Check out this AP article on avoiding produce waste. I love the sentiment, but I have to take issue with two parts of this advice:
The first step is to immediately inspect your goods once you get home and pluck out any spoiled specimens.
Wouldn’t you inspect the fruits and vegetables before buying them? And wouldn’t it make more sense to carve away any bad spots rather than throwing out the entire item?
But overall, it’s a useful piece, and I loved this line:
While a couple of broccoli bunches may seem cheap, the price can add up when you’re throwing it all away.
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Jonathan! Wait, did you read this whole thing? What does this mean?
“Shoppers have good reason to be picky about produce these days. Overall, food prices are expected to rise as much as 5.5 percent this year, with a slightly bigger increase for food that people make at home and a smaller increase for food in restaurants, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
Why is that? Tax breaks? There’s a great book I read a few years ago, can’t remember the name now, about the coming of Armageddon…ONE of the precursors to Armageddon was JUNK FOOD.
I thought of it again when I watched Morgan Spurlock’s doc, Supersize Me.
Now here we are still further, penalized for eating at home, a thing that everyone SHOULD do more of (for so many reasons)…and yet the price breaks go to the corps. Again. Still. Perpetually.
I’m frustrated!
On the positive side, though, I think this is a good “general info” article. And I think that it’s far too easy to get bad fruit and veg and bring them home, so I “get” the need to check produce again once home.
Thanks for the terrific post!
Kat,
I’m not quite sure why food prices would rise more for food at home than for restaurants. Maybe it’s that restaurants buy exclusively in bulk?
Anyone have any ideas?
The food industry can be frustrating, especially with so little regulation. Hopefully, that is beginning to end.
I wonder if restaurants are absorbing some of the price increases? The food stuffs that are increasing in price the most like grains are the ones restaurants rely on to fill out dishes cheaply. It would be possible for restaurants to charge the same prices but reduce their profit margin. Add that to bulk purchasing and economy of scale for chain restaurants – I can see how price increases will be more noticeable at home than on menus.
That sounds pretty plausible, Molly. I can see restaurants take a little hit on margins to keep their volume steady. Nobody wants to price out customers, especially in the competitive and now-more-price-sensitive restaurant biz.
Jonathan, maybe the article is referring to things you buy in containers(like strawberries or grapes). In cases like that, picking out the bad ones when you get home is a good idea.
Kristen,
I hadn’t thought of that option and with packaged fruit it would be a very good idea to pick out the bad ones.
The reason I hadn’t considered that is because if there isn’t a seal on the package, I open it up to check for mold, browning in the store. Kinda like you should inspect your eggs (but I always forget to).
I’ve done this ever since working in the produce department, where we’d go through bags of grapes to pick out the soft, brown ones. If the store is opening these containers, why not you? Why pay for moldy fruit?