Food in the News

Photo credit: Love Food Hate Waste 

Food made the front page of many UK papers earlier this week, but not in a delicious way. The stories (you can read them here, here, and here) expose food waste values published by Tesco in its recent Tesco and Society report released earlier this year. This is the first time that Tesco publishes independently assured food waste figures, and they are shocking (to me, at least). 

They calculated that the food wasted during only the first half of this year was of 28,500 tonnes, with the most wasted foods being baked goods (41%) and produce (21%). The report also includes a section on food waste "hotspots", where 5 out of the 25 most purchased foods were analysed for their waste profiles. This analysis indicated that 68% of bagged salad, 47% of baked goods, 40% of apples, 24 % of grapes, and 20% of bananas were wasted. To improve these values, Tesco will look into using smaller cases to sell fruits and vegetables, re-evaluating produce packaging, decreasing the amounts of bread displayed, and improving data analysis to better manage orders.

In their report, Tesco states that their waste value "is a relatively small proportion of the estimated 14.8 million tonnes of food for UK food consumption that is wasted", and while this is true, I think it's important to look at the bigger picture and the fact that all of these small amounts do add up. While perfectly good food is being thrown out the window, people are going hungry and landfills are rapidly growing. Not to mention the costs in natural resources associated with food waste. Tristram Stuart (who won the Sophie Prize in 2011 for raising consciousness about the food waste scandal) has a website that I think summarises all this quite nicely.

While massive changes do need to occur at the industry level, there are many ways that we, the consumers, can avoid wasting food at home and in our daily lives. The "Love Food Hate Waste" group (a subsection of WRAP) has some great tips on how to reduce waste at home. I personally find that making lists and planning meals goes a long way in terms of food waste - and don't get me started on how much money this will save you!

I'm leaving you with Stuart's very interesting TED Talk about the food waste scandal, as well as a couple of links to news articles that I found quite interesting regarding food waste. Have a great weekend!

BBC News: Should you smell food before throwing it away? & Five expired foods you can still eat

"Picking" Berries, and a Recipe

When shopping for food, I try to make the healthiest choices possible. I know which foods are supposed to be good for me, but I always wonder about the environmental costs associated with my dietary choices. How good are they for the planet, really?

I reflected on all this while shopping for berries for brunch over the weekend. Initially, I had hoped to purchase blueberries, however the only available ones had traveled all the way from Argentina. Next to them were blackberries from Kent. I told myself that I’d reduce my environmental footprint by buying fruit that had been grown in the UK, so I opted for the blackberries. But this got me thinking - what about the environmental impacts associated with the blackberries themselves?

Reading through the literature and to my great surprise, I discovered that blackberry production can have negative environmental impacts in some parts of the world. Rubus fruticosus, or the common blackberry, is native to much of Europe, and is distributed in all continents with the exception of Antarctica (CABI, 2013). Though the blackberry has commercial value, it is considered a weed in Australia (Grice 2006) where its impact is so large that it is listed as one of the Australian Weeds of National Significance (WoNS). It was first introduced to the continent in mid-1800, and since then has contributed to the reduction of plant biodiversity and wildlife habitat, the modification of pasture land, and the reduction in timber production, among others (CSIRO, 2011). By the late 1990’s, the spread of blackberries reached 8.8ha causing serious net costs to the Australian community (James & Lockwood, 1998). Currently, blackberry populations are managed through the use of biological control methods which employ strains of the blackberry rust fungus, Phragmidium violaceum, to control populations of the weed (Scott et al., 2002; CSIRO, 2011).

I think this is a great example of global environmental change that has been brought on by humans. It highlights the great diversity of Earth’s ecosystems, and the fact that humans must use caution when attempting to harness the forces of nature for their own benefit.  

In my last post, I promised I’d come back with something delicious. To honour my word, I’m concluding today’s post with a recipe that highlights the lovely taste of fresh blackberries. Enjoy!

Baked Oatmeal  

Recipe slightly adapted from Super Natural Every Day.

Ingredients:

2 c. large flake oats

½ c. walnuts, chopped

⅓ c. agave nectar

1 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp sea salt

2 c. milk

1 egg

3 tbsp butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 bananas, sliced

1 ½ c. blackberries

1. Preheat oven to 190°C, and generously butter the inside of a baking dish. 
2. In a bowl, combine oats, half the walnuts, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. 
3. In another bowl, whisk together agave nectar, milk, melted butter, and vanilla extract. 
4. Arrange the bananas in the bottom of baking dish, and place half of the berries over top.
5. Cover the fruits with the oat mixture, then pour over wet ingredients. 
6. Top with remaining nuts and berries. 
7. Bake for 45 minutes until golden, and serve with a generous drizzle of Canadian maple syrup. 

Picnics Past and Present

Good afternoon, and welcome back to Picnics Past and Present. Today we will be setting the stage for discussions to come by providing a very brief overview of the evolution of food production through time, starting with early humans and moving toward the present date. I feel that it’s necessary to review the basics before we dive into specific topics, so I apologise in advance for the length of this post. I’ll be back after the weekend for a lighter (and more delicious) post – promised! And so we dive in…

Early humans did not have the luxury of wandering to their local Sainsbury’s supermarket (which is coincidentally located next door to a Waitrose supermarket) to pick up a ready-made meal in time for supper. They also didn’t have the option of heading to a fast food chain instead of braving the cold for a hunt, having a cosy meal in a restaurant instead of rationing provisions, or visiting a farmers’ market instead of foraging in nearby forests. Instead, these early humans lived in small groups and relied on hunting and gathering to satisfy their daily demands in energy and nutrients. Contrary to popular belief, these early humans did not live in total harmony with their surroundings. Recent research has brought to light evidence of the significant impact of early humans on their environments in part due to their extensive use of fire, with earliest impacts being as drastic as potentially contributing to the extinction of megafauna in the late Pleistocene (Steffen et al., 2007).

My local supermarkets (Google Maps, 2013)

Transitioning away from this hunter-gatherer lifestyle brings us to the advent of agriculture, some 12,000 to 10,000 years before present (BP). This transition marks a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and their environment, and is one that did not occur uniformly across the globe. The first traces of agriculture are dated back to the end of the last Pleistocene glaciation around 11,700 BP, though in some parts of the world traces of cultivation date as far back as 15,000 BP. (Crawford et al., 2012). Environmental impacts of this transition include the alteration of global biodiversity through domestication and the modification of landforms. For instance, in the large islands of the Mediterranean basin, this transition resulted in the replacement of endemic fauna by domesticated and wild mainland fauna (Zeder, 2008).

Comparisons of domesticated wild species (left of each pair) and their never-domesticated close relatives (right) (Diamond, 2002)

If we fast-forward several thousands of years to the 1800’s, we come to the onset of industrialisation which is characterised by a shift from an agrarian-type economy to an economy based on industry and machine manufacture. The most important features of this transition include the use of new materials such as iron and steel, the new use of fossil fuels and motive power, the invention of new machines and the factory system, improved methods in transportation and communication, and the application of science to industry (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013). The transition towards a mechanised world gave humans the ability to harness energy in order to feed their needs, resulting in a massive growth in global populations. The environmental impacts of this transition were clearly noticeable by the early to mid-20^th century, and include large-scale deforestation for agriculture, the anthropogenic transformation of hydrological systems, and the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O). Progresses in global industrialisation were paused during the Great Depression and the First and Second World Wars, however greatly accelerated following 1945. This “Great Acceleration” has brought us to current-day conditions, and is characterised by exponential growth of population, high rates of urban migration, enormous increases in the use of fossil fuels, among others (Steffen et al., 2009). In terms of global food production, this transition to an industrialised world means that humans are able to produce food at rates never experienced before, and with this comes a variety of environmental impacts ranging from the eutrophication of freshwater systems through agricultural nutrient inputs (Withers & Lord, 2002) to the increased emissions of greenhouse gases from intensive agriculture (Friel et al., 2009).

Intensive agriculture (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013)

This brings us to the end of this very quick overview of food production through time. To summarise, the need for humans to obtain and produce food has had fundamental environmental implications, today and in the past. However, the shift towards the industrialisation of food production means that the food we rely on for survival today stresses the environment at a much greater rate than ever before. A major modern-day challenge for generations to come will be to feed the growing global populations in a more sustainable way.

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Picnics Past and Present! This is where I’ll be exploring how the food we rely on for survival has shaped our environment through time. This blog is a project for a course in Global Environmental Change (GEOGG131), and I’ll be writing here for the next few months. During this time, I hope to cover a broad range of topics, including the environmental impacts of large-scale factory farming, the evolution of agriculture in the Anthropocene, and the energy costs associated with the globalisation of food production, to name just a few. If there’s something in particular you’d like to read about, feel free to let me know in the comments section below.

Before we get into the details of this complex environmental issue, let me introduce myself. I’m Katherine, an MSc Climate Change student at UCL. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada (my hometown), and studied Environmental Sciences with a focus on Conservation and Biodiversity. My strong passion for the environment and for understanding climate change is why I chose to pursue postgraduate studies here in London. Aside from my academic interests, I am also very fascinated by nutrition and cooking, the latter being a major hobby of mine. What more of a better way to combine these two interests than to blog about them? Come visit regularly, and you may even find a recipe for something delicious from time to time!

To conclude my first post, I’m leaving you with Oxford Dictionary’s definition of food. I’ll be back in a few days’ time to provide an overview of the way humans have produced food through time, from early humans hunting and gathering their food to the modern ways of our current food industry.

food: pronounciation: /fu:d/ [noun] Any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth.

Cheeses at a Paris market (June 2013)

Purple garlic at a Paris market (June 2013)

Exotic spices in Aix-en-Provence (November 2012)