Food Waste is Not the Answer to Food Insecurity

In a recent Huffington Post article by Nick Saul, President and CEO of Community Food Centres Canada, the ethics of food waste are explored.

Surplus food has often been a vehicle to feed food-insecure populations.  We see leftover food from restaurants being given to shelters and people donating their undesirable and unwanted pantry items to Food Banks (this is a food donation faux-pas).

Low-income and food insecure folks deserve dignified access to food, not the leftovers of those more fortunate. This article examines that food insecurity is not a lack of food, but a lack of income. To solve hunger we need to re-examine the system that creates hunger ex. low-paying jobs, precarious work, lack of social assistance etc.

“Let’s not conflate a food waste strategy with a poverty reduction strategy. It’s destructive to do so. Are we saying that the poor among us are only worthy of the castoffs of the industrial food system — the majority of which is unhealthy food, laden with fat, sugar, and salt, which increases the risk of diet-related illnesses? There’s no question we can and must do better than this as a society.”

To read the full article visit https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/nick-saul/food-waste-poverty_b_10327320.html