Have you ever wondered why all apples are round? Or why all cucumbers are straight and cylindrical? It’s something we take for granted: fruits and vegetables are shaped like typical fruits and vegetables. Or so it seems. The crooked carrot or Siamese twin apples are usually the last to be bought at grocery stores, if they make it to grocery stores at all. Many are thrown away at the farm, or not even harvested from the plant.
This creates an exorbitant amount of wasted, perfectly edible food – six billion pounds to be precise, and that is in the United States alone. In a country where 1 in 6 people face hunger, there seems to be a paradox between the extra food and those who have little to no food.
This is starting to change. @UglyFruitAndVeg is a twitter campaign that makes people aware of the problem through entertaining pictures of, well, ugly fruit and vegetables, as well as humorous captions. Jordan Figuerido started the twitter account and has gained thousands of followers. He is now trying to convince grocery stores to start selling the produce that they usually reject. Some shops are doing this already, either in a discounted aisle or along with everything else.
Another form of change is Imperfect, a food delivery system that takes crops that would have gone to waste and sells them instead. The do weekly deliveries in the San Francisco Bay area— a week’s worth of food for only $12. Although anyone can participate, this type of program has incredible potential for those who face hunger and food insecurity, since food, and especially fresh, nutritious food, can be expensive and hard to come by. This way anyone can get food that is healthy, but a bit cosmetically challenged, for a much lower price. This company is expanding, and others are popping up around the country.
Steps are being taken locally as well. Misfit Juicery, a Washington, D.C. based juice maker, has started to cold-press rejected fruits and vegetables into delicious, refreshing drinks. Available at a variety of locations around the city, they take advantage of the fact that juice tastes how it tastes, no matter how its components looked. In addition to its social conscience, the juice is healthy and tastes great.
So the next time you’re thinking about food, join the Twitter movement, buy some ugly produce, or take a sip of Misfit juice for a refreshing change.