Insight Upper-intermediate Unit 8 Reading

The problem with supermarkets is that

• They overestimate how often people cook for others.

• In reality, customers don’t eat fresh fruit and vegetables.

• They encourage shoppers to buy more than they need.

• It is difficult to estimate how much food is going to be sold.

What does the writer mean by ‘doing your bit’ in the final paragraph? 

• Making a protest

• Influencing others

• Adding to a problem

• Making a contribution

The main people to blame are

• The customers.

• The supermarkets.

• The food industry.

• All of the above.

One way to reduce waste would be to

• Imagine what we’d do if we didn’t have such easy access to food.

• Use up the food we have before going shopping again.

• Make sure that no one leaves any food on their plates.

• Buy food that is simple to store for a long time.

When was the last time you threw some food out? It was probably within the last seven days. Let’s face it, most of us empty our fridge of old food after we’ve done our weekly shop, whether it’s actually gone off or not. We’d sooner have something new that we fancy over something that’s approaching its sell-by date, but is still perfectly good enough to eat. It is thought that Britain generates a monstrous waste food mountain of 15 million tons every year.Based on research by a leading British supermarket chain, we only eat a small fraction of pre-washed and pre-prepared salads that are sold in a bag, binning 68% of each one on average. Likewise, 40% of the apples we buy find their way into the rubbish, and 25% of grapes meet the same end. This is only a small sample of the food analysed, and you’d be wrong if you thought tinned food didn’t follow the same trend. Thanks to these findings, the supermarket has promised to have a major rethink to help customers reduce their waste.An end to multi-buys would certainly be a good start. How many of us have gone food shopping for an item, only to come away with two or even three of the same item thanks to some kind of discount for buying more? This is all well and good if we are hosting a party with countless guests and need enough food for a six-course banquet. For most of us, though, this isn’t the case, and before we know it, we’ve bought three bags of oranges that have to be eaten within the next three days and have fooled ourselves into thinking they’ll be good for our diet. Maybe it’s time to stop being tempted by a bargain and start caring more about making an ethical choice.Another reason for food waste is down to our obsession with aesthetically perfect food – we like our food to look good. If it is bruised or the wrong shape, it can often be taken directly to landfill before it even gets to the supermarket shelf. Hence, we are not only throwing away out-of-date food, but also good food which simply doesn’t look quite right. This is all very distressing in a world where one in seven people doesn’t have enough food to eat.We could blame the food industry, and there certainly seems to be waste at each stage of the food production and distribution chain. However, as consumers, we also contribute to this mountain of waste. Isn’t it time we faced the music as individuals and looked at how we can make our own small contribution to cutting down this waste?There are a number of ways that this could be done. During the Second World War, British people had ration books limiting the amount of food they could buy. Due to this system, people thought twice about putting anything in the bin. They ate smaller portions and only cooked as much as they needed. For most of us, this way of thinking would be a good starting point. A knock-on effect of this might be to tackle the increasing problem of obesity. It would also be a good idea to try to be inventive about what we’ve got left in our fridge before taking the easy option and heading to the supermarket. And leftovers can be frozen instead of being discarded.One of the major advantages of reducing food waste to individual consumers, apart from the personal satisfaction of doing your bit in the war on waste, would be the financial benefits. It was reported that every family in the UK wastes about £700 of food every year. That’s a lot of money which could be more wisely spent.