings. My only explanation for an animal loving society, is cognitive dissonance.

Take a typical animal loving omnivore.  They say that they love animals, they may even own a companion pet, but when it comes to consuming the flesh of animals, where does this compassion go? It is like having the ability to turn on and off an emotional switch inside.  It is often a particular event, that light bulb moment when the connection is finally made between what is on your plate and the realisation that it is another sentient being, not dissimilar to your pet dog or cat.  The only difference being that something inside prevents any desire to eat your pet. In fact the vey idea would repulse you, and instil anger if anyone even suggested the idea. There are some countries where it is normal to eat dogs,  so is this worse that eating a cow?

Most omnivores will avoid the well publicised and readily available documentaries on industrial farming from where the majority of meat consumed comes from.  The fear being that once privy to the vulgarity of the crimes committed against non human animals there is no longer an excuse not to make the only decision that any compassionate human could make for it fellow beings, which is to stop eating meat, dairy and eggs.

The majority of us have all consumed animal products at some time in our lives and most still do.  This fact does not however make it right, and each and everyone of us can change the habits ingrained into us by society.

For the sake of the animals and to stop the pain and suffering being inflicted on them any longer we all need to take a long hard look at ourselves and make that change.