Minimizing food waste seems like a no-brainer: it reduces costs for both consumers and the industry that feeds us. Yet waste remains invisible at almost every point of the food chain; invisible, perhaps, because it makes us so uncomfortable. About 50 percent of food is wasted by Canadian consumers, and another 50 percent is wasted before we even buy our groceries—at the farm, in processing plants and distribution centres. So the ingredients you throw out each week—5996 grams in my house—represents only half of what has already been thrown out. What follows is a sampling of the foods I found rotting in my own fridge—despite our best intentions.
Read “Laying Waste,” Sasha Chapman’s cover story on why we throw away 6 million tonnes of perfectly good groceries every year, in the October issue of The Walrus.
