I mean, you can make a case for damaging the environment, but the thrown away food is hardly the reason people are hungry. We clearly don't have a shortage problem.
Once I did and experiment, here in the UK. I bought a bag of apples from Aldi (non organic ones, but not sure if this makes any difference) and stored one on top of the refrigerator. Six months were passed and it was still looking pretty and shiny. That scared my ass off.
Given the right conditions, it's not a problem for apples to stay fresh for a long time. We usually keep apples, grown in our own garden without any "chemicals", through the winter in a cellar or attic. Not sure if it work for all kinds of apples though.
Actually tried to look up the average 'expiry' date for an apple and could only find industrial storage dates with what 'experts' call MAP storage [1].
[1] http://shelflifeadvice.com/content/how-long-will-apples-last...
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/08/the-science-of-cold-apple-st...
Because these places put such a high demand on perfect produce, they can charge more for that produce, and Americans find it harder and harder to afford eating their fruits and veg because it's too expensive to have food that rots when you're working 10 hour days vs. something in a can that is immortal. It can be quite difficult justifying the price tag on that bag of apples when you're not sure you can get through the whole bag, and two individual apples will end up costing you just as much as the bag because they carry the bullshit "organic" label. (And those are usually the two options you get - no non-organic freestanding take-as-many-as-you-think-you-can-eat apples by the pound for you; same goes for potatoes, carrots, onions, etc.) Lose-lose for the consumer.
I've been told again and again that there's some evidence us consumers have to be looked out for and have perfect, pristine produce, and yet I happily buy from a farmer's market the most knobbly carrots and potatoes and see many of my neighbors doing the same out here in Mountain View. They're often even more flavorful than the supermarket alternative, and since they're from nearer by (and didn't go through the industrial food transportation and refrigeration system where they're battered and shocked), they often don't spoil as quickly either.
Maybe the real problem is that Big Box Retailers have overconsolidated markets so much that there's no venue to sell this "less-than-perfect" produce to people.
> out here in Mountain View
It looks like you and your community are ahead of the curve on this one. You're also less than 200 miles from some of the best agricultural land in the world, so of course good fresh fruit and vegetables are easy to get. In the northeast during winter, the choice is between mushy, bland big box produce or no produce at all.
I disagree because we, the individual consumer, are the ones who buys, therefore we may have the power to make this to change to some extent, and I see what you do as an example of that. If people would buy more from local producers it's expected for the Big Box retailers to see their revenues drop. At that point they'll need to make a change.
> It can be quite difficult justifying the price tag on that bag of apples when you're not sure you can get through the whole bag, and two individual apples will end up costing you just as much as the bag because they carry the bullshit "organic" label
This may be another key issue. Do we really need to buy a whole bag of apples, just because we see it as a bargain, even if we end up throwing half of it away?
What is the reason?
Also, it's kind of a good thing for economic causes to be producing excess. The other option is to be under-producing (because 100% efficiency is a pretty hard target to hit, you're either going to be over or under). If this was the case, it would drive food prices up. So even though there would be no waste, there would be even more want.
(Note that there is a such thing as an "anticipated" disaster. Capitalism does in fact plan for some slack in the system, through insurance, futures trading, and other mechanisms, which is why we don't starve every single time there's a minor drought. But it'll only plan for so many sigmas out from normal, whereas Mother Nature is not so polite.)
>What are the causes of hunger?
>What are the causes of hunger is a fundamental question, with varied answers.
>Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people’s lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. As of 2015 (2011 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were just over 1 billion poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less...