Tom Ryaboi

That banana looks a bit brown. The yogourt is past its “best before” date. And no one else is eating those end slices, so why should you?

In the typical Canadian kitchen, the banana, yogourt and the bread crusts—and a lot more besides—are prime candidates for the garbage can or composter. With food cheap and plentiful, we’ve regrettably become a nation of picky eaters. An estimated $27 billion worth of food, or 40 per cent of what’s produced annually in Canada, is wasted between field and table, according to a recent study from the George Morris Centre in Guelph, Ont. More than half of that occurs at home.

This is not just a Canadian concern. In 2011 the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimated 33 per cent of global food production, or 1.3 billion tonnes, is wasted per year. And last week, a report from the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers pushed that number up to an astounding 50 per cent—half of all food produced in the world is lost, misdirected or thrown away due to poor harvesting techniques, spoilage, inefficient distribution processes and overly dainty consumer preferences. Continue…