Report sheds new light on food waste in this country

Sep 20, 2013 18:41 GMT  ·  By

A troubling new report says that about 40% of the fruit and veggies that are either imported or grown in the United Kingdom are gravely discriminated against. More precisely, they are thrown away on account of being ugly.

Researchers say that, according to their estimates, this means that people in this country dispose of about 15 million tons of perfectly good food on a yearly basis.

Granted, some of these fruit and veggies are turned into animal food. Still, many of them simply end up in garbage bins.

By the looks of it, all this waste costs the average family in the UK about £680 (€808 / $1,094), Inhabitat tells us. Not to mention the fact that the practice is not exactly environmentally friendly.

Specialists say that, as far as they can tell, the fact that consumers are now demanding that their fruit and vegetables look absolutely perfect is the main drive behind this impressive yearly food waste.

They hope to solve the problem by convincing people that there is nothing wrong with eating a tomato that is not perfectly round, or a cucumber that isn't the perfect shade of green.