Waste by Tristram Stuart

Book Review by Michael Edwards

   This may be the best book I have ever read. If I had only one wish, I couldn’t do much better than to ask for every single politician and every single consumer to read this book from cover to cover.
   The information contained within these pages is hard to read, harder to accept, and not something most people are willing to think about. For instance; Tristam estimates U.K. retailers waste more than 1.6 million tons of food each year. When you go to the grocery store to purchase produce, you see large piles of fresh fruit and vegetables. What happens to the fruits and vegetables that don’t meet our idea of ideal? What happens when a large pile of apples becomes a smaller pile of apples? If the grocery store deems the pile of apples to be too small, and the apples in storage now ready to sell have a different expiration date or are a different variety, the grocer often throws out the entire smaller pile of apples simply because they believe a smaller pile of produce looks less inviting to consumers.
   Tristam is a dumpster diver, not out of necessity, but by choice. He finds perfectly edible food thrown away every time he goes looking. He’s got me reconsidering how I shop for food. While I am conscientious about the choices I make, I am now taking much more into consideration.