If everyone ate healthy - would there be enough food? (1 Viewer)

[culdeus]

One of the issues is you need to define what "healthy eating" is. Just solving the issue of hunger (i.e. serving everyone at least 1200 calories a day is the standard I've seen used, not 2000 you fatties) is simpler. Shipping bags of rice and beans to famine areas solves that rather easily and in a cost effective manner, but we can't even provide that or even clean water to vast portions of the globe. So talking about adding hyrdroponic gardens is sci-fi stuff when you can't even readily supply water to the world.

All I'm saying is you can't just stop food waste and magically assume areas in Africa/India/China/etc. will find boxes of fresh organic produce show up on their door. It's a fantasy.

Whether the globe can actually provide the calories to sustain life is easy, of course it can, but getting lets say 99% of the people on this planet fed in what we would consider a basic manner isn't one of space to grow the food. It's far more complex than just space.

 

[Rove!]

We keep making advances in food production to have it take up less resources to produce more food.

GMOs designed to have a longer shelf life will be popular

We will need to see if progress can continue to outpace population...

 

[msommer]

Two articles re the recent reduction of food waste in Denmark, it mainly about doing things smarter on the supply side and raising consumer awareness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/denmark-food-waste-leader_55e728bee4b0c818f61a135a

And

http://cphpost.dk/news/food-waste-in-denmark-down-by-25-percent.html

 

[AAABatteries]

Oh and to the OP

We have more than enough food today to solve famine. The matter is market and distribution. Again an extremely complex issue that few people are interested in tackling

Didn't you say culdeus was trolling but actually said pretty much the same as you?

As I read culdeus' statements he says food waste is a myth, if it exists it is a good thing, as it keeps food prices down

If you read that into my comments I have failed big time

I'm talking about the market and distribution being the big issues. I can't speak to that one point because I don't want to speak for culdeus but I see the rest of your arguments to be the same. I'm assuming on that one item he just means that the reason we throw food away is because it's so cheap not that it's cheap because we throw it away. But again, that point is somewhat meaningless in my mind.

 

[culdeus]

Oh and to the OP

We have more than enough food today to solve famine. The matter is market and distribution. Again an extremely complex issue that few people are interested in tackling

Didn't you say culdeus was trolling but actually said pretty much the same as you?

As I read culdeus' statements he says food waste is a myth, if it exists it is a good thing, as it keeps food prices down

If you read that into my comments I have failed big time

I never said food waste was a good thing, but if you cut supply down costs to the consumer will go up. Waste isn't a consumption issue (We have enough consumption as it is) it's a supply issue.

There are way bigger low hanging fruits (as it were) to solve before tackling food waste in this country.

 

[msommer]

One of the issues is you need to define what "healthy eating" is. Just solving the issue of hunger (i.e. serving everyone at least 1200 calories a day is the standard I've seen used, not 2000 you fatties) is simpler. Shipping bags of rice and beans to famine areas solves that rather easily and in a cost effective manner, but we can't even provide that or even clean water to vast portions of the globe. So talking about adding hyrdroponic gardens is sci-fi stuff when you can't even readily supply water to the world.

All I'm saying is you can't just stop food waste and magically assume areas in Africa/India/China/etc. will find boxes of fresh organic produce show up on their door. It's a fantasy.

Whether the globe can actually provide the calories to sustain life is easy, of course it can, but getting lets say 99% of the people on this planet fed in what we would consider a basic manner isn't one of space to grow the food. It's far more complex than just space.

That is true, but the aim of feeding everone with food from elsewhere is also a dead end. Ethiopia had their markets for basic food items pretty much destroyed when the Band-Aid funds flooded the country with cheap rice etc. Farmers went destitute, left their fields to go get free food in the cities (a simplification, granted).

IMHO aid should be directed at increasing self sufficiency and jobs rather than making people survive to a destitute future. If we can make it more attractive for those in need today to stay and lead productive lives in their homelands it will solve a lot of derivative problems.

This however is a monumental task, ridiculously complex, potentially futile and certainly fraught with moral dilemmas

 

[The Commish]

And to add to the discussion, while I was reading msommer's post I found myself asking "why does the world have to have access to mangos?" Generally speaking, why do we have to worry about sending food all over the world? Why not focus on the foods that will grow locally for that area and growing them well to sustain the area? I don't need an orange from Brazil when I can get it from Florida, do I?

It may be better for the environment to get the orange from Brazil by vessel than from Florida by truck. This is one of the major fallcies in the 'food miles' campaign.

But USDA has pretty much made sure you won't be able to get an actual Brazilian orange in the USA. What you do get is juice concentrate and a lot of it.

Sorta misses the point I was attempting to make but that is my fault. Seems like if we focused on foods local to the area to sustain the area rather than focusing on everyone having access to everything, it would be less stress on the supply chain.

 

[AAABatteries]

Two articles re the recent reduction of food waste in Denmark, it mainly about doing things smarter on the supply side and raising consumer awareness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/denmark-food-waste-leader_55e728bee4b0c818f61a135a

And

http://cphpost.dk/news/food-waste-in-denmark-down-by-25-percent.html

I'm assuming we care about food waste because there are people who are going hungry. I read both of these and unless I'm missing something it doesn't mention that any of this non-wasted food is going to feed the hungry. If not, then who cares? Or am I missing something?

I will say that I've always wondered why we as a society couldn't do more but the older I get the more I realize that there's plenty of well-intentioned people (like most of us in this thread) and also plenty of really smart people and if none of them have figured it out then it's highly unlikely I will.

 

[culdeus]

Two articles re the recent reduction of food waste in Denmark, it mainly about doing things smarter on the supply side and raising consumer awareness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/denmark-food-waste-leader_55e728bee4b0c818f61a135a

And

http://cphpost.dk/news/food-waste-in-denmark-down-by-25-percent.html

I'm assuming we care about food waste because there are people who are going hungry. I read both of these and unless I'm missing something it doesn't mention that any of this non-wasted food is going to feed the hungry. If not, then who cares? Or am I missing something?

I will say that I've always wondered why we as a society couldn't do more but the older I get the more I realize that there's plenty of well-intentioned people (like most of us in this thread) and also plenty of really smart people and if none of them have figured it out then it's highly unlikely I will.

Maybe I'm overlooking something but seems like from those two together it doesn't even seem like you could feed the hungry population of the world a meal with the waste savings in denmark. Math is hard though.

 

[tonydead]

we throw away a staggering amount of food. if people would buy smaller quantities at a time and not let food go rotten, there certainly would be plenty of food to feed everyone.

myth

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 32 percent of all food produced in the world was lost or wasted in 2009. This estimate is based on weight. When converted into calories, global food loss and waste amounts to approximately 24 percent of all food produced. Essentially, one out of every four food calories intended for people is not ultimately consumed by them.Link

This is the epitome of useless math to make a point.

Our food is inexpensive in this country because we throw away so much. Supply/demand. If we made lets say only 105% of necessary food the food costs in this country would skyrocket leading to extreme hardship for many levels of economic stratas, even middle class. And that would cascade throughout the world.

And at 105% of demand the quality of the food would have to drop because many areas in this country are simply not setup to supply food in a timely manner to meet demand.

It's also asinine to think that if we stopped throwing away food we could find a way to get it to areas of the world that simply can't supply enough for their demand.

I hope you were kidding, if not that is a ridiculous theory. Our food is cheap in the US because of subsidies and factory farming which relies on subsidized feed to keep their costs down. Not because we waste food.

Again, left wing hype machine at work.

If we stopped wasting food nothing would change, hungry people would still be hungry, and our food costs would rise because there would be opportunity costs and other costs that currently do not exceed the waste costs. They would if we ate a reasonable % of production and/or were able to store more food for consumption.

This is similar to global warming, we make excess CO2, to cut CO2 production there are costs to deal with. You have to decide if they are worth it or not.

Wasting food is the least of our issues. If you want to make the biggest impact stop feeding cows corn. That solves several huge issues all at once.

Have you purchased grass fed beef? While it's awesome and better for you, it's expensive because grass is more expensive than corn. (At least when it comes to farm land. Might be a different story if we had cows in every open field or neighborhood)

Just to be clear, 100% grass fed beef tastes like ####. If you had good tasting grass fed beef it was most certainly finished off (after 14 months or so) with a combination of fattening grains that most likely included corn. They can call corn grass because that's really what it is.

 

[the moops]

but we can't even provide that or even clean water to vast portions of the globe.

I know we are going around and around, but we choose not to provide clean water to vast portions of the globe. It would be difficult and expensive to do so, but the means exist to accomplish this right now. The will on the other hand...

 

[cstu]

One of the issues is you need to define what "healthy eating" is. Just solving the issue of hunger (i.e. serving everyone at least 1200 calories a day is the standard I've seen used, not 2000 you fatties) is simpler. Shipping bags of rice and beans to famine areas solves that rather easily and in a cost effective manner, but we can't even provide that or even clean water to vast portions of the globe. So talking about adding hyrdroponic gardens is sci-fi stuff when you can't even readily supply water to the world.

Are you a 5' 2" girl? Otherwise you're out of your mind if you think 1200 is enough calories for people.

 

[Pipes]

One of the issues is you need to define what "healthy eating" is. Just solving the issue of hunger (i.e. serving everyone at least 1200 calories a day is the standard I've seen used, not 2000 you fatties) is simpler. Shipping bags of rice and beans to famine areas solves that rather easily and in a cost effective manner, but we can't even provide that or even clean water to vast portions of the globe. So talking about adding hyrdroponic gardens is sci-fi stuff when you can't even readily supply water to the world.

Are you a 5' 2" girl? Otherwise you're out of your mind if you think 1200 is enough calories for people.

No doubt...A semi-active adult male will not gain weight with a 2,000 calorie diet.

 

[culdeus]

One of the issues is you need to define what "healthy eating" is. Just solving the issue of hunger (i.e. serving everyone at least 1200 calories a day is the standard I've seen used, not 2000 you fatties) is simpler. Shipping bags of rice and beans to famine areas solves that rather easily and in a cost effective manner, but we can't even provide that or even clean water to vast portions of the globe. So talking about adding hyrdroponic gardens is sci-fi stuff when you can't even readily supply water to the world.

Are you a 5' 2" girl? Otherwise you're out of your mind if you think 1200 is enough calories for people.

No doubt...A semi-active adult male will not gain weight with a 2,000 calorie diet.

1200 is what is considered the minimum standard of "not-hungry". Again, this topic has drifted in several directions. There's a topic about whether there is space, whether there is distribution, and whether there are funds. Plus whether we actually care, or should care that people are starving while we throw away loaves of bread a few days past sell by date.

 

[msommer]

And to add to the discussion, while I was reading msommer's post I found myself asking "why does the world have to have access to mangos?" Generally speaking, why do we have to worry about sending food all over the world? Why not focus on the foods that will grow locally for that area and growing them well to sustain the area? I don't need an orange from Brazil when I can get it from Florida, do I?

It may be better for the environment to get the orange from Brazil by vessel than from Florida by truck. This is one of the major fallcies in the 'food miles' campaign.

But USDA has pretty much made sure you won't be able to get an actual Brazilian orange in the USA. What you do get is juice concentrate and a lot of it.

Sorta misses the point I was attempting to make but that is my fault. Seems like if we focused on foods local to the area to sustain the area rather than focusing on everyone having access to everything, it would be less stress on the supply chain.

But the supply chain exists.

I agree with local sustainability but that's not going to fly in big cities, for various reasons. And unless your trucks run on some newfangled clean, non fossil based fuel you might find that the imported goods are better for the environment.

But apart from that, a lot of people, particularly city dwellers, embrace food variety. And it will be hard to revert to earlier times with less variety

 

[msommer]

Two articles re the recent reduction of food waste in Denmark, it mainly about doing things smarter on the supply side and raising consumer awareness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/denmark-food-waste-leader_55e728bee4b0c818f61a135a

And

http://cphpost.dk/news/food-waste-in-denmark-down-by-25-percent.html

I'm assuming we care about food waste because there are people who are going hungry. I read both of these and unless I'm missing something it doesn't mention that any of this non-wasted food is going to feed the hungry. If not, then who cares? Or am I missing something?

I will say that I've always wondered why we as a society couldn't do more but the older I get the more I realize that there's plenty of well-intentioned people (like most of us in this thread) and also plenty of really smart people and if none of them have figured it out then it's highly unlikely I will.

Maybe I'm overlooking something but seems like from those two together it doesn't even seem like you could feed the hungry population of the world a meal with the waste savings in denmark. Math is hard though.

No, it would probably require Americans (and other uber wasters) to get their waste to Danish levels

As to AAA's point - we also care because it is a tremendous waste of resources.

 

[NutterButter]

Is the consensus that if everyone ate let's say a 2k calorie diet of chicken, beans, rice and fruits and veggies, there wouldn't be enough resources on the planet to provide that?

The problem is one of distribution. A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner. This is the central problem.

Ok, so we have the resources to produce the quantity of food needed to feed everyone a healthy diet or at least what I would consider healthy. Maybe you could explain the distribution problem a little more. If the chicken, fruits and veggies are all flash frozen, why couldn't we distribute to the urban areas in that manner. Other than the rice and beans, everything would be bought frozen so very little waste as well. I'm not talking about the insanely ridiculous variety of fruits and veggies that you'll find in the fresh section of a supermarket. More like a dozen of fruits and veggies and the various parts of the chicken.

 

[culdeus]

Is the consensus that if everyone ate let's say a 2k calorie diet of chicken, beans, rice and fruits and veggies, there wouldn't be enough resources on the planet to provide that?

The problem is one of distribution. A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner. This is the central problem.

Ok, so we have the resources to produce the quantity of food needed to feed everyone a healthy diet or at least what I would consider healthy. Maybe you could explain the distribution problem a little more. If the chicken, fruits and veggies are all flash frozen, why couldn't we distribute to the urban areas in that manner. Other than the rice and beans, everything would be bought frozen so very little waste as well. I'm not talking about the insanely ridiculous variety of fruits and veggies that you'll find in the fresh section of a supermarket. More like a dozen of fruits and veggies and the various parts of the chicken.

If we = USA then yes this wouldn't be a giant hurdle to pass.

 

[NutterButter]

Is the consensus that if everyone ate let's say a 2k calorie diet of chicken, beans, rice and fruits and veggies, there wouldn't be enough resources on the planet to provide that?

The problem is one of distribution. A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner. This is the central problem.

Ok, so we have the resources to produce the quantity of food needed to feed everyone a healthy diet or at least what I would consider healthy. Maybe you could explain the distribution problem a little more. If the chicken, fruits and veggies are all flash frozen, why couldn't we distribute to the urban areas in that manner. Other than the rice and beans, everything would be bought frozen so very little waste as well. I'm not talking about the insanely ridiculous variety of fruits and veggies that you'll find in the fresh section of a supermarket. More like a dozen of fruits and veggies and the various parts of the chicken.

If we = USA then yes this wouldn't be a giant hurdle to pass.

I'd think most urban areas outside of say Africa. Maybe some urban areas inside India or China would need some additional infrastructure, but there's certainly the means to do so.

 

[msommer]

Is the consensus that if everyone ate let's say a 2k calorie diet of chicken, beans, rice and fruits and veggies, there wouldn't be enough resources on the planet to provide that?

The problem is one of distribution. A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner. This is the central problem.

Ok, so we have the resources to produce the quantity of food needed to feed everyone a healthy diet or at least what I would consider healthy. Maybe you could explain the distribution problem a little more. If the chicken, fruits and veggies are all flash frozen, why couldn't we distribute to the urban areas in that manner. Other than the rice and beans, everything would be bought frozen so very little waste as well. I'm not talking about the insanely ridiculous variety of fruits and veggies that you'll find in the fresh section of a supermarket. More like a dozen of fruits and veggies and the various parts of the chicken.

If we = USA then yes this wouldn't be a giant hurdle to pass.

I'd think most urban areas outside of say Africa. Maybe some urban areas inside India or China would need some additional infrastructure, but there's certainly the means to do so.

You are solving a problem that does not exist - urban famine

 

[FUBAR]

Just to be clear, 100% grass fed beef tastes like ####. If you had good tasting grass fed beef it was most certainly finished off (after 14 months or so) with a combination of fattening grains that most likely included corn. They can call corn grass because that's really what it is.

possibly. or I was lied to. it's not like I ate a cow from my backyard.

1200 is what is considered the minimum standard of "not-hungry".

I'd be really hungry if I consumed 1200 calories / day. Maybe not malnourished, but definitely hungry.

 

[NutterButter]

Is the consensus that if everyone ate let's say a 2k calorie diet of chicken, beans, rice and fruits and veggies, there wouldn't be enough resources on the planet to provide that?

The problem is one of distribution. A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner. This is the central problem.

Ok, so we have the resources to produce the quantity of food needed to feed everyone a healthy diet or at least what I would consider healthy. Maybe you could explain the distribution problem a little more. If the chicken, fruits and veggies are all flash frozen, why couldn't we distribute to the urban areas in that manner. Other than the rice and beans, everything would be bought frozen so very little waste as well. I'm not talking about the insanely ridiculous variety of fruits and veggies that you'll find in the fresh section of a supermarket. More like a dozen of fruits and veggies and the various parts of the chicken.

If we = USA then yes this wouldn't be a giant hurdle to pass.

I'd think most urban areas outside of say Africa. Maybe some urban areas inside India or China would need some additional infrastructure, but there's certainly the means to do so.

You are solving a problem that does not exist - urban famine

Just following up on Culdeus saying this above: "A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner"

I'm not talking about eating in general, but in healthy eating and whether its feasible for everyone to do so taking into account resource constraints whether that be on the production side or the distribution side.

 

[culdeus]

Is the consensus that if everyone ate let's say a 2k calorie diet of chicken, beans, rice and fruits and veggies, there wouldn't be enough resources on the planet to provide that?

The problem is one of distribution. A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner. This is the central problem.

Ok, so we have the resources to produce the quantity of food needed to feed everyone a healthy diet or at least what I would consider healthy. Maybe you could explain the distribution problem a little more. If the chicken, fruits and veggies are all flash frozen, why couldn't we distribute to the urban areas in that manner. Other than the rice and beans, everything would be bought frozen so very little waste as well. I'm not talking about the insanely ridiculous variety of fruits and veggies that you'll find in the fresh section of a supermarket. More like a dozen of fruits and veggies and the various parts of the chicken.

If we = USA then yes this wouldn't be a giant hurdle to pass.

I'd think most urban areas outside of say Africa. Maybe some urban areas inside India or China would need some additional infrastructure, but there's certainly the means to do so.

You are solving a problem that does not exist - urban famine

Just following up on Culdeus saying this above: "A lot of people live in dense population centers where there is simply no viable way to feed them in what we would call a healthy manner"

I'm not talking about eating in general, but in healthy eating and whether its feasible for everyone to do so taking into account resource constraints whether that be on the production side or the distribution side.

The constraints at least in USA side would be on public policy to have urban people be able to afford this.

 

[NixonMask]

You guys do realize 3-D printing is a thing now right? As soon as the technology catches up to the needs of the consumer this question just goes away.

In the mean time lets stop putting corn in gas and watch food stores in the third world magically rise again.

 

[NutterButter]

The constraints at least in USA side would be on public policy to have urban people be able to afford this.

If you're living off of food stamps, that would be really tight, but at 6.47 per day for a single person, I have no idea what these people are eating.