More moderate lifestyles means ending food waste, says cardinal

Posted by Kendall Harmon

With poverty, hunger and environmental degradation on the rise worldwide, people must do all they can to not waste precious food, said Cardinal Renato Martino.

"In developed countries every year, 30 percent of foodstuffs are wasted, ending up in the garbage," he said, adding that during the Christmas holidays the amount of wasted food rises to 40 percent.

In the United States, however, up to half its food supply is wasted year round, he said.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Globalization • Poverty • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

5 Comments
Posted December 16, 2009 at 6:45 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Doug Martin wrote:

Kudos to Panera, who donate their unsold bread every night to charitable organizations.  In our case through an involved retirement home which repackages it into useful quantities for a food closet for the needy.

December 16, 8:37 am | [comment link]
2. Helen wrote:

Thanks, Doug.  Didn’t know that.  Will patronize Panera more often.

December 16, 9:12 am | [comment link]
3. Clueless wrote:

We don’t waste anything.  What we don’t eat, the dogs and hens eat. What they don’t eat goes into the worm composter, and eventually gets turned into compost for the vegetable garden.

December 16, 9:28 am | [comment link]
4. magnolia wrote:

thanks for the tip doug martin, i will keep that panera in mind as well. we also feed our chickens with scraps or composting; even if i am out at a restaurant, if i cannot eat all the fries or bread i take it tear it up and leave it for the birds. there is absolutely no good reason for food to be trashed. it might also help if restaurants didn’t serve such humongous portions.

December 16, 12:10 pm | [comment link]
5. Br_er Rabbit wrote:

I recall the town of Bishop, California, which in spite of having a large population of poverty-stricken Native Americans, had no food distribution program, and the markets had an agressive program of spoiling the food (cutting open packages, etc) before throwing it away.

If anyone needs the information, I know where all the best dumpster-diving locations may be found in Bishop.

December 16, 2:04 pm | [comment link]
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